Why you shouldn’t be concerned about booking with Flybe, despite press speculation

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• Dale says:

  17 Nov17 November 09:51

  Flybe are the crappiest airline. Do they still insist on passport or driving licence ID to trvale domestically??

  • Shoestring says:

    17 Nov17 November 10:48

    Your juxtaposition of the 2 statements makes it appear as if you thinking requiring photo ID (you incorrectly say this means passport/ DL) is one of the things that makes Flybe crap. Actually their ID requirements for domestic flights are very flexible and perfectly reasonable, if the starting point is valid – ie that proving ID & matching it to boarding pass before flying is a sensible thing.

    For example, a NUS card or council bus pass are both allowed. Both extremely easy to obtain. There are many other possibles such as a Young Scot card or university/ college card.

    I would hold that the opposite to your contention is true: ie that a crap airline would be one that *doesn’t* have proper ID requirements in force.

    • Alex Sm says:

      17 Nov17 November 18:41

      Also, the initial premise is very wrong. There’s nothing unusual in asking to provide ID for travel for security reasons nowadays when terrorism is so widespread and so many British people go to fight in Syria and god knows where else…

    • Nick says:

      17 Nov17 November 20:04

      😂😂
      BA doesn’t require identification for domestic flights unless checking in baggage.
      I don’t see why they need to, given that we’re all screened to the same standard on entering the airside area. But I guess you can draw your own conclusions from your statement and this 😂

      • Shoestring says:

        17 Nov17 November 20:09

        Ultimately it’s a flying bus

• Doug M says:

  17 Nov17 November 10:31

  OT. With the Black Friday sales arriving. I had an Amex offer of 6% on £50+ at Morrison’s. They sell Amazon gift cards. Nice saving if you’re planning to spend a few hundred.

  • Mark2 says:

    17 Nov17 November 11:54

    or effectively 25% at Wilko and Superdrug and 33% at WH Smith

  • Craig says:

    17 Nov17 November 14:05

    Do Wilko sell Amazon vouchers in store? If so does anyone know what denominations? Ta.

    • Shoestring says:

      17 Nov17 November 16:22

      £50

    • Anna says:

      17 Nov17 November 16:25

      Yes, all sorts of gift cards including Amazon. I’ve just been in this afternoon and spent my 2nd out of 3 x £10 off £40 spends on Sabatier knives!

    • will says:

      18 Nov18 November 23:07

      You can actually specify a denomination if you go to the till, however it’s cash only for big amounts. YMMV

  • Doug M says:

    17 Nov17 November 19:55

    But those are x on y, not % with no limit. They depend on having many cards, and the offers on those many cards.

    • Shoestring says:

      17 Nov17 November 20:03

      Nothing wrong with 6% off on ‘unlimited’ – but surely your Amazon spend is finite. By using these offers from time to time and the Tesco MOCs (plus Morrisons Amazon deal if it gets repeated!), I’m running on nearly 13% off on Amazon spend, with £1K in the bank. Too much but got carried away.

      • Doug M says:

        18 Nov18 November 08:57

        Circumstances different for each of us. I’d been waiting for a Prime day or Black Friday type thing to get a few hundreds worth of security cameras and couple of echo’s and bits and bobs. Also some work spend where the 6% is mine for free so to speak. The Smiths and Wilko offers were nice, but the Morrison’s one easier in my circumstances. I don’t use Tesco, just a me thing.

• James A says:

  17 Nov17 November 10:44

  I’ll keep booking and keep supporting an important airline for regional connectivity.

  All the FlyBe flights I took recently had good loads, let’s hope they can continue on the path to recovery.

• LewisB says:

  17 Nov17 November 10:50

  Great article. I use Flybe a few times a year, not because of choice but because it’s the only choice from CWL. Approx 80% of the flights out of Exeter and Southampton on Wednesday were Flybe. Approx 50% from Cardiff were Flybe. This would be a massive blow to regional airports. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Scottish and Welsh governments tried to step in and attempt to safeguard their routes from any potential takeovers.

  • Shoestring says:

    17 Nov17 November 10:56

    I’d be massively surprised if they tried that, what possible justification could they have for trying to stop a takeover of Flybe?

    • LewisB says:

      17 Nov17 November 11:00

      Apologies, I didn’t mean to stop a takeover, more to safeguard their routes if there were to be a takeover.

• Chris L says:

  17 Nov17 November 11:02

  When I book with Flybe it tends to be when there is no alternative and tends to be for business, so I won’t be afraid to book them when it’s not my money. However, as a consumer I’m a bit fed up with their service failings. My last few flights with them go as follows:
  MXP-BHX 2:53 hrs late
  BHX-JER 3:00 hrs late
  JER-BHX 1:25 hrs late

  Rob, I totally ageee that Flybe is a vital part of doing business in the UK when you’re not based in London. I think Flybe going bust would be so damaging to the UK economy that it won’t be allowed to happen. I probably will avoid booking with them for leisure in future as I’m not that far from LHR and I tend to travel on Avios.

  • Simon says:

    17 Nov17 November 12:19

    I think you’re confusing some things there.
    The thing that would be damaging to the economy would be the loss of routes, not Flybe itself.

    I think Flybe has over-extended itself – no doubt there are some important routes which give vital air-links, but then again it’s apparent from their results that there are a lot of routes which simply don’t make enough money to be viable.

