Flybe has sold its 25 Gatwick slot pairs to easyJet for £20m ending 22 years of flying from the London airport. Jim French, chief executive of Flybe, stated that landing costs have increased at the airport by 100% over five years. Flybe services from London Gatwick will cease on 29 March 2014. The airline is also deferring its E175 deliveries until 2017/19.
It remains to be seen if these actions will save Flybe from continued decline however one thing is absolutely certain, these are the very best measures that Flybe could have taken and it is sure to go down well with investors.
I, along with many others, would like to see Flybe sort itself out and then move into the far superior London City airport where it should do well with the fleet it has.
And yet in all of this clueless UK politicians have raised concerns over the future of the Gatwick-Inverness route. UK Transport Minister Keith Brown said he had been in contact with Easyjet to ensure the timings on the route were kept, saying that the whole thing was “deeply worrying and I have requested an urgent meeting with Easyjet to ensure capacity is maintained”. Well we are very surprised at Mr Brown’s concern given that he was totally silent over the introduction and increase in UK Air Passenger Duty and that to date he along with UK government colleges have shown nothing but contempt for the aviation sector – I would expect both EasyJet and Flybe to jump all over the UK transport minister over this “concern”.
As reported here in April – Flybe sells Gatwick slots to easyjet and defers aircraft
