Failure of Flybe rescue talks hits Belfast jobs
Month All Flybe Last Second Ceased With Three For Cancelled Flights Trading Time The In Years,
Regional airline Flybe will start a winding down process after talks over a rescue sale of its business collapsed, the company's joint administrators have said.
The company last month ceased trading for the second time in three years, with all flights cancelled and 276 workers affected.
The wind down of the operator, which scheduled services from Belfast, Birmingham, and Heathrow to across the UK and to Amsterdam and Geneva, is expected to impact 25 more jobs, Interpath Advisory said in a statement.
"Despite significant interest from a number of credible parties, it has not been possible to develop a transaction in the available timeframe," the administrators said.
Earlier this month, Germany's Lufthansa was and Air France-KLM were reportedly interested in Flybe's take-off and landing slots.
Hurt by the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, Flybe first fell into administration in March 2020, hitting 2,400 jobs.
In October 2020, it was sold to Thyme Opco, a firm controlled by Cyrus Capital, and in April 2022 it resumed flights on a smaller scale, before going into administration again in December.
Part of the problem with attempts at a rescue sale was the complexity around 'use it or lose it' rules related to landing slots. There were also challenges with European authorities regarding a temporary operating license for the airline that would have been issued by the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority.
Meanwhile, Lufthansa flights were returning to normal flight operations on Wednesday after widespread software problems linked to damaged Deutsche Telekom broadband cables grounded hundreds of planes.
Wednesday’s disruption, caused by damage to broadband cables at a rail location in northern Frankfurt, forced Europe’s biggest airline by fleet size to ground hundreds of flights worldwide.
Lufthansa’s global flight operations centre is located on the outskirts of Frankfurt’s airport, so damage to the communications links there ripple through Lufthansa ground IT systems across the world.
Still, more travel disruption is around the corner. Ground staff at Lufthansa’s Frankfurt and Munich hubs are planning strikes on Friday in a move that’s likely to lead to hundreds of additional flight cancellations.