    If Flybe disappeared tomorrow I think the impact would be modest. The routes deemed the most important by the authorities (ie the ones that have a public subsidy on) would be snapped up by other airlines. The rest, either nobody would miss at all, or would simply be too unprofitable to operate.

    I do think Rob is being quite bold in putting his stall out like this. Many profitable companies can go to the wall, simply because they run out of cash flow. Flybe sold a property at Exeter and are renting it back for £500k p/a – not really the actions of a company flush with cash. The share price seems to be pricing in failure, or perhaps an equity raise that sees holders diluted out.

    The company have not sought at all to reassure the market of the positives (ie profitability, asset backing) which I regard as slightly suspicious. It seems inevitable that forward bookings would be impacted to a degree. Take an example from Southampton – a family might well choose to go to LGW and pay their £1,000 for summer holiday flights rather than risk Flybe not being around to do it.

    I hold Flybe shares but I regard it almost a casino situation, either you will get multiple times your return or you will lose it all.

    • Chris L says:

      17 Nov17 November 14:37

      Yes I agree the routes are the key, and if Flybe went under some of these would continue, but it would be hugely disruptive and there are many key routes which aren’t subsidised which connect major cities such as those from Manchester, Southampton and Birmingham. As you allude to, it annoys me when they claim to have routes with no competition – there’s ALWAYS competition because people don’t live at airports. In my own case, I often travel from my home in Cheltenham to visit family in Edinburgh. One of the ways to do this is fly from Birmingham. Flybe thinks there’s no competition on this route because no one else flies BHX-EDI, but I’ve also got the option to fly from Bristol with EasyJet, BA from LHR, getting the train or driving. Flybe used to be the guaranteed quickest option, but recently it’s rare not to be delayed.

      • David says:

        17 Nov17 November 15:15

        I’ve flown MAN-INV around 1,000 times. I live five miles from one and work ten miles from the other.
        Any advice on what the alternative would be?

      • Chris L says:

        17 Nov17 November 15:52

        If you were time rich and cash poor and you could make a significant saving by driving to Aberdeen to fly or taking the train you might consider it.

      • Shoestring says:

        17 Nov17 November 16:26

        @David – you’re going to have to move house or work from home or get another job, as I see it 🙂

        @Raffles – any news on that VR then?

  • Keith says:

    18 Nov18 November 02:15

    David: live closer to where you work? Or work closer to where you live?

• Jon says:

  17 Nov17 November 11:42

  A reasonable article but focus is on completely the wrong metric.

  Profits, debts, EBITDA, all useful metrics to some degree about future investment returns. All highly variable in terms of accounting interpretation. All largely irrelevant to whether a business goes bust, believe it or not. EBITDA tells you something about underlying trading, but interest and tax are two of the largest costs to a business – a metric that ignores them tells you pretty much nothing about survival prospects.

  A few businesses go under because they breach banking covenants and lenders pull the plug, or other technical or regulatory issues, but most businesses go bust because they run out of cash, plain and simple. They cannot pay bills and wages due right now. They are insolvent. A “profitable” business can most certainly find itself in this position, and many do.

  Cash is also a figure that is much more difficult to massage or obscure. If you want to assess the imminent risk to a business look at their cash flow and cash position; and the changes in the last few months/years. Have a look at FlyBe’s cash position and how it has changed over the last 2-3 years. THIS is their big problem, and why they are in crisis sale mode with a pittance of a share price and a severe threat to their existence. When what little money is left runs out….

  • insider says:

    17 Nov17 November 12:17

    I agree, there is a reason that Flybe are desperate to sell, they need cash. As the post above says, look at the trend of their cash. How much did they lose last winter? Roll that forward to this winter with higher fuel prices = problems.

    I just can’t see a way out for them, they will not survive the winter without an equity injection. I would still book on them, for a flight next week, but maybe not into the new year.

• Simon says:

  17 Nov17 November 12:19

  I think you’re confusing some things there.
  The thing that would be damaging to the economy would be the loss of routes, not Flybe itself.

  I think Flybe has over-extended itself – no doubt there are some important routes which give vital air-links, but then again it’s apparent from their results that there are a lot of routes which simply don’t make enough money to be viable.

  If Flybe disappeared tomorrow I think the impact would be modest. The routes deemed the most important by the authorities (ie the ones that have a public subsidy on) would be snapped up by other airlines. The rest, either nobody would miss at all, or would simply be too unprofitable to operate.

  I do think Rob is being quite bold in putting his stall out like this. Many profitable companies can go to the wall, simply because they run out of cash flow. Flybe sold a property at Exeter and are renting it back for £500k p/a – not really the actions of a company flush with cash. The share price seems to be pricing in failure, or perhaps an equity raise that sees holders diluted out.

  The company have not sought at all to reassure the market of the positives (ie profitability, asset backing) which I regard as slightly suspicious. It seems inevitable that forward bookings would be impacted to a degree. Take an example from Southampton – a family might well choose to go to LGW and pay their £1,000 for summer holiday flights rather than risk Flybe not being around to do it.

  I hold Flybe shares but I regard it almost a casino situation, either you will get multiple times your return or you will lose it all.

• Craig says:

  17 Nov17 November 12:53

  There’s also the small detail of actually getting to your destination. Getting there on time is a miracle. #flymaybe

  • Andy says:

    17 Nov17 November 14:08

    This is the biggest reason I no longer use FlyBe – just can’t be sure the plane will leave of arrive ontime.

    From the number of complaints I see on Twitter and elsewhere got to wonder how much they’re paying out in EU261 compensation

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