Flybe nosedives on profits warning

[Andy Onchan]

12 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

Loathe though I am to defend Quayle, even if they had a plan in place, that didn't mean that they would have planes in place.  No one knew exactly when or if Flybe would collapse.  Unless they were going to pay millions to have planes and crew waiting at Ronaldsway till ... whenever, there would always be a lag while things were finalised.  They didn't handle communications as well as they might but the time to criticise will be when we assess what they produce as their plan next week.

The writing was on the wall in 2017..... hence my OP.

[The Amazing Ronrico]

3 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

The writing was on the wall in 2017..... hence my OP.

I think when most people hear of a contingency plan being in place the expectation is for that contingency plan to kick in immediately upon the happening of the event the contingency was planned for. Not a few weeks later after much head scratching and sitting on hands. Yet again the Channel Islands seem to have got their act together a lot quicker than here. It seems that our civil servants are so busy thinking how important they are that they can’t actually get their hands dirty.doing their jobs planning round this sort of thing. The announcement on hospital transfers was pathetic. Book another flight and send us the receipt. Firstly I’m sure there were lots of people who couldn’t afford to book another flight and secondly they probably missed their appointment anyway as there weren’t any flights to re book as EJ was booked out for the next 3 weeks within hours. The whole thing came across like they didn’t give a toss and they literally had months to get a proper plan in place as it was obvious Flybe was going to go bust at some stage. But they chose to do nothing but sit there with their fingers in their ears as it seems the actual contingency plan was: hopelessly hoping that Flybe would not to go bust so that they didn’t have to do any thing. 

Edited March 8, 2020 by The Amazing Ronrico
Typo

[madmanxpilot]

3 hours ago, The Amazing Ronrico said:

I think when most people hear of a contingency plan being in place the expectation is for that contingency plan to kick in immediately upon the happening of the event the contingency was planned for. Not a few weeks later after much head scratching and sitting on hands. Yet again the Channel Islands seem to have got their act together a lot quicker than here. It seems that our civil servants are so busy thinking how important they are that they can’t actually get their hands dirty.doing their jobs planning round this sort of thing. The announcement on hospital transfers was pathetic. Book another flight and send us the receipt. Firstly I’m sure there were lots of people who couldn’t afford to book another flight and secondly they probably missed their appointment anyway as there weren’t any flights to re book as EJ was booked out for the next 3 weeks within hours. The whole thing came across like they didn’t give a toss and they literally had months to get a proper plan in place as it was obvious Flybe was going to go bust at some stage. But they chose to do nothing but sit there with their fingers in their ears as it seems the actual contingency plan was: hopelessly hoping that Flybe would not to go bust so that they didn’t have to do any thing. 

The ultimate extension of the open skies policy - 'let it sort itself out' - almost a renouncement of responsibility and care.

[thesultanofsheight]

17 minutes ago, madmanxpilot said:

The ultimate extension of the open skies policy - 'let it sort itself out' - almost a renouncement of responsibility and care.

You can still have open skies and sensible policy. I see Blue Islands and Aurigny have already taken over a load of Flybe routes in a matter of days. I suppose that is a real contingency plan sorted out in a very commercial way. 

https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2020-03-06/blue-islands-and-aurigny-take-over-flybe-s-former-routes/

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2020/03/06/flybe-collapse-blue-islands-to-rescue-jerseys-birmingham-and-exeter-routes/

Edited March 8, 2020 by thesultanofsheight

[WTF]

10 minutes ago, thesultanofsheight said:

You can still have open skies and sensible policy. I see Blue Islands and Aurigny have already taken over a load of Flybe routes in a matter of days. I suppose that is a real contingency plan sorted out in a very commercial way. 

https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2020-03-06/blue-islands-and-aurigny-take-over-flybe-s-former-routes/

if only we had their leaders.

Edited March 8, 2020 by WTF

[thesultanofsheight]

1 minute ago, WTF said:

if only we had their leaders.

Well I’m sure owning your own airline helps in Guernsey’s case! But it looks like Blue Islands just flipped out of its Flybe contract into a commercial service in its own right on the same routes in a matter of days. Logan Air has come in on Jersey routes too. No doubt some financial underwriting was put in place to give them assurances but looks like things pretty much have flipped over already. 

