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Flybe rebrand to Virgin Connect

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Tetchytyke

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The Manx government supported the Steam Packet to ensure they kept going. However, I can't see the Manx government rescuing Flybe in order to save just the Manx routes.

The Manx government already pay Flybe for hospital travel; anything too complex gets done at Alder Hey in Liverpool, and the Manx government pay the fares. I'm sure Stobart or even EasyJet would pick those deals up (indeed most Manchester/Liverpool flights are already Stobart after Flybe shut their IoM base last year).

I'm still guessing it's going to be a pre-pack admin, getting rid of debt and expensive leases and dumping any redundancy costs on the NI fund. Branson gets a profitable business out of it and the hirsute tax dodger gets to rinse the taxpayer again.

The Manx government actually bought the Steam Packet a couple of years ago, not so much to keep an unprofitable service going (the Steam Packet is actually very profitable- £10m profit on £60m revenue) but because the hedge fund owners were trying to rinse them.
 
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158756

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The Manx government already pay Flybe for hospital travel; anything too complex gets done at Alder Hey in Liverpool, and the Manx government pay the fares. I'm sure Stobart or even EasyJet would pick those deals up (indeed most Manchester/Liverpool flights are already Stobart after Flybe shut their IoM base last year).

Are Easyjet interested in that sort of business though - I would guess not - their jets are too big to provide the frequency, and regularly timed services there and back at civilised hours don't fit the low cost model. Do Stobart want to be an independent airline, selling tickets and carrying all the risk? Someone will probably do it if there's enough money on the table though. The problem for routes that don't come with government cash attached is that no one else really still does what Flybe do, so airlines aren't going to be queuing up to replace them.
 

Busaholic

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BBC News reporting Flybe asking for refund of Air Passenger Duties @ £13 a pop since ?? They appear to believe BJ might be receptive. Seems a long shot to me.
 

WatcherZero

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I think they are asking for all Air Passenger Duty for domestic flights to be deferred for three years, so it would benefit all airlines that fly UK domestic flights.
 

daodao

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Are Easyjet interested in that sort of business though - I would guess not - their jets are too big to provide the frequency, and regularly timed services there and back at civilised hours don't fit the low cost model. Do Stobart want to be an independent airline, selling tickets and carrying all the risk? Someone will probably do it if there's enough money on the table though. The problem for routes that don't come with government cash attached is that no one else really still does what Flybe do, so airlines aren't going to be queuing up to replace them.

If FlyMayBe is bankrupt, it should be allowed to go to the wall. Selected routes, in particular to/from London and to off shore destinations within the UK (excluding CI/IOM which are outside the UK), may need to be retained via the tendering/PSO process, but other routes should not be subsidised, either directly or by reducing air passenger duty. In some instances, other airlines such as Sleazyjet provide alternatives, in particular to Belfast, so subsidies are not justified.

Reducing internal air travel is desirable from a climate change perspective, and many other countries have gradually whittled down their internal air services. I note that there are no longer air services from Ringway or Yeadon to Glasgow, presumably as these routes were no longer profitable.

Subsidies for essential air services to Ronaldsway (IOM) and the Channel Islands should be the responsibility of the local administrations in these islands.
 
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Tetchytyke

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Reducing internal air travel is desirable from a climate change perspective

This is often repeated, but I'm not so sure.

Worldwide, only 2% of all carbon emissions are from aviation. Only 12% of transport-related carbon emissions are from aviation- the private motor car accounts for most transport-related carbon emissions. If people don't fly domestically but they drive instead, that is undoubtedly worse for the environment.
 

Bletchleyite

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This is often repeated, but I'm not so sure.

Worldwide, only 2% of all carbon emissions are from aviation. Only 12% of transport-related carbon emissions are from aviation- the private motor car accounts for most transport-related carbon emissions. If people don't fly domestically but they drive instead, that is undoubtedly worse for the environment.

The latter is a logical fallacy along the lines of "all dodos are dead, therefore everything that is dead is a dodo".

