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Flybe recruiting for a base in ‘the Midlands’

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If you thought that the relaunch of Flybe had fallen through when it was forced to hand back its Heathrow slots, you were wrong.

According to an ad posted on LinkedIn, the airline is recruiting for ‘numerous roles based in the Midlands’.

Despite being based in Exeter, Flybe had its largest bases at Birmingham and Manchester before it collapsed. The ad implies that Birmingham will be the home of the revived airline.

As we covered multiple times on Head for Points, virtually all of Flybe’s UK domestic routes have now been picked up by Loganair, Eastern, Blue Islands, Aurigny and BA CityFlyer. Wizz Air is even starting UK domestic flights next month.

What have NOT been picked up, due to the pandemic, were Flybe’s routes from the UK to smaller European cities. Flybe used to serve cities such as Berlin, Hamburg and Milan from Birmingham. Unless BA CityFlyer comes in, it is difficult to see anyone else picking up these routes.

The only risk for ‘new Flybe’ is that because Birmingham can handle larger aircraft – unlike, say, Southampton Airport – any routes which become too successful will become a target for easyJet et al.

Comments (24)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Blenz101 says:

    Five Palm Jumeriah being the rather notorious party hotel that the Daily Mail enjoying printing so many photos on last winter and no doubt played a part in getting the UAE on the red list.

    All the beaches at West Beach do carve out a section of private access with loungers etc. This is how Four Seasons, Five, Dukes already operate and there is also a large Hilton and Marriott opening later this summer.

    Another advantage of West Beach over say JBR is that the whole beach is private and licensed so the private beaches all have a bar.

    • blenz101 says:

      *Fairmont, not Four Seasons before someone corrects me.

    • BP says:

      This isn’t going to be a relaxing space that’s for sure. Noise all day and late into the night. The worst of the influencer crowd and the wannabes.

  • Andrew says:

    Could it not be East Midlands airport they are referring to rather than Birmingham?

  • Adam says:

    The image looks like the existing Kokobay beach restaurant, wonder if that will become part of the. IHG estate.

    • southlondonphil says:

      There is a gap between the new Hilton & Marriott and the Fairmont that is mostly small apartment blocks and the new Voco looks like it will be right behind Koko Bay. It’s possible this started out as the Byblos Palm Jumeirah, as the same real-estate company (ASRE) and a suspiciously similar room count (144) appears in references from as far back as 2014 for a proposed hotel in the same development block.

      • Rob says:

        Sounds about right. The developer press release ‘it is an easy conversion’ so clearly almost finished but will now be tweaked.

  • Chris L says:

    It will be interesting to see what form a new ‘Flybe’ takes and how close it will be to the original ‘Flybe’. It sounds like the only real asset left is the Flybe brand…which I can’t imagine holds a huge amount of weight. Perhaps it’s better than starting something completely new from scratch, but there will be a big reputation repair project to undertake.
    The Birmingham Flybe offering seemed to appear to business travellers and the VFF (visiting family and friends) market. With demand for business travel still hugely suppressed, will the new Flybe need to focus more on general leisure/holiday travel? If so, the former model of small aircraft and high frequencies might not be viable.

    • Richie says:

      When your brand has a well known nickname, flymaybe, its asset value really is reduced.

    • ADS says:

      It will also be interesting to see whether new FlyBE uses the same purple colouring (as used in this advert) !

      Despite living in London, I used the airline’s BHX routes quite often (only slightly longer train journey than getting to Stansted or Luton), and FlyBE liked to emphasise the Cadbury sponsorship when flying out of Birmingham

  • Marko says:

    What is the Marriott Autograph hotel at La Mer? Not aware that there is one

  • Andrew says:

    Are BA still trying to offload the domestic slots?

    Be good to have W!zzAir give it a try between EDI&LHR.

    • Nick says:

      No one could/would operate EDILHR without connecting feed on somewhere. Wizz can’t take this as they’re not an IATA airline and don’t follow their ticketing standards, so have no way of accounting for connecting passengers.

  • JohnT says:

    Enjoyed a lovely day at Wimbledon yesterday. First stop Amex lounge at 10.30, & couple in front using Amex BA cards so obviously asked if HfP fans – of course! – so fun half hour discussing favourite Avios tips and trips.

  • Craig W says:

    Hi all – does anyone know the sort of price point we are talking about for the Wimbledon tickets that get released? Looks like they are released everyday so might give it a go tomorrow if not excruciatingly expensive! Thanks

    • Rob says:

      £90 Centre, £80 No1 for today

    • Zoe says:

      Both Centre Court and Number 1 are now available for tomorrow £80 I think. You can take your own food & drink to cut down on costs. Cool bag and pop into M&S Food by Southfields station.

      • Zoe says:

        This is the ones you access after making an account at my Wimbledon, not the Amex ones.

        • Rob says:

          Not sure what the Amex pricing is – never actually seen them although I know many readers have bought them.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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