Flybe, which is owned by Virgin Atlantic, Stobart and Cyrus Capital - an American hedge fund, pointed to the coronavirus crisis as being the “final straw”, culminating in a decreased demand from passengers.

The airline’s workers are rightly devastated to lose their jobs and angered as yet another airline has gone into administration. In November 2017, Monarch entered administration and nearly 2,000 employees lost their jobs. On 23 September 2019, winding-up orders were made by the court against the Thomas Cook Group companies, which culminated in thousands more lost jobs.  

The Independent Airline Insolvency review

Following the failure of Monarch, the government commissioned an independent Airline Insolvency review. The final report was published on 9 May 2019 and one of its recommendations was the introduction of a new Special Administration Regime for airlines.

A key part of this regime is to introduce an enhanced moratorium to prevent creditors taking legal action for a 14-day period and paves the way to keep the airline’s fleet flying for a short period. As a consequence, it also creates a short period of time to explore whether there are any other viable options for the airline and enables stranded passengers to be repatriated.

The government has never published a formal response to this report and whilst the Queen’s Speech on 19 December 2019 included proposals for legalisation on airline insolvency, this came too late for Flybe.

The impact on workers

The UK economy needs a strong regional airline and airport network, but this fact will be scant consolation for those who have lost their jobs.

Workers at Flybe will rightly be left wondering whether the government is really on their side and will be seeking advice and assistance from their trade unions at this difficult time.

If there was insufficient collective consultation prior to any decision to make redundancies, then there could be viable legal claims.