The fact that the motor car is responsible for more of the emissions is simply because more people drive than fly. I believe the rough comparison is that on a totally full flight the emissions are such that if each passenger had driven a medium-sized family car (something like a 1.6 petrol Focus or Astra, perhaps) it would be about the same. But many people drive smaller cars with reduced emissions and there may be more than one person in the car. So that basically leaves the only reason to favour aviation over driving as being congestion-related.

Arguably, subsidising improved coach services, which produce fewer emissions per passenger than even diesel rail does, would be a better way to look at it.
 

cactustwirly

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The latter is a logical fallacy along the lines of "all dodos are dead, therefore everything that is dead is a dodo".

The fact that the motor car is responsible for more of the emissions is simply because more people drive than fly. I believe the rough comparison is that on a totally full flight the emissions are such that if each passenger had driven a medium-sized family car (something like a 1.6 petrol Focus or Astra, perhaps) it would be about the same. But many people drive smaller cars with reduced emissions and there may be more than one person in the car. So that basically leaves the only reason to favour aviation over driving as being congestion-related.

Arguably, subsidising improved coach services, which produce fewer emissions per passenger than even diesel rail does, would be a better way to look at it.

Realistically how many people are actually going to take the coach over their own car? Not many, I certainly wouldn't.
 

AM9

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This is often repeated, but I'm not so sure.

Worldwide, only 2% of all carbon emissions are from aviation. Only 12% of transport-related carbon emissions are from aviation- the private motor car accounts for most transport-related carbon emissions. If people don't fly domestically but they drive instead, that is undoubtedly worse for the environment.
If only 12% of transport related emissions are from aviation, (which i assume is all flying), then removing domestic journeys that can be taken by surface transport would be proportionately, a very small addition to all land transport, and because other modes are available, motor car usage would only rise by as small amount.
 

Bletchleyite

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Realistically how many people are actually going to take the coach over their own car? Not many, I certainly wouldn't.

If we're talking about relieving the WCML, pricing a few price-sensitive people off the train onto improved coach services (by lopping low-tier Advances a bit, as these are the tickets invariably used by price-sensitive users) leaves space on those trains for people who would pay more to transfer from the car.
 

edwin_m

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Flybe is more in competition with the train than with driving. Perhaps a more environmentally and socially sound approach would be to reduce or remove the duty on domestic flights (regardless of who operates them) only where:
  • they are over a certain distance or serve routes where train service isn't possible due to sea crossings, plus
  • they are operated by relatively eco-friendly aircraft (I believe the propeller aircraft Flybe mostly uses have lower emissions per seat than jets)
 

The Ham

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If only 12% of transport related emissions are from aviation, (which i assume is all flying), then removing domestic journeys that can be taken by surface transport would be proportionately, a very small addition to all land transport, and because other modes are available, motor car usage would only rise by as small amount.

To give you an idea of the numbers involved UK domestic flights account for a maximum of 10 billion km in recent years.

Now whilst that's a large number the total by train is 81 billion km, so if all air travel were to stop it would only at 12% to rail of every aircraft passenger were to switch to rail.

However compare it to car & van (not even all road transport) which is 673 billion km, and so that would only increase road travel by 1.5%.

It should also be noted that since 1990 that international aviation has doubled its emissions, whilst most other things (other than vans) have remained broadly the same or fallen. In 1990 emissions were 152 MtCO2e whilst in 2016 this was 164
MtCO2e, a difference of +12 MtCO2e, whilst international aviation is +18 MtCO2e.

Therefore if international aviation had remained level we'd have cut the emissions by 6 MtCO2e from all travel modes.
 

randyrippley

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They've been through so many rebrands, reorganisations, rescues........
First you had the "Airlines of Britain" group affiliated to British Midland: Jersey European, Loganair, Manx. They tried to expand with bigger aircraft and opened Manx Airlines Europe and nearly went bust......BA took over the main operations (except for the Loganair Scots islands flights) as British Regional Airways, wetleasing aircraft to the operating companies. Must have been a smack in the face for Michael Bishop. Somewhere along the line Midland folded and BA absorbed BRA completely. Surprise surprise, didn't take them long to realise they couldn't make money out of short range regional flights so shut a lot down and spun the rest off as FlyBE which has had to be rescued three times.

