{"id":7809,"date":"2019-02-22T11:44:30","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T11:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/flybe-signs-virgin-deal-despite-criticism\/"},"modified":"2019-02-22T11:44:30","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T11:44:30","slug":"flybe-signs-virgin-deal-despite-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/flybe-signs-virgin-deal-despite-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Flybe signs Virgin deal despite criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"AImage copyright<\/span>
\n Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Troubled airline Flybe has agreed a deal to continue operating, despite criticism of the arrangement.<\/p>\n

Connect Airways, a consortium led by Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic, paid a total of \u00a32.8m for Flybe’s assets and operations.<\/p>\n

At least one earlier approach for Flybe was rejected.<\/p>\n

The Exeter-based regional airline put itself up for sale last November, following a profit warning<\/a> the previous month.<\/p>\n

Virgin, Stobart Air and Cyrus Capital joined forces in December to set up Connect Airways.<\/p>\n

Following the sale of the assets, Flybe Group will remain as a shell company holding cash. This operation is subject to a 1p-a-share offer by Connect, worth \u00a32.2m. <\/p>\n

Shareholders vote on this offer on 4 March. <\/p>\n

‘Lack of transparency’<\/h2>\n

In January, following Connect’s offer, Flybe took a \u00a320m secured loan from the consortium. <\/p>\n

Eric Kohn, an aviation entrepreneur, argued that the airline should have approached alternative lenders for any funding shortfall, before seeking a more favourable offer.<\/p>\n

He told the Today Programme that the deal appeared to have a “lack of transparency”.<\/p>\n

A rival bid for the airline was supported by Flybe’s second largest shareholder Andrew Tinkler.<\/p>\n

Arizona-based Mesa Air proposed an equity injection of \u00a365m at a price of about 4.5p-a-share – significantly higher than the Connect Airways offer.<\/p>\n

Mr Tinkler was dismissed as the chief executive of Stobart Group – one of the companies behind Connect Airways – last June.<\/p>\n

The dismissal was upheld as lawful by a court ruling this month, after a messy legal battle<\/a> between Mr Tinkler and Stobart.<\/p>\n

Failed strategy<\/h2>\n

Flybe fell into difficulty in 2017, after what was considered a too-aggressive expansion strategy. The company ran up a near-\u00a320m loss<\/a> in the financial year ending 31 March 2017.<\/p>\n

This January, one employee was moved to send an email accusing the firm’s directors of ruining a profitable company.<\/p>\n

The employee, a senior pilot, addressed the email to Flybe’s chief executive Christine Ourmieres-Widener.<\/p>\n

“Congratulations, in 2 years at Flybe you and your fellow incompetent cohorts have managed to totally destroy a viable airline which was making profits when you took over,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

The BBC understands that the airline has since suspended the pilot.<\/p>\n

Flybe told the BBC that “an individual was suspended on 17 January 2019 in accordance with company policy.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Getty Images Troubled airline Flybe has agreed a deal to continue operating, despite criticism of the arrangement. Connect Airways, a consortium led by Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic, paid a total of \u00a32.8m for Flybe’s assets and operations. At least one earlier approach for Flybe was rejected. The Exeter-based regional airline put itself up … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}