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Flybe Collapses

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Shaw S Hunter

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Let's hope Loganair last a bit longer on this route than they did on East Midlands to Inverness last year...a matter of months. One good thing about Loganair is the free hold bag and refreshments - at least at the moment. Good to see they have got some mini - Embraers !!
[snip]
It's all about price, people including my self have got used to Flying from Scotland to England for about £30 each way !!

Those mini-Embraers are well known for being rather expensive to operate. At one time they were incredibly popular both here and very much so in the US. But today only a small fraction of those built are still flying as successive fuel price rises have rendered them uneconomic in many, many markets. Highly unlikely that you will be flying on them for £30 each way! And that is surely the big takeaway from this whole episode, namely that domestic flying between regional airports is not conducive to low fares on a sustainable basis. This also tends to be true elsewhere in Europe too.
 
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Passing Edinburgh airport on the train and there are 5 or 6 Flybe airplanes sitting forlornly out of use and out near the perimeter fence.
 

miami

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Using taxes won't solve the problems, the money will simply disappear into the general economy and will never get used for carbon fixing.

The flip side of charging say £1/kg, is to give a tax break of £1/kg for every kg removed from the atmosphere.
 

Bantamzen

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The flip side of charging say £1/kg, is to give a tax break of £1/kg for every kg removed from the atmosphere.

It still doesn't plant trees. Far better to give the cost of carbon to organisations that are actively involved in re-forestation, and thereby carbon fixing.
 

Butts

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Those mini-Embraers are well known for being rather expensive to operate. At one time they were incredibly popular both here and very much so in the US. But today only a small fraction of those built are still flying as successive fuel price rises have rendered them uneconomic in many, many markets. Highly unlikely that you will be flying on them for £30 each way! And that is surely the big takeaway from this whole episode, namely that domestic flying between regional airports is not conducive to low fares on a sustainable basis. This also tends to be true elsewhere in Europe too.

When Flybe went under I had to rebook on Easyjet for most of my Edinburgh/Glasgow - Birmingham trips scheduled for later in the year. One of them in August was £40 return, and none of the others had an individual leg exceeding £30 !! Perhaps going forward this will change ?
 

Shaw S Hunter

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When Flybe went under I had to rebook on Easyjet for most of my Edinburgh/Glasgow - Birmingham trips scheduled for later in the year. One of them in August was £40 return, and none of the others had an individual leg exceeding £30 !! Perhaps going forward this will change ?

Easyjet, like the other big LCCs, has established that the sweet spot in terms of capacity for their business model is at least 180 seats per flight. This is repeated globally with LCCs nearly all standardising on A320s or B737-800s with larger models now becoming increasingly popular. There was no way for Flybe to compete against Easyjet flying DHC-8s and make real money. Yet on routes without competition that aircraft was certainly too big. SOU-MAN has been mentioned in this thread: if it was a worthwhile market then Easyjet would surely be in it but they're not. Yet Flybe, having that market to itself (in aviation terms), still went out of business. Smaller regional markets will increasingly be abandoned completely in due course as there is no way to serve them without subsidy: again plenty of evidence for this elsewhere especially in the USA. The difference in public attitude to this in Europe is due to having viable rail networks to provide most links though the argument still exists over public subsidies. In the US it's mostly a case of having to drive if air service isn't viable and indeed that's exactly what many people do. In terms of the UK experience our problem is the reluctance to build genuinely high-speed rail lines but hopefully we are now moving in the right direction on that issue.
 

richard1976

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Anyone any idea if anyone will take on the Newquay - London service, as this was Flybe only PSO flight they operated
 

The Ham

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Anyone any idea if anyone will take on the Newquay - London service, as this was Flybe only PSO flight they operated

..or the government could just on with creating an alternative rail route to Cornwall and then wouldn't need to provide the air service.
 

midland1

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Thankyou Shaw S Hunter my friends at work were talking at about the end of Flybe the other day, and I have printed of what you have put to show them, I think you have summed it up very well.
 