[Andy Onchan]

23 minutes ago, thesultanofsheight said:

You can still have open skies and sensible policy. I see Blue Islands and Aurigny have already taken over a load of Flybe routes in a matter of days. I suppose that is a real contingency plan sorted out in a very commercial way. 

https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2020-03-06/blue-islands-and-aurigny-take-over-flybe-s-former-routes/

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2020/03/06/flybe-collapse-blue-islands-to-rescue-jerseys-birmingham-and-exeter-routes/

But Blue Islands are based in CIs. Which is just as well... as that kinda reinforces the need for an Island based operator! 

[thesultanofsheight]

11 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

But Blue Islands are based in CIs. Which is just as well... as that kinda reinforces the need for an Island based operator! 

Yes but sadly every small operator we’ve had here has been a complete shitehouse operator like Manx2 or Euromanx. Blue Islands is a proper airline owned by a proper tax capper who lives in Guernsey who gets its strategic value to the Channel Islands which is why this sort of thing seems to work properly down there. 

[Andy Onchan]

1 minute ago, thesultanofsheight said:

Yes but sadly every small operator we’ve had here has been a complete shitehouse operator like Manx2 or Euromanx. Blue Islands is a proper airline owned by a proper tax capper who lives in Guernsey who gets its strategic value to the Channel Islands which is why this sort of thing seems to work properly down there. 

But they've been hounded by the equivalent of the CIs monopolies for partnering with FlyBe........

[thesultanofsheight]

2 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

But they've been hounded by the equivalent of the CIs monopolies for partnering with FlyBe........

I think a lot of that was window dressing. It is good to see what a contingency plan looks like though. Shame we don’t seem to have one. 

[Andy Onchan]

2 minutes ago, thesultanofsheight said:

I think a lot of that was window dressing. It is good to see what a contingency plan looks like though. Shame we don’t seem to have one. 

Window dressing or not, the CIs governments will be heaving a sigh of relief that they have a CI's based operator. My question is, why would your own government want to shag you for providing a service to the community, even if it is in partnership with another??

[madmanxpilot]

1 hour ago, thesultanofsheight said:

You can still have open skies and sensible policy. I see Blue Islands and Aurigny have already taken over a load of Flybe routes in a matter of days. I suppose that is a real contingency plan sorted out in a very commercial way. 

https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2020-03-06/blue-islands-and-aurigny-take-over-flybe-s-former-routes/

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2020/03/06/flybe-collapse-blue-islands-to-rescue-jerseys-birmingham-and-exeter-routes/

But thats why Aurigny were losing money - until now perhaps anyway as they have become the sole operator on certain routes. If Aurigny were not state owned, they would have gone bust ages ago, and then where would Guernsey have been? ...in a similar desperate position that we find ourselves in. You really can't have your cake and eat it with this - you either have guaranteed air links over which you have total control or take your chances and leave it to the whims of the market and competition. Our air links are so vital, we really should look at whether we can afford the idealistic situation of allowing them to be subject to the performance of competing third parties.

Edited March 8, 2020 by madmanxpilot
typos

[thesultanofsheight]

7 minutes ago, madmanxpilot said:

But thats why Aurigny were losing money - until now perhaps anyway as they have become the sole operator on certain routes. If Aurigny were not state owned, they would have gone bust ages ago, and then where would Guernsey have been? ...in a similar desperate position that we find ourselves in. You really can't have your cake and eat it with this - you either have guaranteed air links over which you have total control or take your chances and leave it to the whims of the market and competition. Our air links are so vital, we really should look at whether we can afford the idealistic situation of allowing them to be subject to the performance of competing third parties.

Yes I’m not sure that I’m disagreeing with either you or Andy Onchan. These are strategic routes and personally I’d rather have seen us buy an airline than the SPC. Aurigny loses money but to be honest it’s usually around a couple of million a year I think so far less than we piss down the drain on bloody steam chuff chuffs, buses and horse trams. It’s a matter of priorities. Ours seem to be to spend the cash on grandoise useless shite so that we can still pretend we have a tourist industry. There’s seems to be to invest into getting bums on seats to drive the economy. 

[WTF]

33 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

Window dressing or not, the CIs governments will be heaving a sigh of relief that they have a CI's based operator. My question is, why would your own government want to shag you for providing a service to the community, even if it is in partnership with another??

cos they own the ferry company now ?

[John Wright]

1 hour ago, WTF said:

if only we had their leaders.

It’s nothing to do with leadership.

Its all to do with two CI companies with under-utilised assets picking up the slack.

Guernsey politicos must be breathing a huge sigh of collective relief that Aurigny may just staunch the spiralling losses.