New Flybe expected to take off in spring '22

Sunday 05 December 2021

Flybe is hoping to launch in spring 2022 and recently took delivery of a new aircraft to help it take off again.

The Flybe brand was bought last year for a nominal sum by global private equity firm Cyrus Capital in the first rescue of an insolvent British airline.

The previous version of Flybe – which was founded in the late 1970s as Jersey European Airways – collapsed in March last year as one of the earliest casualties of the pandemic. 

Plans to resurrect the airline appear to have been making rapid progress recently. 

Pictured: The original Flybe collapsed early last year.

Early last month, it appointed a new Chief Executive, Dave Pflieger (pictured top), an experienced aviation executive who was most recently Chief of Alaska’s largest regional airline and previously led the turnaround and rebranding of national carrier Fiji Airways.

Weeks later, it announced a new headquarters in Birmingham with the promise of 200 jobs. 

Flying into that new base last Friday was Flybe’s first aircraft – a De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400 turboprop. Mr Pflieger said the airline plans to operate with a fleet of 32 Dash 8400 aircraft as they “can complete short journeys almost as quickly as a regional jet, but with lower CO2 emissions".

This week, aviation trade media reported that Flybe 2.0 was expected to launch in March 2022 and that it had appointed Assured Aviation Services as its ground handling firm.

With many of its previous routes now being operated by other airlines, including Loganair, easyJet and Eastern Airways, its future offering - and particularly whether it will include the Channel Islands - remains unclear.

Pictured: It is not yet clear whether the Channel Islands will be included in Flybe's route network, but the airline is expected to announce more detail about its plans within weeks. 

However, UK Aviation News reported: “Flybe is understood to be targeting several key UK connections between the north and south of the UK but regional flying is not the profitable area so they are also looking to key cities around Europe which for the previous incarnation of Flybe included a strong focus on France and Germany.

“It is expected that the airline will officially announce its plans early in 2022 with ticket sales expected to commence shortly afterwards.”