Owl recalls the many, many times East Devon District Council Tories (and in particular their former Leader Paul Diviani) has used Flybe as an indicator of the district’s economic prowess … hhhhmmmm!
From today’s Sunday Times:
“As the boss of regional airline Flybe, Ourmières-Widener (her married name) is one of a handful of female airline bosses.
She has one of the toughest jobs in the industry. Flybe has been a perennial basket case, disappointing investors repeatedly in its short life as a listed company. After floating on the stock market in 2010 with a valuation of £200m, it is now worth just £90m.
In 2014, under Saad Hammad, then chief executive, it returned to investors with a begging bowl, raising £156m in a deeply discounted rights issue with a promise to build “resilience and profitable growth”. Yet its performance since then has been lacklustre at best. Flybe’s first — and only — annual profit as a listed company was £2.7m, in the year to the end of March 2016. …
Her plan is to shrink Flybe to success by cutting its fleet from a peak of 85 aircraft in May 2017 to 70 by 2020. … “
Source: Sunday Times (pay wall)
East Devon Watch 