Busaholic

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..or the government could just on with creating an alternative rail route to Cornwall and then wouldn't need to provide the air service.
Unless, of course, they wished to avail themselves of the service within the next twenty years :lol:
 

Bald Rick

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Easyjet, like the other big LCCs, has established that the sweet spot in terms of capacity for their business model is at least 180 seats per flight. This is repeated globally with LCCs nearly all standardising on A320s or B737-800s with larger models now becoming increasingly popular. There was no way for Flybe to compete against Easyjet flying DHC-8s and make real money. Yet on routes without competition that aircraft was certainly too big. SOU-MAN has been mentioned in this thread: if it was a worthwhile market then Easyjet would surely be in it but they're not. Yet Flybe, having that market to itself (in aviation terms), still went out of business. Smaller regional markets will increasingly be abandoned completely in due course as there is no way to serve them without subsidy: again plenty of evidence for this elsewhere especially in the USA. The difference in public attitude to this in Europe is due to having viable rail networks to provide most links though the argument still exists over public subsidies. In the US it's mostly a case of having to drive if air service isn't viable and indeed that's exactly what many people do. In terms of the UK experience our problem is the reluctance to build genuinely high-speed rail lines but hopefully we are now moving in the right direction on that issue.


My punt is that Easyjet will pitch in with a daily (maybe even twice daily) MAN-SOU and also a daily / twice daily GLA-SOU resourced from their Manchester / Glasgow bases. With A319s. If they don’t make it pay, no one will. But I suspect there is sufficient demand to make it work.
 
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So the message to Northern Ireland and all the Scottish Islands is 'get a ferry'?

Or is there a plan for bridges to be built linking every inhabited island with an airport to the mainland? Shetlands to Wick will be an amazing structure.
Flybe routes in the Scottish Islands are Loganair as the agreement between the two died a couple of years, ago and flybe then had a fares, war with Loganair
 

WestCoast

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Those mini-Embraers are well known for being rather expensive to operate. At one time they were incredibly popular both here and very much so in the US. But today only a small fraction of those built are still flying as successive fuel price rises have rendered them uneconomic in many, many markets. Highly unlikely that you will be flying on them for £30 each way! And that is surely the big takeaway from this whole episode, namely that domestic flying between regional airports is not conducive to low fares on a sustainable basis. This also tends to be true elsewhere in Europe too.

While I feel for the staff at Flybe who have lost their jobs, I’ve found Loganair to be a far more pleasant experience in general. I’m glad that they will be replacing them on some of the core routes from Scotland. Yes their fares were/are generally more expensive but I’ve found them to be more punctual and no nonsense with aggressive charges for hand baggage. Flying Flybe was really quite unpleasant in my opinion, their policies towards customers seemed to be quite unfriendly, hopefully Loganair can turn at least a modest profit on their new venture.

The little Embraers they have are very rare in Europe now - pretty sure most of them in the Loganair fleet started life in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s working at British Midland Regional or BA CitiExpress (or whatever the regional division of BA was called then), then they made their way to BA Connect, Flybe and bmi Regional finally on to Loganair after all these UK regional airlines were shut down or failed. I think the plan longer term is to get rid of them and replace with ATR turboprops which seems sensible from an economic and environment point of view.
 

The Ham

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Unless, of course, they wished to avail themselves of the service within the next twenty years :lol:

Indeed, although it would only be within the next 15 years if they got on with it when Dawlish washed away.

If we're going to be carbon neutral post 2050 then such projects probably need to happen fairly soon anyway.
 

WestCoast

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My punt is that Easyjet will pitch in with a daily (maybe even twice daily) MAN-SOU and also a daily / twice daily GLA-SOU resourced from their Manchester / Glasgow bases. With A319s. If they don’t make it pay, no one will. But I suspect there is sufficient demand to make it work.

