Classic British Flight Sim

On tonight's news, Flybe has collapsed.

Yep, very sad. Trying to find something for all those Embraer jets to do really screwed them.

Loganair are going to take on some of the Scottish routes apparently and hopefully some staff. It could prove tricky for DeHavilland too as Flybe were one of their biggest fleets.

TSR2 wrote: ↑

05 Mar 2020, 14:43

Yep, very sad. Trying to find something for all those Embraer jets to do really screwed them.

It could prove tricky for DeHavilland too as Flybe were one of their biggest fleets.

When you say De Havilland, you really mean Bombardier. Something else for our government to sink taxpayers money into. The corruption there is astonishing.

The Q400 series solely belongs to De Havilland Canada now. Something else Bombardier got rid of.

Glad I don't have to rely on them to visit the UK anymore, La Rochelle was our nearest airport, & Soton our best destination, Jet 2 & EasyJet were very seasonal, operating for about 2 months in summer & RyanAir the only other option into Stansted - & who wants to go there?
Sorry to see them go, but they seemed expensive, so where did their accounting/costing go wrong? Or did their creditors come knocking because they were in trouble?
Keith

The problems go back years. The bought the Embraer jets to replace the 146’s / RJ’s but they were expensive and didn’t really have the route network for that type of aircraft all year round as the seasonal stuff was sucked up by Jet2 / Ryanair / easyJet. The Q400’s were great on the regional routes as the size / costs made them a good choice. But they couldn’t get rid of the Embraers. Nobody wants them. To be fair, the only reason they took them in the first place was BAe cancelled the RJX.

TSR2 wrote: ↑

05 Mar 2020, 23:37

The problems go back years. The bought the Embraer jets to replace the 146’s / RJ’s but they were expensive and didn’t really have the route network for that type of aircraft all year round as the seasonal stuff was sucked up by Jet2 / Ryanair / easyJet. The Q400’s were great on the regional routes as the size / costs made them a good choice. But they couldn’t get rid of the Embraers. Nobody wants them. To be fair, the only reason they took them in the first place was BAe cancelled the RJX.

BAe were forced to drop the development of the RJX by Airbus.The RJX would have been a direct competitor to the A318 (itself a commercial failure) and with BAe being a participant in Airbus production, the development of a competing aircraft was forbidden. I believe the same applied to the BAe ATP with regard to the ATR series of aircraft.

Kevin

Yes, that’s right. JE and I think it was Malmo or one of the Belgian airlines had placed firm orders for the RJX before it was cancelled. The A318 was going nowhere and the only option was the Embraer. The issue was that when they went for the Embraer they expanded their jet fleet beyond what they had with the 146’s. This put them in direct competition with EasyJet / Ryanair and then Jet2 (channel express) which nobody really saw coming. Channel Express played a blinder to be fair.

I was at BAe when the decision to scrap both the RJX and ATP programmes were taken. It didn't go down well. If I remember correctly the RJX was due to be built at Woodford, which would have secured the airfield and the many jobs there. It was a significant loss. By that time Nimrod replacement was well underway and it was assumed that the Nimrod programme would take up much of the slack, albeit temporarily, and we all know what happened to that.

I don't think the Q400's helped a lot either to be honest. I spent 3 years or so working for the company that supplied Flybe with all of its Q400 rotable components and the types reliability was shocking. The support from Bombardier wasn't much better and the OEM network simply didn't have the inventory.

The same things were failing all the time, things like engine and APU start generators required a full overhaul every 300 hours and some things like fire bottles had to be taken from the production line.
I recall saying to Bombardier on the telephone, "you do realise the worlds largest Q400 operator has an AOG aircraft and nobody has the part available? You'll need to get me one from the production line"
They had little choice but to do it.


Anyway, how individuals like Christine Ourmières-Widener get to where they are is beyond me. As somebody on another forum said (and as I witnessed having worked with them), she did nothing for CityJet, nothing for VLM and then moved on to Flybe.