Archive Flybe at Cardiff Airport

[Jerry]

Flight busy ?

Full flight! Not quite full as i just heard the cabin crew say 71 passengers onboard.

 

[Jerry]

My ride to Edinburgh after arriving at Edinburgh!
View attachment 10054View attachment 10055

 

[Sean123]

How was your day in Edinburgh Airport & return flight jerry?

 

[Jerry]

How was your day in Edinburgh Airport & return flight jerry?

The flight up was good! Airport was pretty quite when i got there and i breezed through security. Flybe were great as usual though my window seat didn't have a good alignment this time! Definitely avoiding 4D in the future! I used Easyjet and Bristol for the return and posted about it on the Bristol thread. Product wise between the 2 airlines i didn't feel there was much difference same with the price as well. Flybe though will always be my first choice as they are more local. Had a good day spotting in Edinburgh as well! It has a good variety of airlines! I've just posted the pictures on the Edinburgh forum.

 

[Jerry]

From my flight to Edinburgh from Cardiff with Flybe last Thursday

 

[Jerry]

New trip report from me. Cardiff to Edinburgh with Flybe.

 

[geoff]

Flybe has issued a profit warning this morning, resulting in a projected yearly loss of £12 million pounds, although seat revenue was up 6.8%, and load factor up 7.2%. They have taken a £29 million pound hit partly due to higher fuel prices. I wonder how this will effect the second part of their release of routed for summer 2019?

 

[Jerry]

The only effect i can see to CWL is the dropping of some European services and more concentration on routes like Edinburgh or a shift to the more traditional sun routes like PMI.
As an airline i doubt they will be willing to take risks so it will be interesting to see if CWL gets any new routes from them for 2019 or a 4th based aircraft.

I also wonder if for the airport it may now need to concentrate on attracting carriers like say Eurowings and Ryanair and Vueling to take over some of the European routes from Flybe so they can concentrate more on building up the domestic flights and near Europe flights. I'm still surprised we haven't seem Amsterdam from them yet.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The only effect i can see to CWL is the dropping of some European services and more concentration on routes like Edinburgh or a shift to the more traditional sun routes like PMI.
As an airline i doubt they will be willing to take risks so it will be interesting to see if CWL gets any new routes from them for 2019 or a 4th based aircraft.

I also wonder if for the airport it may now need to concentrate on attracting carriers like say Eurowings and Ryanair and Vueling to take over some of the European routes from Flybe so they can concentrate more on building up the domestic flights and near Europe flights. I'm still surprised we haven't seem Amsterdam from them yet.

I've posted some thoughts in the Flybe thread in the Airline Forum.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The only effect i can see to CWL is the dropping of some European services and more concentration on routes like Edinburgh or a shift to the more traditional sun routes like PMI.
As an airline i doubt they will be willing to take risks so it will be interesting to see if CWL gets any new routes from them for 2019 or a 4th based aircraft.

I also wonder if for the airport it may now need to concentrate on attracting carriers like say Eurowings and Ryanair and Vueling to take over some of the European routes from Flybe so they can concentrate more on building up the domestic flights and near Europe flights. I'm still surprised we haven't seem Amsterdam from them yet.

The Welsh Government and its airport company will be hoping desperately that Flybe can sail into calmer waters whether under the present ownership or a new one in whatever form, not least because they have invested a great deal of money into building the relationship with the airline that has been the catalyst in turning around the airport's fortunes.

I have no doubt that they speak regularly with the airlines you mention, Jerry, and others because Flybe alone, even when flourishing, would not be able to deliver the passenger numbers the airport is looking at in the future.

If the worst happened and Flybe went out of business or had to cut back its network substantially - I'm not suggesting that Flybe won't survive in one shape or another but the possibility exists with any airline - then clearly the arrival of other airlines would be even more important.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Not sure CWL can sustain more domestic routes and frequencies than it already has. EDI BHD and DUB have grown to decent frequency. GLA doesn't seem to warrant double daily and ORK doesn't seem to perform that well.
AMS should be left to KLM for now, until the figures warrant the E190 on more of the flights.
I do struggle to find where BE could go to from CWL without it being further 2hr med routes.
Maybe twice weekly to some destinations in France. Below is the routes i think might work and frequencies offered from BRS during summer.
NCE (10x weekly)
TLS (7 weekly)
BOD (up to 6 weekly peak season)

 

[Jerry]

If the worst happened and Flybe went out of business or had to cut back its network substantially - I'm not suggesting that Flybe won't survive in one shape or another but the possibility exists with any airline - then clearly the arrival of other airlines would be even more important.

