Awful news and thoughts go out to the staff. Again.

My heart goes out to the staff, investors and suppliers, who have all lost a great deal today. Mistakes were made, but the economic environment is the main reason they have ceased trading.

The sheer complexity of what they were trying to achieve so quickly led to operational weakness

The difficult, recessionary trading environment kept high yield corporate traffic down and early booking leisure traffic at home.

The political chaos in London and lack of a functioning government in Belfast is killing business sentiment.

So few of their routes had.no competition, so no ability to raise prices. Picking fights against other better funded airlines with established brands is a risk.

Fuel prices

Such as?

I think it's rather more fundamental; flying expensive aircraft on routes with relatively low demand is not a recipe for success. God knows why TO was ever resurrected as an airline, it never made sense.

Lots of excuses but it seems mismanagement is the top one. The fleet was just terrible. This morning Twitter is filled with people who say they are owed money for cancelled flights or delay compensation which was promised up to 3 months ago.

The constant tech problems with the fleet must have caused a fortune in compensation payment. On some days they had more cancellations than flights running. That’s without the bizarre route planning cancellations at short notice and launching alternatives with 7 days notice.

We had all this talk that they had enough backing to be able to fly empty for two years before they would struggle. It was also bizarre to reuse the brand that wasn’t great to start with and was trashed after the first failure.

As for the political situation in NI, other carriers are expanding there. Lufthansa, Ryanair and Emerald (who announced they flew more than 1m pax in under a year) so I’m not sure it’s politics.

It’s sad for the staff but hopefully they can find new work quickly. Lots of carriers are recruiting. BACF just opened LCY recruitment and there are many others.

Agree with the comments 2 post up except the comment in part blaming politics. Flybe was a victim of its own management. Also we now live in a world of zoom and teams meetings and less disposable income.

I used to attend 34 face to face meetings a year. The meetings still take place but none are in person anymore.

Anybody with a modicum of common sense could see this was not going to succeed. Regarding routes I cannot see a queue for Leeds Bradford Heathrow. Feel sorry for the staff but not the investors - you put your money in, take a punt. Levelling up - levelling up my a**e!

Coincidence?

correct- a total ruse from US hedge fund trying to make a quick buck on LHR slots. Fuel price/ BE management had little to do with the outcome.

I doubt anyone will fill the void, most of the viable voids were filled last time or people have just gone elsewhere, thats why they were running often <50% loads.
A shame though.

If the hedge funds come out of this with as much as a cent following this failure there needs to be a complete overhaul of the system.

Of course there would be no such overhaul since too many vested interests who benefit from the current system.

As for blaming Covid-19, pull the other one, given when the business was set up and began operation the Covid affect should have been accounted for within the original business plan.

Do you really need a list?

Of course conditions were difficult, but then they didn’t help themselves by their bizarre route strategy and chopping and changing last minute.Why go head to head with the big airlines? It was never going to work, anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence could have told them that!

Just out of curiosity, did no-one on this thread have any inkling that the plug was about to be pulled? AIR, the last time rumours were swirling for ages , which in itself sealed the fate of V.1.

Blame the Government. :{

It was a flawed business plan from the outset. All profitable routes operated by the previous entity were hoovered up when they went bust last time. The overwhelming majority of routes 2.0 ran were absolutely laughable and their lack of professionalism and organisation made things even worse. Writing was on the wall from day one.

loved UK brand
 

All of the above and the delusion it was some sort of established, loved UK brand. Thinking a re-launch would bring people back in the millions. Just delusional. Even calling v.2 flybe was an odd decision as its v.1 reputation was in tatters. I read some postshere from the re-launch where people were attacked by others for even suggesting v.2 will not work. Hopefully they will be a bit wiser in the future.
I hope all the flyve team find work soon. I know there are airlines who are very short of pilots, so hopefully a good outcome will ensue. And a better type rating..Q400 YUK!

Out of the blue for some- they’re in shock this morning :eek:
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I've flown a lot with Flybe in the last 3 months, really sad to hear this news. If there's been one common denominator, it's the fantastic staff. I spoke with numerous pilots on the flight deck, all really friendly just as the rest of the crew. Having said that, I'm not surprised. Not once did I take a flight with more than 70% seats occupied.

Been there.
Four years ago I reported at Bristol to fly a BMI Regional Erj145 to Munich and back. Flight was full, checked in as normal, but an engineer stuck his head out of his office and said “I think your flight has been cancelled.”
Phoned ops..”Yes, you’re stood down, go home.”
Wouldn’t say anything more, but when we saw the OFP’s appear with management pilots as Captains, positioning empty aircraft from Germany and Sweden back to Norwich, we knew it was over. A real shock despite knowing the company was in trouble.
Sympathy for the employees, best of luck with the job search. And a curse on those that managed this disaster and will probably still walk away richer, while everyone else is sweating on how to pay their mortgages.

What happens to the slots now? Can someone give us a brief history lesson on who they revert to?