I agree with your sentiments Nick , I just seem to have had a bad run with Flybe recently as the last three flights have resulted in delays of 90 and 50 minutes and tonight's cancellation. Hopefully tomorrow's EDI flight and taxi to GLA will restore my faith :)

Funny, I've used BA & EZY before and have been delayed more often than not. Does that mean they are worse than the rest as well? Your experience proves nothing, nor does mine.

Unfortunately I have spoken to some people outside aviation whose preconceptions of the airline have been affected by the 'Flymaybe' rubbish. I've often thought that British European walked straight into that bad joke when they christened themselves 'Flybe'.

Going purely off my own experience - I've lost count of the times I've flown with them and no delays that I can think of. Having said that though, I totally understand your frustrations when things do go wrong ScotsSLF. (Worst delays I ever had was a combined 25-hour on a BA return that left me cursing those bleedin' 737s at gatwick, but that's for another thread :) )

It's not Flybe per se but the Q400, of which Flybe has a lot. More in fact than most other airlines.

Flybe adding daily links to Amsterdam from Manchester and London City from October 2014:

Flybe to fly to Amsterdam from London City and Manchester - Business Traveller

Coffin - you state that my 'experience proves nothing' - well it does. It proves that where I have a choice I may well consider not using FlyBe. They eventually got last night's cancelled GLA flight's passengers into hotels, mine being at BFS. So rather than trek back down to BHD to catch a BE flight to EDI (where I really don't want to be) I am about to jump on a U2 to GLA. Given that I am in Northern Ireland every two weeks I am seriously considering changing my plans to involve flying U2 into BFS and FR into LDY. That's what experience does. Anyhow I am booked to fly with BE into BHX twice over the next fortnight so we'll see how they perform and I'll continue to compare my own experiences using each of the internal UK carriers.

Sorry for delay in replying. It was a Q400. I am surprised by the shallow overhead bins for what is likely to be a businessman's flight but otherwise it was ok. Its not U2 though is it?

After an overnight near Dusseldorf, I flew on Air Berlin to Venice. Very good product for the price. My only complaint was the English cockpit announcements which were too fast to be intelligeble.

What's the point of a weekend only service from LCY-AMS?

60/60 offer
 

The sting was taken out of a 90 minute delay on our flight from lba to bhd a couple of weeks ago. The 60/60 offer means we've got returns on the same route at Christmas for £14.98 each. A very handy perk for the most expensive time of year to travel.

Almost certainly just a frame rotation exercise to get craft back to/from one of the Flybe main bases at Manchester/Birmingham Southampton or Exeter using Amsterdam as a switch point.

It would surely be suicidal for Flybe to even consider having a proper go at LCY-AMS given how competitive the route already is?

Can't believe Flybe would prefer to battle it out with Easyjet, KLM and at a push (via Eindhoven) Ryanair rather than start MAN-OPO or even MAN-MRS, destinations crying out to be served and would attract a decent premium. That's business in Flybe I guess. I guess their next new route will be from Manchester to Alicante because nobody has thought of doing that route before (!) Aaargh Lions led by donkeys!:ugh:

Pilot?s prosthetic arm came off during landing - Weird News - News - The Independent

If he gives up flying there's plenty of jobs paper hanging.

B.S. from the DFO. No need for additional fail safe safety checks then is there?

I'd have thought so too - but apparently the MAN-AMS is an Embraer whereas the LCY-AMS is a Q400.

Such a low-frequency service makes no sense to me unless (a) they have done some sort of deal with a tour operator for short weekend breaks in both directions :confused: or (b) this is really about improving the BACF LCY-AMS schedule and we will shortly see a codeshare with BA announced - since BA has no LCY-AMS on a Saturday and IIRC only one on a Sunday.

AMS?
 

It does seem a very odd decision.
MAN-AMS is very well served. Even easyjet chopped the twice daily down to 12 a week. Both KLM & EZY offer competitive fares, at once a day,Flybe won't even attract day trippers-of which there are many.

Like Domy Dom says, plenty of unserved opportunities from MAN available:
Porto, Marseille, Seville or Jerez, Bordeaux, Stuttgart, to name but a few. But AMS with 8 flights a day between U2 & KL wouldn't be top of my list. The fares are going to have to be so low, they will never make any money on it, IMHO.

With Stobart now operating SEN-DUB for Flybe, offering T/A connectivity, I was wondering whether Stobart may, in the long run, have cut their own throat here.

30% of EI trans Atlantic pax originate in the UK, Stobart/EI regional provides a big chunk of those. Flybe are bigger, better known and better resourced. With the relationship already begun (I assume Flybe website will be offering US destinations from SEN through DUB now), it seems it would make more sense for EI to partner with Flybe than Stobart when their current contract expires. And seeing as Aer Arann is no more and Stobart are not an Irish company, EI would be under no government pressure to protect them.

I'm curious as to what others may think of this

There is nothing stopping them from having more than one regional franchise airlines. A lot of other network carriers have multiple.
I would actually say it would be better from EI's point of view to have more than one. Spreading risk and also a bit of competition between the franchise operators for new routes and punctuality etc.

I would have expected RE to have had some kind of protection on certain UK routes as part of the EIR deal, but perhaps not.

But aren't these RE routes, not EI ones? So if EI pulled the plug on the franchise, the routes would fly on in Stobart's name. So is it not Stobart who have the greater power, as they can choose to go with whoever out of EI or BE offers the best terms or just go it alone? Though the waters are slightly muddied in that connections are still offered under BE branding (from SEN at least) but it is of course in EI's interest to maintain the flow to the TA services.

Where the SEN route does bring complication is that it is a mixture of BE and RE metal.

LCY-AMS
 

BACF have added an extra rotation at the weekend on the LCY-AMS route

We now have
LCY 0800 AMS 1000 BA Sat - NEW
LCY 0825 AMS 1035 BE Sat
LCY 1530 AMS 1735 BA Sun
LCY 1700 AMS 1910 BE Sun
LCY 1900 AMS 2105 BA Sun

AMS 1100 LCY 1100 BA Sat - departs at 0700 from AMS until late October
AMS 1110 LCY 1120 BE Sat
AMS 1430 LCY 1430 BA Sun - NEW
AMS 1825 LCY 1830 BA Sun
AMS 1950 LCY 2000 BE Sun

Clearly BA are providing a strong competitive response.
Anyone want to predict what BE's response will be ?