Flybe (Flybe Ltd), the reincarnation of the previously collapsed regional airline, ceased trading overnight cancelling all flights leaving hundreds without flights today, passengers stranded overseas and many staff members without a job.
A statement by the airline, further to that on its website, revealed that 276 employees had lost their jobs including pilots, cabin crew, ground and admin staff. A total of 45 members of staff have been retained to assist the administrators – David Pike and Mike Pink from Interpath Advisory.
David Pike, Managing Director at Interpath Advisory and Joint Administrator to the Company, said: “We will provide support to those who have been affected by redundancy, including supporting them in making claims from the Redundancy Payments Service, and importantly, we will be helping employees obtain access to important records and information such as training records.”
As for the operations of the airline themselves, data from aviation analytics firm, Cirium shows that Flybe was due to serve 17 destinations across the UK and into mainland Europe in 2023 primarily from its bases at Birmingham Airport (BHX/EGBB) and Belfast City (BHD/EGAC).
This also included 7 flights a day from London Heathrow (LHR/EGLL) to destinations such as Amsterdam, Belfast, Newcastle and Newquay. The slot pairs at Heathrow are highly sought after and the administrators could see several airlines competing for them.
Next week alone, Flybe was due to operate 292 flights which means that potentially 22,700 passengers are now without flights.
History of the Company
Flybe (Flybe Ltd) began life with Cyrus Capital and formed a company called Thyme OpCo which was used to purchase the Flybe brand from the administrators of the Flybe that collapsed in 2020.
The original Flybe was owned by Connect Airways at the time of its collapse, a company that was in part owned by Cyrus Capital.
In April last year, the company was rebranded to Flybe Ltd and started operations from Birmingham and Belfast.
Flybe has planned to build up to 530 flights per week with a fleet of 32 Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft but after 9 months of operations, only a fleet of 8 aircraft had been realised and as a result, had to reduce frequencies on some routes leading to cancellations.
Mounting debts for the airline pushed it into administration formally on 28th January 2023.