The problem i see for CWL is that i do believe in a way Flybe are irreplaceable for them. I don't think there is an airline that could operate the likes of Dublin and Glasgow and Edinburgh and Belfast and Cork and Jersey and even Paris which are all key routes that provide frequency of flights from Cardiff that allow the base to be possible. I think i can be confident in saying Easyjet will never base and operate those routes, Ryanair wouldn't touch them either. The only airline i could see being a good replacement is BA Cityflyer but they are specifically for LCY and BA itself is a London airline.
As for Amsterdam it does seem a key market for them that they aren't operating from Cardiff but from a personal view KLM expanding on the route would be much better.
If they are too launch new routes then fingers crossed it's to southern France.

 

[TOM100]

NCE could work imo and poss PMI

 

[geoff]

I have noticed on several forums the continual bashing of Flybe, since they published their predicted loss of 12 million this year. Their loss last year was 19.7 million, so small improvement. given that they are slowly disposing of their E195's and reducing their fleet size, is there any chance their prospects will improve? Several contributers on one forum, which is far too abrasive for me to join, have suggested closing several of their bases. What about agreements they have in place with airports such as CWL, and DSA? CWL has expanded well with Flybe, and their loads have been increasing, although we do not know the yield. Perhaps a rich investor could help.

 

[Jerry]

Many on that forum seem to love to hate Flybe and Cardiff Airport as well!
There was another poster on there that took a different tone and said they'd be silly to cut CWL and DSA as they are part of the Blackbird deal and subsidised to a point. Also at CWL, DSA, EXT, NQY and SOU Flybe have little or no competition, whereas at bigger airports like EDI, BHX and MAN they have lots of competition and i'd hazard a guess but higher charges and costs as well, so maybe it might be wiser to focus less on them and more on the more smaller airports.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I have noticed on several forums the continual bashing of Flybe, since they published their predicted loss of 12 million this year. Their loss last year was 19.7 million, so small improvement. given that they are slowly disposing of their E195's and reducing their fleet size, is there any chance their prospects will improve? Several contributers on one forum, which is far too abrasive for me to join, have suggested closing several of their bases. What about agreements they have in place with airports such as CWL, and DSA? CWL has expanded well with Flybe, and their loads have been increasing, although we do not know the yield. Perhaps a rich investor could help.

Flybe has seen its value as a company (market capitalisation) fall by an immense amount from the 295 pence per share when it was publicly floated in 2010 to 14 pence per share, this morning's value as I type. As we know, a share price in free fall makes borrowing more difficult, and any borrowing that can be achieved is often at high rates. A continually falling share price also makes a company liable to a takeover - ironically, serious rumours of a takeover often drives the shares higher as people buy in anticipation of a profit if the takeover goes through.

If another airline sees some synergy in buying Flybe it could continue as a separate airline or be absorbed into the buyer's fleet. A buyer would usually be looking to make savings and that often includes staff reduction and a different plan of approach. A venture capital group might buy the airline, often with the intention of increasing its value in order to sell it on. Again, savings/cutbacks are often the order of the day to bring this about.

The main problem has been that Flybe hasn't seemed to know what it wants to be since its public flotation in 2010 and has had various leaders who in turn have tried different approaches. None has really worked and within them have been some serious mistakes such as the acquisition of the E195s. They managed to partially get out of gaol with agreements with CWL and DSA to in effect help fund their use - Project Blackbird - and I think another E195 might be operating on a PSO route from Newquay to London.

I would wager that the people on that forum who suggest closing some of Flybe's bases aren't aviation finance people or even finance people at all. I'm certainly not, although I do invest in shares from time to time. I would not even begin to suggest how Flybe could turn itself around. A positive aspect is that it was only a few years ago when Thomas Cook seemed to be in a worse position. They are still with us despite a 20% drop in their share price last month following a fall in sun holidays abroad resulting from the hot UK summer.

 

[Jerry]

It looks like Flybe are starting to load up the rest of Summer 2019. At the moment nothing has changed.

 

[Sean123]

Are the gaps still there jerry?

 

[Jerry]

Are the gaps still there jerry?

Yes

 

[Sean123]

Ah ok cheers buddy