Two years after its closure, with the loss of more than 2,000 jobs, Flybe is due to start flying next month – starting with four planes and seven routes.
The resurrected carrier will be headquartered in Birmingham but its main base in Belfast City.
Flybe will also reinstate the London Heathrow-Leeds Bradford route, which British Airways abandoned when the coronavirus pandemic took hold in 2020. It plans to link the two cities up to three times a day.
Flybe intends to use its propeller planes in competition with existing jet services linking Heathrow with Belfast City and Amsterdam. It will only fly twice a day on each route, much less than BA.
Amsterdam will also be connected to Belfast City, Birmingham and East Midlands from the end of April.
From the summer, the company will launch French regional services: from Birmingham and Southampton to Avignon, from Birmingham to Brest in Brittany and from Southampton to Toulon Hyères. The road network will expand to 23 city pairs.
The company says, “We are journeying as a new company, taking the much-loved Flybe brand into a new era.
“Our goal: to create the best regional airline in Europe.
“Putting our customers and colleagues at the heart of everything we do, our motto is ‘smile and go the extra mile’.
“Our business is to meet the demand for faster and easier connections in a user-friendly, responsible and sustainable way.”
But observers say there is little room left for what is effectively a small new regional player – with all the viable routes already flown by airlines such as Loganair, Eastern Airways, Aer Lingus, British Airways and easyJet. .
Airline schedules analyst Sean Moulton said: “Of Flybe’s 12 planned routes from Belfast City, 11 will have direct or indirect competition between Belfast’s two airports.
“Only the city of Belfast in East Midlands is completely unserved.”
The original Flybe collapsed in 2020 after investors hoping to save the airline injected £100million without success.
The revived carrier originally planned to begin services in “early 2022”. Instead, it will miss the busy Easter holidays on all but two of its routes: from Belfast City to Birmingham and Glasgow.
Flybe’s planned route network, start dates and maximum frequency
- Belfast City-Birmingham, April 13, four times a day
- Belfast City-Glasgow, April 14 four days
- Belfast City-Leeds Bradford, April 28, three times a day
- Belfast City-London Heathrow, April 28, twice daily
- Leeds Bradford-London Heathrow, April 28, three times a day
- Amsterdam-Birmingham, April 28, daily
- Amsterdam-East Midlands, April 28, daily
- Amsterdam-Belfast, May 28, daily
- Amsterdam-London Heathrow, May 29, twice daily
- Belfast City-Edinburgh, June 23, three times a day
- Belfast City-East Midlands, July 7, twice daily
- Belfast City-Manchester, July 7, four times a day
- Birmingham-Avignon, July 9, weekly
- Birmingham-Brest, July 9, weekly
- Southampton-Avignon, July 23, weekly
- Southampton-Toulon Hyères, July 24, weekly
- Belfast City-Southampton, July 28, twice daily
- Birmingham-Edinburgh, July 28, four times a day
- Birmingham-Glasgow, July 28, three times a day
- Aberdeen-Birmingham, August 18, daily
- Aberdeen-Belfast City, August 25, four times a week
- Belfast City-Inverness, 25 August, four times a week
- Belfast City-Newcastle, 25 August, daily
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Source: www.independent.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-03-22 09:02:09