Glasgow to Southampton has already been picked up by Loganair, 3 flights a day weekdays. Manchester to Southampton is picked up by Eastern Airways - https://www.easternairways.com/timetable/MAN/SOU. Both airlines have worked with Flybe as franchisees, Eastern till last week and Loganair ended their Flybe relationship a couple of years ago.

The main loser right now in my opinion would be appear to be the Isle of Man as in contrast Northern Ireland still has a big easyJet hub at Aldergrove, the Channels Islands have two of their own airlines. The Isle of Man has lost 80-90 percent of its air capacity and doesn’t have a locally based airline.
 
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Glenn1969

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I suspect most flights from Southampton will get picked up. Less sure of the fate of those from Belfast City, Exeter and Newquay
 

The Ham

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I suspect most flights from Southampton will get picked up. Less sure of the fate of those from Belfast City, Exeter and Newquay

Indeed, Southampton is quite a nice airport to fly from, in that is got a good rail connection and a terminal which is more in scale to a large station.
 

Elwyn

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I suspect most flights from Southampton will get picked up. Less sure of the fate of those from Belfast City, Exeter and Newquay


Belfast is pretty well served. It has 2 airports and has the luxury of having had many routes duplicated. For example, until Flybe's collapse, you could fly to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Paris, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, and Cardiff from both Belfast International and Belfast City Airports. Flybe had a monopoly on some routes eg Leeds, East Midland, Doncaster, Southampton, Exeter & Newquay, and perhaps one or two more but by and large we were well supplied with air routes.

So Northern Ireland is not exactly isolated. Other airlines will eventually pick up the more viable of Flybe's routes to NI (Loganair have already taken on Belfast to Inverness & Aberdeen). And the less viable routes will probably fall by the wayside. Which may not be a bad thing (assuming you are not a Flybe employee of course).
 

Shaw S Hunter

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Perhaps an (early) indication of what "the market" thinks is that Flybe's former SOU-MAN service of up to 6 flights per day each way is being replaced by Eastern Airways flying no more than twice a day. And I very much doubt that Easyjet will up their frequencies on routes which previously had Flybe in competition with them. Covid-19 looks like being the catalyst for a necessary adjustment to many aviation markets and Flybe is unlikely to be the only casualty. Yet again I will highlight US experience: scheduled aviation there was deregulated way back in 1978 and while there have been many comings and goings since then the current situation hsa been reached via a lot of consolidation amongst the established players and start-ups only survive if they reach a critical mass fairly quickly. The European situation is complicated by so many different versions of national pride but the US pattern is already well under way and will inevitably continue.
 

markymark2000

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Perhaps an (early) indication of what "the market" thinks is that Flybe's former SOU-MAN service of up to 6 flights per day each way is being replaced by Eastern Airways flying no more than twice a day. And I very much doubt that Easyjet will up their frequencies on routes which previously had Flybe in competition with them.
Southampton to Manchester had 220,742 pax in 2018 according to gov documents so there are a LOT of passengers making this journey. Eastern might just be doing what they can with the planes they have. As things progress, more flights will likely be taken over and some will run more often.
 
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Eastern are starting SOU-MAN this coming week, initially 2x daily Mon-Fri with a reduced frequency over the weekend.
The online timetable shows they’ll be using an E170 on this route.

Flybe were operating 6x flights a day on most days, with a reduced frequency at weekends.
Manchester has been Southampton’s busiest domestic destination for many years.
Timetabled for 1hr 5 mins, a Dash 8 would regularly do the trip with 37 to 43 minutes, actual airborne time.
Flybe E195’s and E175’s ...and before that, their E145’s...would often complete the trip with around 30 mins actual flying time. Beats the 4 hour journey on the direct XC service hands down.


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Those mini-Embraers are well known for being rather expensive to operate. At one time they were incredibly popular both here and very much so in the US. But today only a small fraction of those built are still flying as successive fuel price rises have rendered them uneconomic in many, many markets. .........

