The British carrier Flybe, once the biggest independent regional airline in Europe, canceled all flights on Saturday after filing for bankruptcy protection for a second time, marking what will be the final chapter for the chronically troubled company.
“We’re sad to announce that Flybe has been placed into administration,” the corporate said in a statement on its website within the early hours of Saturday morning. “Flybe has now ceased trading. All Flybe flights from and to the UK are canceled and won’t be rescheduled.”
The corporate didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment, but administrators have been appointed by Britain’s High Court to take over the corporate, the statement said. The Department for Transport, which oversees aviation policy in the UK, also didn’t immediately respond.
Flybe, which at one point dominated the U.K. domestic flight market, had only restarted in April 2022 after becoming certainly one of the primary large-scale corporate casualties of the coronavirus outbreak. Like much of the worldwide aviation industry, the airline was hit hard when travel plummeted and filed for bankruptcy in March 2020 with the lack of 2,400 jobs.
The airline was rescued last yr by Thyme Opco, an organization linked to the U.S. hedge fund Cyrus Capital. It was offering service from Belfast, Ireland, and Birmingham and Heathrow to airports across the UK and to Amsterdam and Geneva.
However the sudden news on Saturday that Flybe had folded again left passengers stranded, because the airline made clear it could not have the opportunity to rearrange alternative flights. About 2,500 passengers were set to fly with the airline on Saturday, and around 75,000 passengers in total have now had their flights canceled, in keeping with figures confirmed by the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority, the country’s regulatory civil aviation body. The authority posted on its website a listing of other airlines offering Flybe customers special fares.
“It’s at all times sad to see an airline enter administration and we all know that Flybe’s decision to stop trading will likely be distressing for all of its employees and customers,” Paul Smith, the authority’s consumer director, said in a statement.
By international standards, Britain has comparably low use of economic domestic flights. In April, Britain’s government is ready to introduce long-awaited cuts to the taxes imposed on domestic flight carriers in a bid to enhance national connectivity. The move, which has been welcomed by the industry, is a component of the federal government’s “leveling up” agenda — a policy that seeks to even out disparities between England’s economically disadvantaged North and its more prosperous South.
However the announcement of the tax in the reduction of in 2021, just days before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, was criticized on the time by environmental groups. Some at the moment are calling for Britain to enact a nationwide short-haul flight ban much like one which France imposed last yr. In April, France became the primary country to ban flights between cities which can be linked by a train trip of lower than 2.5 hours.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain also drew criticism from political rivals for his use of domestic flights to travel across the country. “I travel to make myself as effective as possible on your whole behalf,” Mr. Sunak responded, while chatting with a neighborhood audience within the northwest of England.
