Flybe in trouble again

[Ibbie]

https://news.sky.com/story/regional-air ... e-11907407

[Woody]

Maybe the bearded one was expecting massive subsidies like his train company used to get

Hopefully all will be fine, don’t want another fine company going to the wall.

[barkingmad]

It will be very tragic if they go to the wall and we’ve got a successor to the other UK airline failures.

I will be attending a reunion of ex DanAir Ncl and Mme based crews in 2 days time and the memory of that 1992 failure still haunts.

The bearded one isn’t doing very well with his projects recently.

But then the slots are the assets, not the kit and the personnel.

[Capetonian]

For many years it's been an appalling excuse for an airline and it needs to be taken over by someone who has an interest in running it properly, protecting the assets (employees) and negotiating with regional governments for subsidies on vital air services.
That French woman dragged it down the crapper. A great pity.

[om15]

I joined the company in 1989 at the time that Jersey European acquired Westcountry Aircraft Services, the engineering company formed was JEA Engineering. I spent eight years there (as Hangar Superintendent) maintaining Shorts, Twin Otters, Heralds, 748s, F27s, ATR 42 and Bae 146, it was a very busy company, lots of third party maintenance, but the airline always seemed to be struggling with a succession of MDs and senior management.
I carried out some airworthiness consultancy for them just before I retired, about five days a month for eighteen months or so, during the reign of the French lady, she did not inspire confidence with the workforce.
Airlines can be created and folded with ease, but it takes years to set up engineering, it is a shame that such a good organisation is under threat.
Best of luck to those that worked hard to make it a success, it just seemed to suffer from pretty dreadful management for quite a long time. At the time that the Company floated all employees received shares, during the buy out by Virgin all shares were valued at a penny, a friend of mine had put his shares to one side as part of his pension fund, he emailed me recently and told me that he received a cheque for thirty five pounds.

[Ibbie]

Could never understand thair choice of the Dash8 as their standard aircraft.
Also, why the Embraers are getting the elbow along with all the sun routes.
Sheer madness.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told the BBC there is "no doubt" about the importance of regional airline Flybe.

The carrier's network includes more than half of UK domestic flights outside London.

The government is to consider cutting air passenger duty on domestic flights as part of a plan to save the airline from collapse.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51100029

Flybe is very important to a lot of passengers in communities that are not well served by other carriers (or local airport).

[Ibbie]

It appears that a deal to keep Flybe operating has been agreed with the Government.

No other details available at present.

[llondel]

How many airlines operate UK domestic flights?

[Woody]

I think that he’s got a point

The government has agreed a rescue plan for troubled regional airline Flybe.
Ministers agreed to work with Flybe to figure out a repayment plan for a significant tax debt that is thought to top £100m.
Meanwhile, the firm's owners have agreed to pump more money into the loss-making airline.
Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom said the deal would keep the company operating.
That will be a relief to many of the eight million passengers who fly with the airline each year.
However, the chief executive of the owner of British Airways has attacked the move as a misuse of public funds.
In a letter to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, a copy of which has been seen by the BBC, Willie Walsh questioned why the taxpayer is picking up the tab for the airline's mismanagement.
He pointed out that one of Flybe's biggest shareholders Virgin Atlantic, is part owned by the US's Delta, one of the world's largest and most profitable airlines.

Delta own 49% of Virgin Atlantic.

[Boac]

I agree - I thought it was just to be a promised 'review' of domestic APD - this AM I hear that FLYBE alone can hang on to the £100million of public domestic APD money that they have collected. Big time wrong IMO. If I ran a UK airline with domestic routes I would also now withhold collected domestic APD pending that 'review'.

[Capetonian]

The positive side to this is that the employees keep their jobs, although if I worked for them I'd be looking for a new job, in fact I'd have started looking for a new job when that French cow (Christine Ourmieres Widener) took over. Communities which have few or no other links will keep essential air services.

