Airline tobe bought out by consortium
CARDIFF Airport’s biggest airline operator, Flybe, is to be bought by a consortium which includes Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlanctic.
The Exeter-based regional airline, whose routes out of Cardiff Airport carry several hundred thousand passengers a year, put itself up for sale last year after after warning over profits.
Flybe is battling challenging conditions in the airline industry and has suffered with falling demand and a £29m hit from rising fuel costs and the weak pound.
Virgin Atlantic will team up with Stobart Air, which already operates some of its flights under the Flybe name to purchase the airline. The board of Flybe has recommended the offer of 1p per share, which represents a significant markdown on the company’s Thursday closing price of 16.38p.
The consortium, which also includes Cyrus Capital Partners, will form a joint venture called Connect Airways which will combine Flybe with Stobart Airways.
It will also provide a £20m bridge loan to Flybe and £80m of further funding to the combined group.
Flybe CEO Christine Ourmieres-Widener said: “By combining to form a larger, stronger, group, we will be better-placed to withstand these pressures.
“We aim to provide an even better service to our customers and secure the future for our people.”
Flybe’s most popular routes out of Cardiff are its scheduled services to Dublin, Edinburgh, Paris and Belfast.
It has 78 planes operating from smaller airports including London City, Southampton and Norwich, and flies to destinations across the UK and Europe.
Across its services, it carries around eight million passengers a year and Virgin would look to attract customers into its long-haul network via Flybe’s domestic routes.
Trade unions have already raised concerns over the impact of a Flybe’s sale on the carrier’s 2,300 employees.