Brought down by coronavirus? Well, hardly. Chronic mismanagement and greedy owners, more like. Covid-19 might have dealt the final blow to Flybe. But it’ll be no consolation to the airline’s 2,400 staff that its minted shareholders had the financial fuel to keep it flying.

Alistair Osborne  www.thetimes.co.uk

They just didn’t want to put any money in. And, in a sense, who can blame them: an ownership trio starring Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic and the UK-listed Stobart, each with 30 per cent, plus New York hedge fund Cyrus Capital, the holder of the rest. But to let the carrier keel over just a year after they bought it? Call it an unlucky takeover if you like. But cynical would be a better word.

They knew Flybe was a financial black hole with wings: floated at 290p a share in 2010, bought in February last year for just 1p a share, or £2.8 million. And, even during the bid, the acquiring trio showed their colours. For months, they messed around Flybe’s management with mooted offers as separate bidders. Then, with the airline running out of cash, they joined forces, cut the price by more than nine-tenths and made a take-it-or-leave-it rescue bid. When Flybe’s furious shareholders protested, they dodged round them and re-cut the deal to buy the assets out of the holding company. Nice work.

Still, all of that might have been forgiven if they’d made any effort to deliver on their promise to “provide a strong foundation to secure the long-term future of Flybe”. They pledged to “deliver more choice to customers”, rebranding Flybe “under the Virgin Atlantic brand” and incorporating its feeder services into Virgin’s “extensive long-haul network”. And they claim to have invested “more than £135 million”.

Reality tells a different story. As Stobart admitted, once Flybe had failed, the cash hit on its investment was just £7 million. The rest of its contribution was its fledgling airline Stobart Air and its aircraft leasing wing, ludicrously valued at £43.3 million — or about five times what they’re worth. The owners have routinely failed to admit how much cash actually went in.

In fact, each investor had different reasons for buying Flybe. Stobart wanted an outrageous price for its aviation assets and more traffic through its Southend airport: one reason it was about to add Flybe flights to Jersey and Belfast, even though the airline flew the same services from London City. Virgin’s chief interest was nine pairs of lucrative slots at Heathrow — scandalously switching the taxpayer-subsidised Newquay service to Gatwick to free up four of the slots. And Cyrus wanted a quick flip — even if no windfall to match the $1.4 billion it shared with Branson from selling Virgin America.

All wanted as little financial risk as possible, underlined by them instantly taking charges over Flybe’s assets — or at least those that couldn’t fly off. Lessors had security over most of the 67 turboprops, but anything unencumbered was divvied up. Companies House filings show that “clear and distinctive” labels were affixed to all kit valued “in excess of £10,000”.

Nowhere was there a viable business plan, requiring cost and route cuts. Or the promised rebranding that involved hard cash. No wonder credit card companies held back £50 million of passenger fares. Who’d release money to this business?

And then, when cashing in on Flybe turned out to be trickier than thought, the owners demanded a taxpayer bailout — pretty demeaning for the Necker island knight, apparently worth £4 billion. Or Virgin Atlantic’s co-owner Delta Air Lines, valued at $30 billion. Or Cyrus boss, Stephen Freidheim, managing $4 billion of funds and the owner of a Manhattan penthouse.

Yes, they persuaded ministers to give them a £10 million holiday on air passenger duty. But a £100 million soft loan when they’d patently failed to invest enough themselves or produce the promised turnaround plan? No big surprise new chancellor Rishi Sunak saw through that. As British Airways-owner IAG put it: if Flybe’s “wealthy shareholders didn’t wish to fund its survival, it would have been preposterous for the government to do so”. You don’t need coronavirus to tell you that.