Flybe sale completed for £2.8m

STRUGGLING airline Flybe thrashed out a deal last night to sell its business to Connect Airways, the consortium which includes Virgin and airport owner Stobart Group.

The £2.8m deal, which completed late in the evening, had been agreed earlier this month.

However Connect was waiting to gain approvals from EU competition authorities, and was negotiating with Flybe’s pension trustees.

Connect is set to take on the whole of Flybe’s pension liabilities. Since the scheme is registered in the Isle of Man, it would have fallen outside the Pension Protection Fund’s reach if Flybe had gone bust. Pensioners could have been left with nothing.

Shareholders are currently due to get just 1p per share from Connect, with many individual savers having lost thousands of pounds from their punt on Flybe.

The sale comes as it emerged a Flybe pilot who called the airline’s chief executive ‘incompetent’ has been suspended.

The unnamed pilot sent an email to staff which was read out to Christine Ourmieres-Widener on BBC Radio 4 earlier this month.

Flybe said the pilot was suspended on January 17, weeks before the email was made public, but declined to say what the pilot was suspended for.