Jethro's suggests that there have been issues with at least one of the aircraft which was due for delivery. Perhaps it wasn't a foreseeable situation?

But again this has now happened multiple times that their aircraft are not ready. Meanwhile Wideroe manage to get their hands on Q400 and have them delivered without having to cancel routes. Emerald also managed to get their fleet without multiple postponements and cancellations. The fact they haven’t rescheduled and just outright cut it makes me think they realised it wasn’t worth going up against Loganair after all.

Not to mention possible reintroduction of capacity restrictions at LHR. They are not exactly winning the customer confidence vote. Winter 2022/2023 will I suspect be challenging for Flybe.

BA318 - I agree entirely.

They already experienced issues with aircraft delivery earlier in the Summer and had to wet-lease in capacity in the form of an E175 (SX-ASK) from Greek-based Marathon Airlines, so it's clearly an ongoing problem.

If it is the fault of the leasing firm that has led to these delivery delays, then surely Flybe would be able to seek relevant compensation from said leasing company, no?!

The lack of an early morning BHD-IOM rotation means that it wouldn't have been suitable for those people wishing to do a BHD-IOM-BHD or IOM-BHD-IOM day-return trip as the proposed timings would have necessitated an overnight stay.

Going up against Loganair on IOM-LHR is(was) just silly in my opinion and makes me think the numbers were simply just too low to warrant operating it and/or this might have more to do with holding the slots they have at LHR. If they were really committed to operating from/to IOM, they could've just delayed the launch by a few weeks, which would've still garnered some criticism, however the impacts would have been relatively short-lived compared to cancelling it altogether.

If other airlines have late deliveries then they either delay the route launch or lease in to cover it. P&O’s new ship Arvia is running late and they’ve cancelled its first cruise and set the date for its new inaugural.

Flybe’s late deliveries result in routes being cancelled outright like this (and others this summer). This is beginning to look like whatever aircraft delays they have are covering for commercial decisions not to go ahead with a particular route or routes. With more route launches to come, you wonder how many more aircraft delivery delays there might be.

I think that's a bit cynical and would rather believe that the folks at Flybe are tearing their hair out at having to go to the expense and complexity of leasing in aircraft over the last few months.

Meanwhile there are at least 3 aircraft sat either in Exeter or Malta that should've entered service by now.

NQY to MAN and LHR start tomorrow, so lets hope they can cover it with the 6 current in-service airframes

That may be the case, but you have to wonder when the same issue keeps getting repeated. Don't forget that BE had a long lead in time and should have plenty of info on the a/c available.

You can have all the lead time in the World, and all the tech logs, but if spares are needed (due to unforseen problems) and the lessors/MRO's can't get them, for example, then you're in the trouble.

It will be interesting to see how the operation copes with the new Newquay flights and Manchester resuming from BHD with no additional aircraft in the fleet
looking today across the network there seems to be a lot of disruption and that is based on a reduced Saturday schedule

The following, posted today on an FB forum that includes employees, includes the following snippets....

"JEDW has been cancelled. Can't share specifics but we've had a lot of issues with the lessor it was coming from"
Jethro's states "A/C not suitable", so whatever the why's and where'fors that info seems to stack up.

"FLBB due Monday or Tuesday but not scheduled to any flights for about another week in case anything delays it"
Jethro's states "Due in service first week Nov"

The last employee comment above suggests that they don't need this a/c in order to cover the new NQY flights.

Edit: G-ECOR just noted arriving NQY, positioned from BHX

Late delivery or otherwise, they’ll have to find a way pretty quickly to fly the Heathrow slots earmarked for IOM.

But we kept on being told before it all started that Flybe had the pick of the bunch when it came to selecting airframes.

If the aircraft they picked are having issues what does that say about the fleet they are having to select from now ?

The problem lies with the Q400 itself. All Q400s have the same fundamental technical issues: 1. Airframe de ice. 2. Landing gear and door prox switch adjustment and 3. Pressurisation problems.

Obviously there will be other running defects as with any other aircraft but Flybe 2 would need to have a strong network of engineering and spares support just to stay on top of this stuff and l am very doubtful that this will be happening.

I am not suggesting that the aircraft is unsafe (it's perfectly safe IMHO) but Flybe 1 had a good team of experienced Q400 line engineers and still struggled to keep them running on time. That experience is scattered now and spares are always difficult to source when a type is out of production.

Anyone travelling with Flybe 2 just needs to make sure thay have plenty time to spare.

We were also told by Albert Hall and other individuals that it was "no coincidence" that some of the earliest aircraft were involved in serious incidents at the former Flybe. G-JECP for example, with the notorious Amsterdam incident. That would suggest that Flybe didn't have much say over the aircraft placed with them.

Interesting, cos I'm sure the view put forward was that BE2 would have all the technical details of the old BE fleet, would have the pick of the bunch and that with a depressed market leasing companies would be keen to do deals with them. Seems not to be the case.

I have to wonder whether there were existing lease deals with other airlines for some of the more favoured aircraft. For example G-ECOR looks to have originally been due for Russia's Aurora before the current situation broke out.

One of the people pretty close to this had told me that they had a deal with the leasing company based on taking certain airframes which included those with an "incident history". Obviously that couldn't be the entire fleet as (probably thankfully) there aren't enough aircraft in that category, but it was very much a case of getting the terms they wanted only if specific airframes were part of the package.

I can't say how or if that might have changed since then. The statement of having the pick of the bunch was nonsense at the time it was made though.

Flybe appear to have dropped Edinburgh until the middle of December

Loganair’s response to IOM
 

I posted this in the Loganair thread also but feels relevant here given it’s in response to Flybe. Loganair's MD going for it, complete with "No more maybes" tag line on their ad.

"Loganair's 60-year history is built upon service to local communities; it's a fundamental part of what we do. Other airlines come and go.

Some promise to come back, yet tell their customers less than 72 hours before they're due to land that they've completely cancelled the routes. It's undoubtedly been a tough summer for our industry as a whole, but I'm still taken aback that any airline would or could cancel whole routes only three days before their inaugural flights are due to take off.

And so with that in mind, I'm pleased to confirm that Loganair flies daily from the Isle of Man to London Heathrow, and up to twice daily from Isle of Man to London City. [We fly to the Isle of Man from Birmingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Manchester too.]

Our locally-based Isle of Man pilots and cabin crew will be delighted to welcome you aboard a Loganair aircraft, maintained by our great team of Isle of Man-based engineers. With same-ticket onward connections at Heathrow to several of the world's major airlines, we're truly in it for the long haul - just like our commitment to the communities we serve."

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