As Brs has a strange relationship with flybe over the years I wonder whether the route will continue or be dropped as flybe did itself . Let's hope not
Yes, there is a strange history with hints that at times it has been acrimonious.
I believe that it may go back to the time when Flybe began flying to Bergerac, Bordeaux and Toulouse in 2004 (there were other existing Flybe routes as well) only to be trumped by easyJet who came onto Bordeaux and Toulouse a couple of years later. easyJet was also flying to Belfast International against the much longer established Flybe route (from the days it was Jersey European) to Belfast City.
Flybe dropped the three French routes when easyJet began to operate BOD and TLS.
In 2007 when Flybe bought BA Connect they dropped all the BRS BACon routes saying they were uneconomic. The five-aircraft (E45s) BACon BRS base was closed.
In a submission to a Competition Commission investigation (circa 2008) reviewing competition between adjacent non-BAA airports (in this case BRS, CWL and EXT), the report stated,
BRS said it understood that Flybe had made a strategic decision and what was a surprise to the BRS team was the fact Flybe pulled off on some key routes ‘where they knew, and British Airways had admitted, they were making money’.
In the same Competition Commission investigation report it was stated,
Upon EXT starting to grow in the market place from 2004 onwards (driven by Flybe’s presence there), BRS approached Flybe about moving its operations there. BRS offered inducements such as substantially reduced airport charges. However, Flybe thought the advantage of having EXT as its home base was significant and therefore only expanded at BRS as opposed to moving all their operations. Subsequently BRS, however, sought to buy EXT, which the airline had opposed.
Flybe subsequently returned to the BHD route (which it has axed in 2007) in 2011 after Ryanair had pulled out following its decision to abandon all its BHD routes. However, part way through 2012 Flybe itself pulled out citing poor loads on the BRS-BHD route. It seemed odd because its EXT-BHD route was experiencing lower loads than the BRS route (which weren't that low really) but was kept on.
During the past decade Flybe has also tried Isle of Man and Jersey (against Blue Islands for a while on JER) but eventually gave them up - in fairness they had two separate attempts at IOM but finally gave it best at the end of summer 2013.
In recent years the only Flybe presence has been on winter ski flights on behalf of tour companies but this winter the airline doesn't feature.
That's the history of the relationship for much of this century so far as I can determine. Whether it will have any effect on the current Blue Islands Jersey route remains to be seen. I can't believe that the route would be left uncovered for long; someone would step in.
