Flybe

Anyone who stood at a British regional airport in the 2000s and 2010s could hardly miss Flybe: the purple Dash 8 Q400 was a constant presence from Exeter to Inverness and from Belfast to Southampton. Flybe connected small towns that otherwise had hardly any flights – making it the hometown airline for many spotters. The brand went under twice, in 2020 and again in 2023. Here you can read how a Channel Islands airline became Europe’s largest regional airline, which types it flew and how to recognize it in photos.

Flybe at a glance

Flybe was a British regional airline headquartered in Exeter in the southwest of England. Its roots lie on the Channel Island of Jersey: on November 1, 1979, Jersey European Airways was formed there when the passenger divisions of Intra Airways and Express Air Services were merged. In 1983, Jack Walker’s Walker Steel Group took over the company, and in 1985 the headquarters moved to Exeter.

In 2000, Jersey European became British European, and on July 18, 2002, it finally became Flybe. The model stayed essentially the same: point-to-point flights between British regional airports, plus connections to Ireland, France, the Netherlands and Germany. Instead of big hubs, Flybe served many smaller airports – and became one of the most important airlines in British domestic traffic. In January 2020, Flybe accounted for around 36 percent of all domestic flights in the United Kingdom. How such airlines are positioned across Europe is explained in the article Regional airlines in Europe.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code BE: appeared in flight numbers, on boarding passes and on departure boards.
• ICAO code BEE: appeared in air traffic control flight plans and on trackers.
• Callsign JERSEY: this is how crews identified themselves on the radio.

The callsign is a nice trace of history: although the airline had been called Flybe since 2002, it stayed with “JERSEY” – a leftover from Jersey European. The relaunched Flybe also took over the old codes in 2022. How the two code systems are structured is explained in the article on IATA and ICAO codes, and you can find more unusual radio names under Airline callsigns and their history.

The history in stages

From the Channel Islands to Exeter

The first years were modest: Jersey European started with Douglas DC-3s from the Intra Airways fleet, and turboprops such as the Fokker F27 and the Shorts 330 and 360 followed later. Under Jack Walker, the airline grew slowly. In 1985 it carried around 160,000 passengers, and by 1990 it was already around 460,000. With the route from Guernsey to London Gatwick, Jersey European reached the capital for the first time in 1991.

In 1993, the BAe 146 brought the first jet into the fleet, and in the same year the airline introduced a business class on some aircraft. From 1997, the airline also flew as a franchise for Air France from London Heathrow to Toulouse and Lyon.

The takeover of BA Connect

Flybe made its biggest leap in 2007. On November 3, 2006, British Airways announced that it would hand its regional subsidiary BA Connect over to Flybe, and operations changed hands on March 25, 2007. Among other things, Flybe received 28 Embraer ERJ 145s, six Dash 8-300s and several BAe 146s, as well as a dense network from Birmingham, Manchester and Southampton. In return, British Airways received a 15 percent stake. The routes from London City with the Avro RJ100s stayed with BA and went to BA CityFlyer. After the deal, Flybe was considered Europe’s largest regional airline.

Stock market, Finland and franchising

On December 10, 2010, the Flybe Group went public on the London Stock Exchange. In the same year, Flybe ordered 35 Embraer 175s with extensive options. In 2011, together with Finnair, Flybe took over the Finnish airline Finncomm Airlines and turned it into Flybe Nordic. The venture did not last long: in 2014 Flybe sold its stake for a symbolic euro, and the airline lives on today as Norra.

Franchise partners that flew under Flybe flight numbers were important for the network. From 2008 to 2017 that was the Scottish airline Loganair, and from September 2017 Eastern Airways. From 2014, the Irish airline Stobart Air also flew for Flybe, initially from Southend, and from 2016 the Channel Islands airline Blue Islands joined. The article Codeshare flights explains the difference between codeshare and franchise.

The fleet: Q400 and Embraer

Over the years, Flybe had a varied fleet. But two families defined the later years: the turboprops from De Havilland Canada and the E-Jets from Embraer.

Type	Seats	Period	Spotter note
Dash 8 Q400	78	2002–2020, 2022–2023	The trademark, 81 aircraft in total
Embraer 175	88	2011–2020	Eleven aircraft, nine at the first shutdown
Embraer 195	–	2006–2020	Flybe was launch customer, 14 aircraft
Embraer ERJ 145	–	from 2007	From the BA Connect fleet
BAe 146-100/-200/-300	–	until 2008	The airline’s first jet
Dash 8-200 and -300	–	2002–2008	Older Dash 8 generation
Saab 340B and Saab 2000	–	2008–2017	Smaller turboprop group
ATR 72-500 and -600	–	2014–2020	Smaller group in the network

Dash 8 Q400: the workhorse

From 2002, Flybe relied on the Dash 8 Q400, the fastest version of the Dash 8 family. In 2007, 15 more orders were added, and in 2014 Flybe agreed to lease 24 aircraft from the US airline Republic Airways, becoming the world’s largest Q400 operator. In total, 81 Q400s flew for Flybe. When it collapsed in March 2020, 54 aircraft were parked; the Canadian company Conair bought eleven of them in January 2021 to convert them into firefighting aircraft. The Q400 originally comes from Bombardier, and today De Havilland Canada looks after the program. Other major Q400 operators past and present include Porter Airlines and WestJet Encore.

