As others have also pointed out, it is very cost effective to fly a dash and crew to Medavia, get the work done and return the A/C compared with other MROs, and STS is just another name on the former MAEL Hangar, with may of the same engineers (many also ex-Flybe) who've worked on these aircraft for decades.

STS also has the benefit that at BHX the planes are at home base/HQ so if there's a problem and it needed management attention, then it's just over the road.. & the upside to having a physical airframe nearby in a hangar in case of AOG elsewhere on the network are not to be sniffed at.

Today saw an increment in the Flybe schedules, now up to seven routes requiring three airframes to fulfil, vs. the initial one-aircraft, two-route launch a fortnight ago.
LBA, LHR, AMS & EMA are now added to BHX, BHD & GLA on the network.

All 24 sectors scheduled for today were successfully completed, but looks as though they have struggled with timekeeping – only 5 out of the 24 landed on time or less than 20 minutes late, according to FR24 data.
With time loss cumulating through the day, the two aircraft with no recovery opportunity in their schedules ended up running 1.5 - 2 hours late by evening.

Sounds just like the old Flybe.

No sign of the MAN announcement - I wonder why :rolleyes:

I was following this, and indeed the aircraft that ended the day at LBA and BHX were very late getting there (the one that finished in BHD was only about 30 mins down). 8 sector days, so little room for recovery, as said.

Lets hope that some of this was down to "first day publicity" (various coverage of this on social) delaying turnarounds etc and that things get better quickly.

Update: this mornings 2 arrivals into LHR (from LBA and BHD) appear to be on schedule, but the first BHX-BHD sector is showing a 1hr 30min departure delay

With the best will in the world at the moment due to staff shortages all over the U.K maintaining an on time schedule is somewhat of a miracle. Whilst they have 'their own' handling at BHX elsewhere they're relying on Swissport who have struggled to ramp up staff levels to meet demand. No doubt the crews and management of flybe are trying their best to keep things on time, but when you're relying on a 3rd party handling agent who is struggling its never going to be ideal.... combine that with 8 sectors and well delays happen.

That last point seems very valid, and given their past experience with (alleged) reliability issues on the Dash 8 not having a 4th machine for back up when you're push the other three aircraft so hard is perhaps surprising. But then again the new business is undoubtedly unwilling to repeat mistakes made by the former Flybe and keeping a much tighter lid on cost, and potentially having an aircraft sitting idly around means cost, unless they had an agreement to pay by the flying hour. I wonder when airframe No.4 is likely to appear.

From the post above the irony of the self handling at BHX would appear to be that this morning the BHX aircraft was the one badly delayed. who knows the cause; could have been crew sickness, missing passenger, security. I'm sure an insider knows, but if I were them I wouldn't be piping up here!

The social media (which cheerleaders were so keen to tell us was full of positive comments) is not looking so positive today. Reports of delays and “system problems”.

By "mid-May at the latest", apparently

Big delays today, as mentioned above, (>2.5hrs) on the aircraft that started at BHX this morning. Looks like BHX and EMA flights to AMS (due to be operated as a W from BHX by the same a/c) are being merged in an attempt to recover the schedule. Hope that doesn't mean pax are left behind.

Isn't that the nature of social media? Which airlines social media pages is full happy customers offering praise and compliments?

of course. I’m just highlighting how we were being told that it was overwhelmingly positive. Now things are not great it obviously reflects that.

However there are a lot of comments about various issues including very long queues for check in and website not working properly.

It was good to see that they have been giving people vouchers for delays which not all carriers do, although £4 doesn’t go very far at an airport.

Probably means their load factors are low enough to be able to do it without the need to cancel any pax

Sharklet. If you are right, its not a great endorsement of the future of the airline .Friends of mine at BACF, Easy and Ryan says their aircraft are generally full as people escape the last two years for more exotic climbs. Not sure if flybe will cope in new world dynamics.

Please don't any flybe fanatics come back with verbose comments. I, as others, are entitled to comment on positive or negative commercial viabilities.

Not sure many of the current routes in Flybe's portfolio could be classified as exotic!!

Out of interest, if I run a dummy booking for the next day and go to reserve a seat is the seat selection page indicative of the loads or does it not show the pax who didn't want to pay to reserve a seat?

Loads are much better than I expected many 70+ pax

I don’t think you could say the same if your username was LBA5DME from all that I’m hearing …

From what I've seen on the booking reserve a seat system BHX - BHD loads look decent.

Leeds - Heathrow look pretty poor.

It's a forum about an airline. People are allowed to talk about how the routes have started. So many sensitive souls on here.

And, tbh, I don't think many airlines spend much time 'building routes' these days. If they don't work sharpish they will pull them and put them somewhere the aircraft will make money.

Leeds - Heathrow on Tuesday has 3 people on the seat reservations. Some of the flights back on Wednesday have 0.

It's clear BHX - BHD is doing well on the loads.

But then again, I've only been pushing buttons at the pointy end for 14 years so what do I know!?