Flybe, a British airline mainly based in Birmingham, Manchester and Exeter, has ceased operations today. At the time of its demise, the airline flew to 56 destinations (making it Europe’s biggest regional airline) and had a fleet of 63 planes, the majority of them being De Havilland Dash 8-400’s. Many people would consider the airline as the second biggest airline in the UK because of its wide range of destinations and enormous amount of routes. The airline started operations in 1979 as Jersey European Airlines, formed by the merger of Intra Airways and Express Air Services. The airline experienced a massive boom in the 90’s, the period in which it became the first airline to operate the famous Embraer E-195 regional airliner. In the year 2000, the airline renamed itself British European, to show that it was not only flying for Jersey, but also for the UK. In December 2010, the airline started to trade on the London Stock Exchange. At the beginning of 2019, the airline started to struggle financially, so it was bought by the Connect Airways consortium (see my article called “Flybe is partially saved” for more information about this consortium). Sadly, this didn’t do much to change the airline’s fate, as in February 2020, Virgin Atlantic (one of the owners of the company) announced that Connect Airways could no longer continue to fund the airline. Flybe, as I predicted in one of my previous articles, has now joined the big trash can of bankrupt airlines. A romantic, long and financially disastrous history has come to an end today. The UK’s aviation industry has suffered enough. When will it make its way back up the ranks? 5th of March 2020
Aeronews24 