Willie Walsh has stated that the government rescue is a 'misuse of public funds' and I entirely agree. Rather than the taxpayer funding the bailout, its owners DL/VS should put their hands in their pockets. What other business is allowed to collect tax, (£103 million in this case) and not hand it over to the Exchequer as and when due? They have been given 3 months deferral, and if they can't, then what? Whilst this could be viewed as some sort of subsidy, and that on a simplistic level is not a bad thing. In this case though it applies to all Flybe's routes, some of which surely are profitable, and it is unfair to other carriers, small and large, which do not get government handouts.

As bad as BA is, it is profitable and it doesn't get subsidies. Nor do any other carriers which operate unprofitable routes. There is a bit of a difference which it is only fair to mention. FlyBe is not a 'network' carrier, whereas BA and others can operate feeders which in themselves are not profitable, but feed traffic to and from routes which are.

It is only a matter of time until a repeat of this scenario takes place. In its current structure, the airline is not viable. It also needs to dramatically improve its customer service which is shockingly bad. A few years ago I was flying up to 30 sectors a year with them, not a lot I know, but enough to form a valid view, and nearly every time something happened which showed how poor their service was. On one occasion a ticket desk agent told my niece, who was trying to get her ticket reissued after one of FlyBe's frequent cancellations due to mysterious 'technical reasons', to **** off and get a cup of tea!

Then on one of their very noisy Q400s, I had to speak to one of the FAs, and as she couldn't hear me over the engine noise, I had to raise my voice (which is not the same as shouting) and then had another one telling me I'd 'made her colleague cry' because I'd shouted at her. Clearly in the wrong job, as are so many of their employees.

I believe WW said something along the lines of 'this stinks'. I agree.

[om15]

This is not an unfortunate incident with a well managed company, as far back as the late 90s they reached a point where they couldn't pay the wages and had to request an emergency bung from the Walker family, since then it has just limped along.
I used to fly SOU-CDG regularly and also to Guernsey quite frequently, and found them not too bad, reasonable service and punctual.
From my recent experience carrying out work with them I found that the people actually doing the work were pretty hard working with a "can do" attitude, but the management were clearly not on top of their job. This really is kicking the can down the road, they will be in the same place in three months time, blaming weather, Brexit, fuel prices and so on, as if they were the only airline facing these problems.
This is just a postponement of the inevitable.

[Woody]

People aren’t going to book in advance in case they go tits up and airlines survive on forward bookings, so unfortunately for the employees I think that they’re screwed

[Undried Plum]

If, as reported, Flymaybe owes the gumment £100M in back taxes, then surely the directors and shareholders should be pursued mercilessly by the Reveueman for payment. Not rewarded for non-payment.

I, as a compulsorily registered VAT individual, am obliged to collect and forward huge sums of money in tax which do not belong to me. If I were to pocket any of that money then I would expect an unpleasant knock at the door and a reasonable demand for return to the taxpayer of their money.

Instead, what we appear to have is a situation in which a badly run company, which is owned by megamillionaires, hangs on to a hundred million or so of taxpayers money and demands a ransom on the absurd grounds that they have a monopoly of regional routes within the UK.

Something is wrong with Mzz Loathesome and her boss the shaggy bear's way of thinking.

[Capetonian]

People aren't going to book in advance and they will go tits-up.

[Undried Plum]

That is yet another reason to let the failed enterprise fail and be buried.

Here in Scotland we have a similar situation with a commercially unviable state-owned shipyard, with a single state-owned customer, being dead on its feet.

In a nominally capitalist country such failure should be allowed to take its course.

[Ibbie]

They should have abolished APD on internal UK flights, similarly to how the Highlands and Scottish Islands services have no APD, for all airlines.

Flights to anywhere outside the UK should still be subject to APD.

[Undried Plum]

Flymaybe is a zombie. Most of us here know that.

It's an example of the failure of capitalism. It's capitalism without capital and a business which ought not to exist outside the most austere and lunatic version of Soviet communism.

It's an artifact of the fractional reserve banking system in which unpayable debt is regarded as 'money'.

Even Bloomberg recognises the shallow hollowness of the meringue that is modern capitalism.

Here's a good article on the subject.

[Boac]

An unusual twist in that BA have filed a complaint with the EU over the FlyBe 'exemption'. 16 days to go! However, filed within the jurisdiction is enough.