They keep making the same mistakes: too many engineering bases (the original airline group had eleven or twelve in the UK), inappropriate aircraft (Manx went belly-up when they switched from small cheap Jetstreams and Shorts 360s to expensive ATPs leased from BA - which led to the BA takeover). The current fleet are too big, too expensive to run.

As a group they've had too many chances, too many rescues. Time to pull the plug
 

randyrippley

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Which government are you talking about? The IoM isn't in the EU (see how much you get charged to use your mobile phone on the island).

The Manx government supported the Steam Packet to ensure they kept going. However, I can't see the Manx government rescuing Flybe in order to save just the Manx routes.

There will also be other places, such as the Channel Islands and Scottish islands, that would be hard hit by the failure of Flybe.

The Manx government have been down that route before and are unlikely to do it again. After a previous collapse when Manx Airlines and Jersey European nearly folded and had to be rescued by BA, they fed money to a new startup, Manx2 to provide essential links to Liverpool, Blackpool and elsewhere. Didn't take long for that to fold either. Once bitten..........
 

The Ham

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I do wonder whether it's worth letting the airline go to the wall.

Unless you're going to Northern Ireland or the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands there's other options available (they may take longer and/or require an overnight stay, but they exist).

Even if all internal flights switched to rail it would add something like 12% of miles traveled to the rail network, whilst if it all switched to road it would be just a 1.5% rise in miles traveled.

As such there's scope for them to just stop and not make a big difference to a lot of people's ability to travel (the ability to travel when you want or for any given time would be limited, however unless there's several flights a day then chances are you're very limited as to when you can travel anyway).

There would be those who commute who would be impacted, but they are fairly few in number and chances are they'll be able to cope by using the sleepers anyway.
 

Tetchytyke

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Arguably, subsidising improved coach services, which produce fewer emissions per passenger than even diesel rail does, would be a better way to look at it.

I can see a coach from Newcastle to Exeter being an ideal replacement for a direct flight :lol:

(As an aside, most of my domestic flights have been from up here to the south west. I'd rather stab myself in the eyes than sit on a Voyager for eight hours, so yes, if the flights go I'll take the car.)
 

The Ham

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I can see a coach from Newcastle to Exeter being an ideal replacement for a direct flight :lol:

(As an aside, most of my domestic flights have been from up here to the south west. I'd rather stab myself in the eyes than sit on a Voyager for eight hours, so yes, if the flights go I'll take the car.)

Sight point of order, the journey time between Newcastle and Exeter is about 6 hours, with options to go via London which don't involve a Voyager at all. Also by adding 15 minutes to the overall journey time you could undertake the first hour of travel from Newcastle to York by using a London bound service (if it's delayed or cancelled then you just catch the XC service). Likewise if you're traveling beyond Exeter there's scope to change to a GWR service or opt for a split ticket and travel in first class on a Voyager as XC often have some good offers from Exeter westwards on advanced first class tickets.

There are a few domestic flights which do make sense as there's currently limited potential for alternative travel options, on the mainland this does appear to be one.

However it is where HS2 could improve things by cutting the Newcastle to Birmingham journey time by 54 minutes, which also wouldn't be by Voyager for that leg of the journey. Alternatively the total journey time via Old Oak Common would likely be 5 hours.

It is also where future schemes could provide the option for HS2 services to continue westwards through Birmingham, and with up to an hour hour cut from the journey time then rail passenger numbers would likely increase. Those would then make the cost of the works worth doing, whilst with the current journey time makes it prohibitive to justify at the outset.
 

Bletchleyite

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(As an aside, most of my domestic flights have been from up here to the south west. I'd rather stab myself in the eyes than sit on a Voyager for eight hours, so yes, if the flights go I'll take the car.)

However rubbish Voyagers are, that is to me too far to drive without an overnight stop or two drivers.
 

Tetchytyke

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Sight point of order, the journey time between Newcastle and Exeter is about 6 hours, with options to go via London which don't involve a Voyager at all.

The IEP isn't much better :lol:

(I was more thinking of Newquay. As the train takes 45 minutes just to get to Par, flying really is a no-brainer).

It is also where future schemes could provide the option for HS2 services to continue westwards through Birmingham

I was wondering when that magic white elephant would get mentioned ;)
 

Meerkat

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I was more thinking of Newquay. As the train takes 45 minutes just to get to Par, flying really is a no-brainer).

