I too was surprised by this move. There must be more to it than meets the eye though. Why would a company that was in dire straights not that long ago, open new routes at LCY if they didn't think they were going to be successful? Would they really make a huge gamble like that?

Flightrider...what do you think LCY management would say to BACF? Of course your deal is better:rolleyes:...they will never know...all deals are subject to confidentiality clauses. I suspect the new Flybe management are far more astute than the BACF managers when it comes to carving out a deal given their orange background. It's all immaterial. If they are getting a £10 discount and losing £20 a seat then they would be better off leaving the aircraft on the deck rather than being busy fools.

BACF would be more than welcome at SEN,we handle more than enough diverts for them ,so they should be used to SEN

Not so sure about that.....I'm pretty sure that Flybe have stated in press releases that the aircraft being used are 'growth' aircraft, suggesting that these are in addition to the existing fleet.

How can they be growth aircraft from a fleet that is in the midst of being retired in favour of jets? Only in the sense that they've realised they can't make money with those same jets and they're going back to Plan A?

Tailstriketastic. They might need the 5 spares!

Skipness, can you provide a source that the Q400 fleet will be replaced by jets? Never heard of that before. My understanding is that the plan is to operate the Q400s and E75s alongside with each other, although the Q400s willbe reduced in size. IIRC, E75 delivieries have also been pushed back which does not really support the theory of a Q400 replacement. But I stand to be corrected.

As for BACF and LCY - with Cityjets further activities in doubt, the airport owners have a vital interest to attract new carriers to avoid a BACF monopoly at the airport. Should Cityjet disappear, the airport would be left with a dominant BACF plus just 10 routes served by 7 other airlines (3 of them by 2 airlines with a less than brilliant life expectancy).

By the way, interesting to note that the Flybe flights now appear on the official LCY website - with the exception of the EXT service. Which, IMHO, could suggest that EXT is just a slot holder for a service to NQY or JER.

Interesting conspiracy theory, but the EXT-LCY flight times, and happy (and route-specific) quotes from the EXT MD and from Saad Hammad, are on the EXT website, which constitutes a whole lot of egg to end up on both their faces if it's just a bait-and-switch exercise.

Does anyone know for certain that flybe bid for the PSO on NQY-LON ?


cs

Wingo, I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but the Jethros website (which is normally very accurate) is showing five Q400s as parked up - G-JEDP/R/T/U/V either laid up in Exeter or Norwich. Admittedly they may be lease returns, but "sourcing" extra Q400s when there appear to be five dormant looks a bit strange to me.

With Brussels Airlines moving back towards E145 flying with bmi Regional, two Q400s are coming back in April and the remaining two in October (per their latest prospectus).

All of the available information would therefore suggest that the five units for LCY are not "new" additions to the fleet but either parked aircraft or those exiting wet-lease contracts.

This was the vision of the old management, as the ERJ195s were delivered and the ERJ175s were ordered, the feedback from customers was that people found the Q400 unreliable and a bit of a boneshaker, (unfairly). So in come the new shiny jets with a great product, the leased Wideroe DHDs were retired and a half dozen brand new G-FLB* DHDs were sold on after a matter of weeks in flybe colours, whereas several G-PTH* were sold on before delivery.
Key point is that the ER7/9 combo doesn't make nearly enough money in the markets flybe was in. Wingowango is right, there's been a sea change in management with the old gaurd dumped. So out go the medium shiny jets in favour of smaller ones and turboprops the old lot were getting shot of at speed.

Fokker 100 working for flybe on BHX BHD today enroute BHD BHX at present , of Carpatair. Surprising they need to lease in units at this time.

FK100
 

I stand to be corrected but I was told that this is a standby aircraft for the month of April and used when required. It spends most of its time parked up at BHX but has been used on several Flybe routes this month.

Centre cities

Flightrider

One of the Brussels Airlines aircraft is already back in service with Flybe, G-JECY sporting the new purple c/s.

Well, I have not been on here for several years.
As always, on this site, there is a huge amount of drivel posted. Firstly, the flying time from EDI to LCY on such a short route, it makes little difference whether it's on a Dash 8 or an Embraer. That is a fact. I know as I have flown both types for Flybe. As someone mentioned, only the EMB 170/190 currently operated by BACF are certified to operate in and out of LCY. I don't know what the implications and costs are of getting the EMB 175/195 certified in to LCY. If BA can operate an Airbus in and out of there, I would have thought there ought to be no reason why Flybe could not operate their current EMB's in to LCY. I would assume its all down to cost, probably quite a huge amount of money - something Flybe is trying to keep in the bank. Sure, they may well have £218,000,000 in cash, but remember, the previous incumbents burnt their way through a similar amount of cash in 7 years. I do find the decision to compete with BACF on the EDI LCY route rather curious. Time will tell, but unless Flybe offer a reliable, value for money service, with complimentary food and beverages, to compete with the excellent service BACF offer, I fear they will struggle, having said that, I wish Flybe every success in their new venture, time will tell.
Good luck to all involved.

I thought it was a power to weight ratio as the larger 175/195s aren't sporty enough?

The point is, the EMB/175/195 are not certified. Certainly the 195 has a lot of power.

No, the point is the runway is really short and you need the smaller aeroplane with the higher power to weight ratio if you want to fly out of there commercially. Hence ERJ170 and not 175 and ERJ190 and not 195.
Unless I have been misled, it wouldn't be the first time !

I also operated both types at flybe and the only reason the Dash isn't much slower than the Embraer is the Embraer is, or was, flown at LRC to make the fuel burn comparable to the Dash because it was such a good decision to lease the expensive Sao Paolo Sewer Pipe in the first place.

The 175 and 195 were originally planned to be steep approach certified at the same time as the 0's but ultimately they weren't.

S1E, I think you've been misled, it's not down to runway performance in the Embraer case.

The E170/190 were certified to do the steep approach into London City, whereas the E175/195 are not, because the relative placing of the main gear and the tail on these two slightly larger (175/195) variants gives issues with tail clearance tolerances on touchdown when rounding out from the 5.5 degree descent at the required speed. Embraer actually spent quite a lot of money doing the steep certification of the 170/190 and understand well what will work and what won't.

Nothing to do with runway length, engine power, or whatever.