British Airline Flybe Stops Flying, Leaving Thousands of Passengers Stranded

The London Eye, or Millennium Wheel,on the South Bank of the Thames, the most popular paid tourist attraction in the U.K.

Flybe, a British regional carrier that commenced operations in 2022 using the same name as a bankrupt airline, has “ceased trading” and canceled all scheduled flights, the company and the British Civil Aviation Authority,  the country’s regulatory civil aviation body, said on Saturday.

“We are sad to announce that Flybe has been placed into administration,” the airline said in a statement posted on social media.

“Flybe, which operated scheduled services from Belfast City, Birmingham and Heathrow to airports across the United Kingdom and to Amsterdam and Geneva, has ceased trading,” the CAA said in a statement.

“We urge passengers planning to fly with this airline not to go to the airport as all Flybe flights are canceled,” Paul Smith, the consumer director for the CAA, was quoted saying.

Canceled flights “will not be rescheduled,” the airline said.

Some 2,500 passengers were set to fly with the airline on Saturday, and approximately 75,000 passengers in total have had their flights canceled, according to figures provided by the CAA.

British Airways, easyJet, and Ryanair are all offering Flybe passengers discounted fares to get to their destinations, while the London North Eastern Railway, which provides long-distance inter-city services with 55 destinations including Leeds, York, Newcastle, and Edinburgh, will offer free travel on January 28 and January 29.

In March 2020, the earlier incarnation of Flybe was also placed into administration, also leaving thousands of passengers stranded.  At that time, Flybe was the fourth British airline to have shut down in the prior two years and the news came two months after the British government announced a rescue deal. Thomas Cook and Flybmi both shut down in September 2019, while Monarch Airlines ceased operations in 2017.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)

* This article was originally published here