Flybe

Flybe
IATA code :	BE
ICAO code :	BEE
Call sign :	JERSEY
Founding:	1979 as Jersey European Airlines
Operation stopped:	4th March 2020
Seat:	Exeter , UK
Turnstile :	10 bases in Great Britain and 1 in Germany ( Düsseldorf )
Home airport :	Exeter Airport
Management:	Christine Ourmieres-Widener (from January 16, 2017)
Number of employees:	approx. 2200 (November 2013)
Passenger volume:	7.7 million (2014)
Frequent Flyer Program :	Avios
Fleet size:	64
Aims:	national and continental
Website:	flybe.com
Flybe ceased operations March 4th, 2020. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation.

Flybe Group PLC [ ˈflaɪˌbiː ] was a British airline based in Exeter . Flight operations were suspended on March 4, 2020. The last flight landed as BE1057 at 23:56 on the same day in Aberdeen .

history

Jack Walker House , Flybe's headquarters at Exeter Airport

The airline was founded on November 1, 1979 under the name Jersey European Airways . In 1983 it was taken over by the Walter Steel Group, which also operated the Spacegrand Aviation airline . The two airlines were initially operated separately and were transferred to Jersey European Airways in 1985.

In 2000 the airline was renamed British European Airways and on July 18, 2002 it was renamed Flybe , the be standing for B ritish E uropean . JERSEY was still used as the call sign for the airline's machines in international aviation radio .

In November 2006 the company announced that it would take over the regional airline BA Connect from British Airways . This acquisition was completed on March 5, 2007. At the same time, British Airways took over a 15% stake in Flybe. Rosedale Aviation Holdings (69%) and its own employees (16%) owned additional shares. With the acquisition of BA Connect , Flybe became the largest European regional airline.

Flybe announced on January 14, 2008 that from October 26, 2008 the Scottish regional airline Loganair will be marketing its 55 routes in Scotland under the Flybe brand under a franchise agreement. The first aircraft ( aircraft registration : G-LGNK ) was repainted in early April 2008 and stationed at Dundee Airport.

In March 2008 Flybe hit the headlines when the airline stayed below the number of passengers contracted for Norwich Airport on its Norwich - Dublin route . When shortly before the deadline there was a threat of a contractual penalty of £ 380,000 (around EUR 480,000), Flybe is said to have searched for paid extras via an artist agency portal on the Internet who, for a fee, board a machine in Norwich and then return immediately from Dublin to Norwich to fly. Flybe also offered free flights “to celebrate the successful route” and instructed flight attendants to make themselves available as passengers in an emergency. The targets were achieved at short notice; After the allegations became known, Norwich Airport declared that it would only accept paying passengers. Flybe denied having used actors.

In August 2010 it was announced that Flybe would be taking over some of Finnair's regional connections to and from Helsinki as part of a collaboration . On July 1, 2011, a new subsidiary called Flybe Nordic was founded as part of a joint venture with Finnair on the basis of Finncomm Airlines , in which Flybe held 60 percent and Finnair 40 percent.

In November 2013, Flybe announced that it would close six of its 14 British bases and lay off the personnel stationed there. A total of 500 jobs are to be cut to cut costs. A little later, the cancellation of 24 routes was announced, including Southampton-Hanover. After a loss of over £ 40 million in fiscal 2012, Flybe posted a pre-tax profit of £ 8.1 million in fiscal 2013 following restructuring measures.

In February 2014 it was announced that Flybe will gradually phase out all 14 of its Embraer 195s by the end of the summer flight schedule. Flybe was the first customer of this type with delivery from September 2006. In September 2014 it was announced that Flybe had canceled an order for 20 Embraer 175s and will instead lease 24 used De Havilland Canada DHC-8-400s from Republic Airways . One month later, Flybe announced that it was selling its unprofitable stake in Flybe Nordic for a symbolic price of one euro to Finnair, which would then become the sole owner of Flybe Nordic. At the end of October 2014, Flybe joined the Avios program of the International Airlines Group after its own frequent flyer program Rewards4all was discontinued on October 10, 2014.

At the end of 2016 it was announced that the franchise agreement with Loganair, which had existed since 2008, would end on August 31, 2017. From the third quarter of 2017, the British regional company Eastern Airways will instead become a Flybe franchisee.

In June 2017, the expansion into continental Europe , which began in 2016, was halted due to losses of 22.5 million pounds in the past financial year due to an IT investment, the weak pound and the difficult economic environment. It was planned to focus on UK domestic connections and profitable connections with continental Europe. The base at Düsseldorf Airport, which opened in February 2017, should not be affected by the restructuring plans .

A consortium around Connect Airways, which includes Virgin Atlantic , the Stobart Group and Cyrus Capital, wanted to take over Flybe. Approval from the European Commission was available. Virgin had been looking for a feeder company for its long-haul brand for years, the Flybe brand was to be abandoned in favor of Virgin. The British government announced in January 2020 that it would participate in a rescue package for Flybe. Shortly afterwards, the coronavirus epidemic began in many European countries, resulting in frequent flight cancellations. Flybe ceased operations on March 4, 2020 and filed for bankruptcy.

Destinations

Flybe maintained (as of 2018) from its bases a dense network of connections within Great Britain as well as to cities and holiday destinations in Western and Southern Europe.

