Any ideas of upcoming selection for NTR FO's ?

The number 1 on the seniority list is on the Embraer so it's largely irrelevant. If you are looking at DEC then the chances are quite slim, if you are looking at first officer positions then you never know. If you don't get in straight away then you will probably realise your bid reasonably quickly dependant on attrition. If the industry goes on lockdown then forget it. As for sim seat filling, it's irrelevant where you're based, if you're on standby and they need you then you'll sim seat fill. It's not that common an occurrence using the same person over and over.

They have been running assessments recently for graduates from certain flight schools.

Aimhigh and Deano thanks for that info. Yep it would be for DEC on the Q400.

4engines

In that case Exeter will probably be a no go to start with, however as we all know in this game you just never know but your chances are quite slim. It doesn't mean you won't get it in the future though should you not be lucky enough to get it at the start. With all these things it'll come down to how desperate things get for captains on seats. If they need captains desperately then it has been known to overbear a base, but in doing so you do run the risk of being displaced in the future. Questions you can ask at the interview stage.

Good luck

Someone ask
Sled for FO on Scotland. There is not always logic in flybe. I spoke with 2 FO, one is doing 86 HR in April, the other one (yes he had holiday, 9days and a 3 days SIM) but he is doing only 26hr ...

Any case, at this end you ll never go more than 750jr now ... So if you you do 3 busy months with 90hr, does mean 9 months will 53hr only ... I personally like it.

Well put Windshearescape! Hours without quantifying is pointless and gives no indication about lifestyle, time away from home, etc.

Some rubbish being spouted here. Please get your facts straight.

I think 10 nights away in a month (without volunteering for it) is rare. Let’s say once in 6 months depending on seat and base. Many who do not live locally ask for extra night stops.

53 block hours is about 14 working days or less. FlyBe (dash8) do some two sector days. Some of these two sector days will be 4 or 5 block hours.

Correct. 10 nights away is not normal for everyone. Some bases and fleets do night stops as they cover remotely based aircraft (MAN ejet covering NQY), some don't. You can submit a preference for either minimum, normal or maximum night stops, but it's just that, a preference, for example my preference is maximum but I've done 5 nights away in a year.

+1 ... Even if I agree it really depends of the base and some are doing more block hours for less duty than other, say you always work 21days is not true, you have 115 days off garantee + 35 days holiday for captain. If you are rostered a CDO (company days off, if rostered 2 days off in a raw, garantee minimum of 60hr and roster will try to give you 64jr as much as they can, if less than 60hr free, they have to give you 1 CDO and one day off, in that case rest can be reduce to 54hr but the CDO does not count in the 115 days off) I had 6 CDO last year, so 115+35+6 = 156 = 13 days off a months and ofc standby are all from home, lately nobody call me ... The 2 sector days are a really good stuff.
In march I had 11 days off, 5 days on with 2 sectors, longest 1h30 block, shortest 50mn block and I did 87hr, so ratio of 4h36mn block a day for an average duty day of 07h50mn. It is a busy months for me, I had 19 days off in January, 16 in November, 18 in December ... Again not the best but not the worse ...

From what I know, because you "lost some plane in SOU" but still same work force, I think it explain why so much night stop. In EDI we had none in the winter, zero, and I heard we ll have none in the summer as well ...
Like I said, it seems big difference between base ... What is I agree not always fair ... In edi people now complain no more night stop because no chance to have extra money ...

A pretty aggressive response there my friend. Bet your a pleasure to fly with ;)

Flystobartbe?
 

Any news on the Stobart bid for FlyBe, and any wild speculation on the changes if a purchase were to take place?

All quiet on the Western Front.

Oh there's always speculation, the issue is it's subjective and relevant to each individual's personal opinion, it just gives us something else to talk about on the flightdeck.

I think according to the law the have to do an announcement about it on the 22th of march. Whatever if they want to buy or not but to clarify their position. So we ll see on the 22th, I personally see that as a positive think if they buy, ofc depending of what is their plan ...

A positive? You really think Flybe will be recognisable as it is today? We are not profitable, there will be major changes, there is no way on God's earth manning levels and bases will go untouched. I'd keep an eye over your shoulder.

I agree with Deano, especially the flight deck bit!
I work for another regional carrier but rumours abound in our organisation too, about Flybe and Stobart, Stobart and Loganair (the Carlisle base a route proving exercise on behalf of Stobart), the future of Flybe, the future of their latest franchise. It's all solid gossip material for the longer sectors.

Depend. We literally have no idea ... We are not profitable, yes and for what? our load are good, plane burn no fuel and 80pr cent of our flight we have no competitor ... Of someone bring money on the table and want to become a major regional operator, maybe they can do good stuff ... Change in base ... maybe, I understand it is annoying for familly life and all, but let s be honest in our business it was, it is, and it will be always the same, nothing is in the stone for 50years ... We will see ... Nothing I can do on my level

I take it you weren't around in 2012 then, Flocks? Rest assured if there's base culls there will be personnel culls. You might not get the option of moving your family. Take over or not, from a flight crew perspective I'm fearing another !!!!! storm coming our way and I don't have an umbrella. You haven't got to be a brain surgeon to see it.

and this time round, I won't ask for Mrs Sixty's permission before taking VR if it's offered. Best opportunity I never took.