You are right about the economics turning against these small regional jets, with many being withdrawn from use and stored, or even scrapped.
However, out of some 1,200 plus built, two thirds are still flying, although a lot of those are now with charter and corporate operators..

*
 
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The Ham

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Eastern are starting SOU-MAN this coming week, initially 2x daily Mon-Fri with a reduced frequency over the weekend.
The online timetable shows they’ll be using an E170 on this route.

Flybe were operating 6x flights a day on most days, with a reduced frequency at weekends.
Manchester has been Southampton’s busiest domestic destination for many years.
Timetabled for 1hr 5 mins, a Dash 8 would regularly do the trip with 37 to 43 minutes, actual airborne time.
Flybe E195’s and E175’s ...and before that, their E145’s...would often complete the trip with around 30 mins actual flying time. Beats the 4 hour journey on the direct XC service hands down.


*

However once HS2 is operational the train journey time would be about 2:30 via Old Oak Common. At the opening of Phase 1 is likely to be about 3 hours.

That's going to make rail more attractive.

As such any new services are likely to have more competition. Whilst that would justify the starting of services it might limit the investment in new planes, especially much beyond in a few years time.

Add in the likely cost increases and it's likely that site passenger numbers will fall, especially with people being more aware of their impact on the environment and changing their behaviour.
 

PTR 444

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However once HS2 is operational the train journey time would be about 2:30 via Old Oak Common. At the opening of Phase 1 is likely to be about 3 hours.

That's going to make rail more attractive.

Only if it’s a lot cheaper. For most people, they are going to want to get from A to B as quickly as possible, so they will get the plane in most cases.
 

The Ham

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Only if it’s a lot cheaper. For most people, they are going to want to get from A to B as quickly as possible, so they will get the plane in most cases.

On (say) 6 services a day you're likely to have to wait 2 to 3 hours between flights. Whilst even on current service provision you'll have a maximum of 1 hour wait for a train.

That's going to mean that unless the flight does at exactly the right time chances are going by train is likely to be "quicker" (or at least get you there at the time most suited to when you want to go).
 

Butts

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Indeed, Southampton is quite a nice airport to fly from, in that is got a good rail connection and a terminal which is more in scale to a large station.

Southampton is a great Airport..flying down from Glasgow or Edinburgh the stands are right by the terminal and you can be in Southampton Parkway 10 mins after landing. No farting about with a long taxi or bus to the terminal. Can Southampton handle an Airbus or would it involve parking up on an Apron and a bus to the terminal ?

Just to put the superiority of Air Travel into perspective on long distances

I join the Highland Chieftain at my home station Falkirk Grahamston heading for Inverness.

An Embraer 195 takes off from Southampton Airport at the same time. It climbs to just below 40,000 feet and cruising at Mach 0.87 easily beats the Train into Inverness.

It's only 155 miles from Falkirk to Inverness yet the train takes 3 hours !!!

The Embraer could practically fly from Southampton to Inverness and back before the Train has even got from Falkirk to Inverness.
 
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Belperpete

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Both Loganair and Eastern Airways have announced they are to run Southampton <> Newcastle services. Does that mean they’ll share the slots, or compete with each other? It looks as if they’re proposing more services in total than there were?
Oh dear. Awhile ago, both Easyjet and BMIbaby started running East Midlands - Prague, starting almost simultaneously. Unfortunately there wasn't enough traffic for both. So they both pulled out, again almost simultaneously! Hope the same thing doesn't happen here.
 

Belperpete

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The posts on here seem to have concentrated on business trips. But Flybe also brought a lot of holiday makers over to the Isle of Mann, and I suspect to the Channel Islands and NI too. These are certainly trips that don't need to be made - you can always go on holiday somewhere else. However, there are a lot of businesses on these places that rely on the tourists coming, and will be hard hit by a drop in tourist numbers.
 
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