Flight destinations in Germany in March 2018 were:

• Berlin (from Birmingham , Cardiff and Hévíz-Balaton )
• Düsseldorf (from Birmingham, Cardiff, Guernsey / Jersey , Leeds / Bradford, London-City , Manchester and Southampton )
• Hamburg (from Birmingham and Hévíz-Balaton )
• Hanover (from Birmingham and Manchester as well as to Milan )
• Cologne / Bonn (from London-Southend )
• Munich (from Cardiff and Southampton)
• Stuttgart (from Birmingham)

Codesharing
Flybe has codeshare agreements with Air France on numerous routes between Great Britain and France, with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines on flights to and from Amsterdam, with British Airways on some domestic routes and with Etihad Airways on feeder flights mainly to and from Amsterdam and Birmingham. Other codeshare partners were Aer Lingus, Air India, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Finnair, Singapore and Virgin Atlantic.

fleet

De Havilland DHC-8-400 of the Flybe in older livery

An Embraer 175 of the Flybe also in an older painting

Fleet at the end of operations

When operations ceased in March 2020, Flybe's fleet consisted of 64 aircraft with an average age of 11.8 years:

Aircraft type	number	Remarks	Seats
ATR 72-600	01	operated by Stobart Air	70
De Havilland DHC-8-400	54	six inactive	78
Embraer 175	09		88
total	64

Previously deployed aircraft

In the years prior to the cessation of operations, Flybe also used the following aircraft:

• ATR 42-500
• ATR 72-500
• BAC 1-11
• BAe 146-100 / 200/300
• Boeing 737-300
• Bombardier CRJ 200
• De Havilland DHC-8-200 / 300
• Dornier 328
• Embraer EMB 110
• Embraer 145
• Embraer 195
• Fokker F-27
• Hawker Siddeley HS 748
• Saab 340
• Saab 2000
• Short 360

See also

• Former Airlines List (Europe)

literature

• BI Hengi: Airlines Worldwide , 9th updated edition from 2018, Nara, ISBN 978-3-925671-69-2 , p. 157

Web links

Commons : Flybe  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

 Wikinews: Flybe  - on the news

• Flybe website ( Memento from January 13, 2020 in the Internet Archive )
• Flybe Limited on the website of Companies House (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Flybe Group plc - Company data ( Memento from August 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
2. ↑ Flybe appoints Christine Ourmieres-Widener as boss , accessed on December 20, 2016
3. ↑ Flybe to cut 500 jobs as new boss outlines 'shrink to grow' strategy . The Guardian. November 11, 2013. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
4. ^ Flybe Limited (in Administration) ('the Company' or 'Flybe'). March 4, 2020, accessed on March 5, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Collapsed Flybe tells passengers not to go to airports . In: BBC News . March 5, 2020 ( bbc.com [accessed March 5, 2020]).
6. ↑ Grounding: Coronavirus epidemic breaks Flybe's neck. In: aeroTELEGRAPH. March 5, 2020, accessed on March 5, 2020 (Swiss Standard German). 
7. ↑ skyliner-aviation.de: Photo by G-LGNK April 14, 2008.
8. ↑ Article on the Society's extras flights. ( Memento from May 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Tagesschau.de, March 31, 2008.
9. ↑ airliners.de: Finnair will give Flybe regional routes from August 9, 2010
10. ↑ bbc.co.uk - Flybe outlines base closures as part of job cuts plan (English) November 15, 2013
11. ↑ flybe.com - Route Network Configuration (English) December 5, 2013.
12. ↑ travelweekly.co.uk - Flybe hails 'rebirth' as ​​regional carrier returns to profit (English) June 11, 2014.
13. ↑ ch-aviation.com - Flybe. to phase out its EMB-195s by the end of Summer this year (English) February 18, 2014.
14. ↑ flightglobal.com - Republic to take 50 E-175s as Q400s head for Flybe (English) September 17, 2014.
15. ↑ An airline for one euro , accessed on November 17, 2014.
16. ↑ About Rewards4all . flybe.com. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
17. ↑ Stefan Eiselin: Scottish airline dares to go it alone . aerotelegraph.com, December 2, 2016, accessed June 14, 2017.
18. ^ Jan Gruber: Eastern Airways becomes Flybe franchisee . austrianaviation.net, June 9, 2017, accessed June 14, 2017.
19. ↑ Stefan Eiselin: Flybe reduces fleet by a quarter . aerotelegraph.com, June 13, 2017, accessed June 14, 2017.
20. ↑ Flybe Union Demands Answers On Reports Of Impending Collapse , Aviationweek, January 13, 2020
21. ↑ Virgin consortium may take over Flybe under certain conditions. In: Airliners. July 10, 2019, accessed July 16, 2019 . 
22. ↑ ^{a b} Kerstin Leitel: Corona consequences: A crisis British regional airline Flybe files for bankruptcy. In: Handelsblatt . March 5, 2020, accessed March 5, 2020 . 
23. ↑ British regional airline Flybe ceases operations. In: Spiegel online. March 5, 2020, accessed on March 5, 2020 (DPA notification). 
24. ↑ ^{a b} Flybe route network , accessed on February 22, 2017
25. ↑ Flybe.com - Codeshares , accessed February 22, 2017
26. ↑ flybe. - Airline information . In: ch-aviation . ch-aviation GmbH, accessed on March 5, 2020 (English).