Flybe pledges future to Birmingham after decision to quit Gatwick

LOW cost airline Flybe has pledged to continue operating services out of Birmingham and Manchester after it announced it is to quit Gatwick Airport from next year because of high service costs.

Flybe said it had reached a conditional agreement to transfer its 25 pairs of arrival and departure slots at Gatwick to easyJet for £20m. Flybe currently operates seven routes into and from Gatwick but this will end next summer. In the year to March 31, 2013, Flybe flew 550,000 passengers on routes departing from Gatwick.
 
The airline said it had taken the decision to quit Gatwick as part of its turnaround plan, which aims to return the business to profit as soon as possible. The action plan, which includes 300 redundancies across the company, has so far delivered £30m of cost savings in 2013/14 against a target of £25m.

Jim French, Flybe’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said: “Flybe has exceeded its target of taking out £25m from its cost base during 2013-14 and will deliver £30m in savings in this current financial year.  I am therefore confident that we will deliver the additional initiatives we have announced today.
 
“In the last few months we have streamlined the business, reducing headcount by more than 20%. We have also made major progress in reducing the cost of our supplier base.

“Flybe will carry on offering more than 150 routes on our extensive regional network. The connectivity we provide for our seven million passengers through major international airports like Manchester, Southampton, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Paris also mean that that hundreds of international connections will still be available.
 
“Gatwick airport may not want those connecting passengers, but others do. We will work with our airports to ensure the UK’s regional passengers don’t get left in the cold. I reiterate that no other services from any of the seven airports will be affected and the funds generated by the sale of our Gatwick slots will be reinvested in the remaining 159 Flybe routes.”

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