(Reuters) – British regional airline Flybe will start a winding down process after talks over a rescue sale of its business collapsed, the company’s joint administrators said on Wednesday.
The company last month ceased trading for the second time in three years, with all flights cancelled and 276 workers affected.
The wind down of the operator, which scheduled services from Belfast, Birmingham and Heathrow to across the UK and to Amsterdam and Geneva, is expected to impact 25 more jobs, Interpath Advisory said in a statement.
“Despite significant interest from a number of credible parties, it has not been possible to develop a transaction in the available timeframe,” the administrators said.
Earlier this month, a Telegraph report said Germany’s Lufthansa and Air France-KLM were interested in Flybe’s take-off and landing slots. Both companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday on whether they were interested in the slots.
Hurt by Britain’s COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, Flybe first fell into administration in March 2020, hitting 2,400 jobs.
In October 2020, it was sold to Thyme Opco Ltd, a firm controlled by Cyrus Capital, and in April 2022 it resumed flights on a smaller scale.
(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar and Hani Kollathodi in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