Newquay is the airport for all of Cornwall and a chunk of Devon now Plymouth has closed and left Exeter as the next nearest
 

DerekC

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The objections to the latest Flybe rescue deal are starting to mount. There seem to be two main problems:

  1. Deferring £100M of air passenger duty payments is seen as unfair to other airlines who have to pay on time
  2. Reducing air passenger duty payments (as seems to have been promised) is counter to the need to reduce flying
The Government says that their review of air passenger duty will be consistent with environmental policy and Mike Hancock has today said that we don't have to reduce flying because "electric planes are on the horizon". Sounds like BS to me!
 

Belperpete

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I do wonder whether it's worth letting the airline go to the wall. Unless you're going to Northern Ireland or the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands there's other options available (they may take longer and/or require an overnight stay, but they exist).
And what do you propose for those travelling to or from Northern Ireland or the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands?
 

Meerkat

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I guess there may be a financial gain for the government.
If successful they will get the unpaid tax, just a bit later.
If they let Flybe go bust they will presumably get next to nothing.
 

devonexpress

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The latter is a logical fallacy along the lines of "all dodos are dead, therefore everything that is dead is a dodo".

The fact that the motor car is responsible for more of the emissions is simply because more people drive than fly. I believe the rough comparison is that on a totally full flight the emissions are such that if each passenger had driven a medium-sized family car (something like a 1.6 petrol Focus or Astra, perhaps) it would be about the same. But many people drive smaller cars with reduced emissions and there may be more than one person in the car. So that basically leaves the only reason to favour aviation over driving as being congestion-related.

Arguably, subsidising improved coach services, which produce fewer emissions per passenger than even diesel rail does, would be a better way to look at it.

Except Flybe flies the Q400 which on a per passenger basis is on par with an eco friendly car in comparison to a jet. People seem to think aviation loves to burn fuel, we don't. Aviation fuel is much more expensive than what you fill up with at the petrol pumps, Jet A1 can be up to 5 times more expensive. Most airlines actively encourage pilots to use a little fuel as possible whilst being safe, and manufacturers are constantly trying to improve designs to get the maximum fuel efficiency, hence why we now have non stop London to Perth flights. This is why most UK airlines have modern fleets, just because an aircraft has a propeller does't mean its old and dirty.
 

WatcherZero

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If the routes are viable, other airlines will soon backfill.

BA has consistently shown it has no interest in building UK Domestic, it just sees them purely as feeding its hub. Meanwhile Flybe fly to more than twice as many UK airports, and for a large number of airports they are the only significant user.

0_bbcflybe.png
 

Bletchleyite

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BA has consistently shown it has no interest in building UK Domestic, it just sees them purely as feeding its hub. Meanwhile Flybe fly to more than twice as many UK airports, and for a large number of airports they are the only significant user.

BA probably won't be it, but between easyJet and Loganair possibly some will get covered.
 

158756

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BA has consistently shown it has no interest in building UK Domestic, it just sees them purely as feeding its hub. Meanwhile Flybe fly to more than twice as many UK airports, and for a large number of airports they are the only significant user.

BA would not be unhappy if some of those airports were to close. BA will never fly there, so all those airports do from their perspective is abstract passengers from Heathrow. Whatever else might be bad policy in this story, basing it around increasing IAG's €3bn profits would be even worse.
 

The Ham

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And what do you propose for those travelling to or from Northern Ireland or the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands?

Given that quite a few destinations from Northern Ireland, Isle of Man or the Channel Islands have will in excess of 120,000 (with some being more than 240,000) passengers a year then that's enough to have between 80 to 160 passengers on two flights a day in each direction, then there's likely to be demand.

As such then there's a chance that someone else will offer the route. It would lead to a smaller choice of where you could fly direct between, however do we really need to keep open routes which run with fairly few people. Do we, as an example, need a flight between Stansted and Newquay which has 5,500 passengers a year? If we do how about Newcastle to Newquay which is sub 2,000 a year?

To be viable either the frequency is very low or the flights aren't just between those two points.
 
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