Jonathan Peachey, a former chief executive of Virgin Group's North America business who is now senior advisor at Virgin Australia bidder Cyrus Capital, has told The Australian newspaper that defunct British carrier flybe. (2002) (Exeter) could reemerge.
“It’s definitely not the case that we have abandoned flybe.,” he said about the airline, which ceased operations and entered into administration on March 4.
As the coronavirus crisis was starting to impact air travel, the struggling carrier failed to raise enough capital from its owners - a consortium of Stobart Group, Virgin Atlantic, and Cyrus - or from the UK government. Since then, administrators Ernst & Young have been selling assets to pay debts while also trying to find a buyer for the company.
“We invested as part of a consortium with three shareholders. The shareholders committed over GBP100 million pounds [USD124 million] to the business,” Peachey told The Australian last week while in conversation about Cyrus' Virgin Australia bid.
“We invested everything that we had committed to invest and an additional sum in the months prior to the business going into administration as a result of the impact of Covid-19.
“We are in regular contact with the administrator, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that the business can emerge in some form from administration. There’s still a demand for regional connectivity in the UK.
“Cyrus is doing everything it can, along with the other consortium members, to ensure that a business emerges that can re-hire the many thousands of employees who were dependent on it.”
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, flybe. is currently in possession of 28 owned aircraft, specifically twenty DHC-8-Q400s, seven ERJ 170-200STDs, and one EMB-145EP.
