Name me ANY airline that makes money in month 1? I would assume that their expectation is to lose a large chunk of money in year one, a small amount in year 2 and break even small profit in year 3 as they ramp up operations.

That would be reasonable.

Flybe
June = 24,158 pax with a LF of 53.4%, May was 100% wrong.
.
Aer Lingus UK - 60.5%
Eastern - 60.6%

So I would say a really good start by FlyBe

Let’s be honest. We don’t know the yield. Given Eastern’s pricing I would be willing to bet that their yield was a lot higher than Flybe’s.

Right from the first posting the CAA reported numbers were so bad that there must be doubt if they were true. The numbers above look more in the ballpark of what you’d expect with some routes doing well and others like LBA-LHR dragging down the average. Interesting that we get the proper numbers here first though!

The Companies House document is interesting more for what it doesn’t say than what it does.

No shareholder is allowed under the CAA airline financing rules to take security over assets or intellectual property for their initial investment into an airline. The shareholder ranks behind all other creditors. This has now changed with the charges over Flybe assets and IP (which was the case with Cyrus investment into Flybe 1 also). If a charge has been registered then it means that additional money has gone in.

since when did 50% loads become great? I would have thought that was dire.

30 passengers paying how much?

Back in the day when fuel was cheaper a figure of 35 passengers was mooted by Flybe for break even.

I suspect your figure of 30 is way wide of the mark these days.

Indeed. If they could break even at 30 pax on a Q400 Flybe1 would still be here.

Ryanair say their break even load factor is 55%. And they are masters at ancillary revenue, using dense 737s.

If they are making money carrying less than half a plane load of people at the fares they charge while paying for fuel, landing fees, crew costs, admin charges etc and all the other costs then well done. And if the load figures quoted are correct that means they should be on their way to making a healthy profit. Fantastic.

If this is true it’s wonderful and should allow plenty more routes to flourish.

I wouldn’t be be quite so quick to assume the worst of Flybe unless you’ve evidence to demonstrate that Flybe have provided the data? I’m fairly sure that there is no obligation on any airline to report their passenger numbers to the CAA for publication and that these figures come from reporting airports. I’m also not sure all airports are included in the data collected.

Anyone, including the owners could never have expected FlyBe to be turning a profit within two months of start up, especially given the equipment delivery issues they have suffered. Did any airline turn a profit within 8 weeks of kick-off?

Come on Airsouthwest, if you’ve been in the industry for as long as the username suggests, you know that’s rubbish just as the rest of us do. 30 passengers at £39.99 less £13 APD and maybe a tenner a head to the airport is £509.70 nett income from the flight - that’s way below break even even against direct costs before you take fixed costs into the equation.

This is an impossible metric to equate without knowing the yields Flybe (or any airline) is achieving. Old Flybe was achieving load factors of over 70% and still losing money hand over fist. I’d expect them to be aiming for at least this to break even, especially when selling low yielding tickets to win market share.

Highly likely that this IP was purchased along with the brand, rather than the new airline specifically registering the domains,

oh for gods sake. The figures were wrong
load factor was more than 50%. SO SORRY TO CARRY SUCH DISSAPOINTING NEWS

From the CAA website:https://www.caa.co.uk/data-and-analy...otes-and-faqs/

Chill pills need to be taken for a lot of users on this thread!

Calm down. As usual you’ve misread the post. I was referring to the comment that they need 30 pax to break even. That’s less than 50% while Ryanair say they need more. I just found that hard to believe. I didn’t even mention the actual load figure in the post.

If you continued to read the post you’ll see I said if it’s true it’s great. It means plenty of routes can be sustained and added.

Chill out a bit. It’s perfectly fine to discuss these things. We don’t have to agree and our discussions are not going to change anything either way.

Airsouthwest, you are so far off the mark that it would be amusing if it wasn’t so sad. From all I’m told, Flybe has no fuel hedging so a “fixed price fuel agreement” is something they will probably have heard of but don’t have when it’s most needed.

I don’t know SWBKCB, BA318, Skipness 1E and others but I do think they have a closer grasp of the harsh realities than anything I’m seeing from you or Bean whose views seem closely aligned.

Time in the industry does not automatically create practical, usable experience. You can meet people with 30 years service who remain clueless and those with far less who are far more astute. Confusing the two is one of the most dangerous things you can do.