The E-Jets

In June 2005, Flybe ordered 14 Embraer 195s, becoming the launch customer of the largest member of the first E-Jet generation; the first aircraft arrived in September 2006. The slightly smaller Embraer 175 followed from 2011. In 2018, Flybe announced that it would shrink its jet fleet, and the last E195 went back to its lessor on February 24, 2020 – just days before the end. The article How to tell Embraer E-Jets apart shows how to tell the E175 and E195 apart. The manufacturer of both types is Embraer.

Bases and network

At its core, Flybe was an airline of the British provinces. The most important locations of the first company:

• Exeter: the airline’s headquarters and home of the maintenance subsidiary Flybe Aviation Services.
• Birmingham: the largest British base, strengthened by the BA Connect legacy.
• Manchester: the second major base in the north.
• Other focal points: Southampton, Belfast City, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Newquay, Jersey and the Isle of Man.

From October 27, 2014, Flybe also flew from London City Airport. It had sold its Gatwick slots to easyJet in 2013 for 20 million pounds. From February 2017, Flybe also ran a small base in Düsseldorf. If you visit the airports today, you’ll find tips in the guides to Manchester and Düsseldorf.

How to recognize Flybe

You won’t run into Flybe in person anymore. On old photos, these features help you:

• Type: a Dash 8 Q400 is the clearest clue, and on longer routes an Embraer 175 or 195.
• Livery: purple dominated from 2014, and in September 2018 the look was simplified: purple and white stayed, and lilac replaced the earlier reds and yellows. How airlines change their design is described in the article When airlines change their design.
• Registration: British G- prefix, on some Q400s in sequences like G-JECP. Read more in the article on British G- registrations.
• Place and time: British regional airports between 2002 and March 2020, or Birmingham and Belfast City between April 2022 and January 2023.

To tell Dash 8, ATR and Saab apart, the article How to tell turboprops apart helps. And if you want to photograph the Q400 sharp with propeller motion, you’ll find tips under Photographing propellers.

The collapse in March 2020

Flybe was already posting losses again and again in the 2010s, for example a loss of 48.5 million pounds in fiscal year 2016/17. In autumn 2018 the share price plunged and the group was put up for sale. In February 2019, the Connect Airways consortium with Virgin Atlantic and Stobart Aviation took over the airline. A renaming to “Virgin Connect” was planned – but it never happened.

In early 2020, owners and government negotiated over tax deferrals, a review of the air passenger duty on domestic flights and a possible loan of around 100 million pounds. The loan never came through, and the COVID-19 pandemic made bookings collapse. On March 5, 2020, Flybe went into administration. The article Major airline collapses in Europe gives an overview of other cases.

The 2022 relaunch and the second end

In October 2020, it became known that the newly founded company Thyme Opco, linked to the financial investor Cyrus Capital, wanted to buy the brand and relaunch the airline. The new Flybe Limited received an operating license in 2021 and chose Birmingham as its headquarters and first base. On April 13, 2022, the first flight took off from Birmingham to Belfast. The fleet consisted only of Dash 8 Q400s – eight or nine aircraft depending on the source – and the second base was Belfast City. Flybe had also been granted slots at London Heathrow for connections to Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

The plan was ambitious, the result sobering. On January 28, 2023, the new Flybe also went into administration and immediately stopped all flights. Around 75,000 passengers were affected by cancellations, and of 321 employees, 277 lost their jobs. The Heathrow slots reverted to British Airways.

Traces of Flybe today

Common mix-ups

• Equating Flybe and BA Connect – BA Connect was the regional division of British Airways that Flybe took over in 2007.
• Thinking the callsign is FLYBE – on the radio, the airline was “JERSEY”.
• Counting franchise flights as part of its own fleet – Loganair, Eastern Airways, Stobart Air and Blue Islands flew only under Flybe flight numbers.
• Mixing up the two companies – the first Flybe was based in Exeter, the second in Birmingham; there was a two-year pause in between.
• Taking Flybe Nordic for the British Flybe – the Finnish subsidiary was a separate company and is now called Norra.

Conclusion

For a good two decades, Flybe was the backbone of British regional traffic. The small Jersey European became Europe’s largest regional airline and the world’s largest operator of the Dash 8 Q400 through the takeover of BA Connect. Lasting losses, a failed rescue and the pandemic ended the first company in 2020, and the relaunch from Birmingham did not even last a year. But the purple Q400 lives on in photos from Exeter, Southampton, Birmingham or Belfast City.