Flybe possible Administration

[Megandllsmum]

My eldest just booked at the weekend to go to Paris in the summer with flybe 😕... They are booked on a credit card so hopefully no issue her problem might be demand though if they go under?

[sprocket]

Flybe were bought by a consortium of Virgin and Stobart. Afterwards Flybe was separated into various companies for a very good reason.
Virgin had no intention of every keeping this going, it was loss making and Virgin have a very bad history of local UK flights. Virgin wanted the LHR slots.
Virgin know their long haul flights are based in good positions in the UK and connecting flights was never really going to boost the long haul business.

They joined with Stobart as they will cherry pick the profit making routes after the inevitable collapse. No company wants the announcement that they are looking at administrators. Since the purchase a year ago, no really major changes have happened at Flybe, and the losses just keep coming.

The announcements of re branding and repainting was purely a time delay tactic to hide what they were doing behind the scene - which was asset stripping.

[legolass]

We are booked to fly to Belfast with them on Wednesday and back on Sunday ... really hoping to hear some positive news soon. Don’t want to get there and then be stuck 🙁

[Tea]

Oh that's sad. I found them great, and they have routes that no-one else does.

[b00110908]

I'm sorry but this is one airline (including staff members) that I will not miss. I campaigned earlier in 2019 for newspaper articles about them and their treatment of customers, thankfully getting a few front pages. They are operating in a highly competitive arena and when you treat customers so poorly people will walk.
Just to give context - in the last 7years I've probably flew with Flybe 250-300 times but I saw a huge difference around a year ago

[Mrs Toolman]

We have flights from Southampton to Amsterdam booked with them for March for my 50th. Really hoping they sort something out or we will have to fly from Gatwick or Heathrow :-(

[cornishfrogboy]

My only sympathy lies with the staff. I hope that they kep their jobs.. or find others in the event that Flybe go under.

For last summers 2019 vacation, I booked Newquay to Gatwick in order to stay overnight and then fly to the USA next morning.

I suddenly found that they had deleted Gatwick and inserted Heathrow into their schedule. I was offered free transfers by coach to get me to Gatwick or a refund. I took the refund.

In the end I got the train up and in probability this was quicker door to door than the offered Flybe option.. and a lot cheaper.

I made a decision never to use them again. They should have fulfilled their existing commitments before moving the goalposts o Heathrow.

As for Virgin Atlantic, they are a ruthless business that showed their colours when racking up the costs of the Manchester route following the demise of TC. I have no problem with a business maximising profit and will happily use them again in future if they offer me the best deal, but let us not pretend for one moment that VA are philanthropists. I have no doubt at all that their only interest lies in asset stripping the LHR slots.

[braby]

The ironic thing about the LHR slots is that most were Virgin little red before Flybe took them over. The slots were given to BE at a very favourable price to compete with BA on the ABZ and EDI routes, these are domestic slot pairs so cannot be used for international flights.

The slots originated from BA buying BMI, at the time the monopolies and mergers comitee told BA they had to give a certain number of slots up, if no one was to use the slots then they would be held in trust and given back to BA, little red tried but failed now BE have them, if they fail the slots go back in trust until someone else comes along or they go back to BA.

The Newquay and Guernsey slots are BE’s own but again they only got them as they are classed as domestic slots.

[KarenG]

Hmmmm.

So firstly my sympathy is wholly with the staff and my small flight issue is just an inconvenience, but does anyone know what happens in the following situation?

Flights booked through a third party agent but ticketed by Virgin. First and final flight are actually Flybe metal but still with Virgin flight numbers.

Obviously if Flybe go (and I think it extremely likely they will, unless the Government make an unusual and politically motivated decision to support in some way - very unlikely) the first and last flights will no longer exist.

I wish (like someone else above) I’d just booked from London now. But in this situation should I claim from my credit card (my preference) or will VA - as ticket holder - be obliged to arrange new flights from a different airport? That’s if Flybe go under.

[lizzie145]

I had better contact them for my compensation instead of booking flights