I can't figure out why FlyBE can't make decent profits. Are the Q400s just too small? Do you need to be closer to 100 seats to make it all worthwhile while still not being eaten for breakfast by the LCCs with their planes which are nearer 200 seats but even as is their load factor is under 70%?
It can't be fuel as the turboprops don't burn much. Is it poor leases?
Why so many staff? over 2300 employees for just 83 planes; Flybe-Group-plc-Annual-Report-2016-17.pdf on their website.

I can't blame the pilots for any of this. They just fly the planes and appear to be working the hours.

Maybe if they were taken under the (sic) wing of a benign larger airline then some of the backend activities would become redundant. I don't see Stobart bringing much in the way of critical mass to the table.

I think it is quit relevant, I heard for one E195, we would have 2 A319 in leased. And the deal on the dash 8 is less crap but still crap ...
The last E195 will leave the fleet 2019 and lot of dash 8 will come to their end of lease before 2020.
I m looking forward the 22th of march, see what Stobart will say and the first week of April to see the result of the 17/18 for Flybe.

And for people who said I ll maybe have no choice to relocate my family because no more job (don't really believe currently ... But never know ...) I already went through 3 airlines going bankrupt ... So I ll manage again if needed ...

17/18 results have a predicted loss of 10-15 million?

No idea why Flybe can't make a profit. I think it is a bit of everything. Expensive leases (the E-195's are loss making and have a crap lease), probably too much inefficient staff, Regional is a tough market to make money as well I think. You can make a profit, but margins are small, smaller than for a RYR or EZY. The extra use in fuel is probably easier compensated with a fuller bigger aircraft.

If you then have on the other side loss making routes, expensive jets, poor marketing to get the flights full, a headquarter in Exeter for which you will never get the best staff since they tend to go for jobs in the bigger cities where they can make a better career, an office with lots of young people without the operational experience, an expensive training academy which was meant to be hired out to locals but which is often empty, senior management that comes and goes, lots of pilots leaving so your most expensive pilots (TRI/TRE's ) are not productive (as in flying), because they spent whole months in the sim in EXT for training and there are probably a few more reasons to name!

An example which I found shocking was that a senior manager not long ago said they saw a high rise in requests for flights during the Rugby in Wales (we did some charters) and that they were now looking if they could do this more often, because Flybe was never really bothering to look into these sport events. They probably do lots of great things in the office, but really? Saying these kind of things make me really question the business minds of the senior management!

Rant over! :-) Besides all this Flybe is pretty great to work for. Great people, but unfortunately great people are not a guarantee for profit ;-). And Stobart? hmm its been a bit too quiet I think + Flybe keeps postponing the fleet update + Flybe is already cooperating with Stobart = a bid will probably happen is my gutfeeling. We will see!

Why can’t Flybe make a profit? BA Connect. The takeover in 2007 left Flybe far too big with razor thin margins. Simple as that. Throw extremely scattergun approach to route planning and poor marketing into the mix and you’re fighting an impossibly uphill battle.

They never made a profit before BACon. either.

I agree, sometime I. wondering about how management thing .
Why did Flybe ever try to fly from Edinburgh or Aberdeen to the small island north of Scotland with a EJet 170 from Eastern on a SHARE risk deal ... Those flight where operated with a Saab 340 from years with loganair ... So to have a 78 seat plane and furthermore a jet ... I heard Flybe lost 3 millions in the few months of operations before to stop.

We will see the 22th of march what Stobart will say, but I think as well they will try to bid for Flybe in the near futur

Whoever decided to go into partnership with Eastern on the Highland & Island routes in competition with Loganair should be out on their ear immediately, the amount of money in that whole debacle must be substantial!

Shares drop 25% this morning
 

This isn't a good sign.

Stobart scraps bid interest and shares fall 25% on the news.. investor confidence must be low..

I'd like to say I can't imagine Flybe being the next Monarch, but then again, it wasn't too long ago where I didn't think Monarch would close... Interesting times ahead for Flybe.

To be clear the flybe share price did rise 25% last month so back to the last 12months level..

@FlyBE staff; Do the current management team look like they know what they are doing going in to the future and are just hamstrung by bad decisions from previous management teams or are they making their own new mistakes/frightened to grasp nettles?

Regarding airsouthewest comment above, to clarify it wasn't Stobart air the airline that was in discussions with flybe about a takeover, it was the Stobart group, with interests in aviation, power, rail and property and with a capitalisation of over £1bn so I think it was a realistic and beneficial process and could have been good for both parties.

That's very true six-sixty, even going back to the 90s & early Noughties! I remember the LBA-LCY route that was started with absolutely zero advertising and virtually empty aircraft flying up and down, but then, when word got around after a month or two and the aircraft started to fill up quickly, they chopped the route!!! Madness!

So basically morph into BA Connect (which they acquired in 2007) and which wasn’t profitable either hence why BA got rid of it in the first place. Interesting strategy.

That situation has remained unchanged since 1990, despite many changes of management. The Jack Walker philosophy of paying little and running a sweatshop has worked to a degree, (after all, they are still there despite everything), but the resistance to hiring professionals in preference to local cheap labour does prevent progress.

Have the fewer planes been fuller this quarter?