Virgin Atlantic and Stobart Air have today announced they are to team up to buy struggling regional airline FlyBE. Virgin and Stobart will take a 30% stake each, with a venture capitalist firm taking the remaining 40% stake.

Stobart Air will be merged in to the new airline, and it is expected the resulting airline will operate under the Virgin brand.

Yeah I read that the FlyBe name will not be continued, it is likely to be renamed as Virgin something. Sad to lose FlyBe but good that at least they will continue.

Any bets on the new name? Virgin Commuter? Virgin Regional?

Virgin Express, perhaps?

I wonder of they still own that name?

I heard that it should be Connect Airways doing business as FlyV

I heard that it should be Connect Airways doing business as FlyV

Connect Airways is the legal business name. Most reports seem to be suggesting the carrier will be named "Virgin Atlantic"

Whatever the name ends up to “be”, pun intended, we should always embrace accuracy in our reportings, and to that end we should call the old version of this airline “flybe”, which is the name we used when I worked there. The execs of this airline obviously wanted to use lower case for a reason.

Whatever the name ends up to “be”, pun intended, we should always embrace accuracy in our reportings, and to that end we should call the old version of this airline “flybe”, which is the name we used when I worked there. The execs of this airline obviously wanted to use lower case for a reason.

I looked at the conditions of the buyout, and according to Bloomberg, the company's being bought for "just" £2.2 million? I thought that such deals would be an order of magnitude higher, reaching the level of the GDP of a subsaharan African country, the kind of sum that'd give you a fleet of planes, not buy a villa somewhere in Greece (source). I mean, do they just buy the name and the exploitation rights? Because even the sums spent by Virgin, Stobart and the venture capitalist firm together wouldn't buy a single plane.

Ex-Stobart CEO moves in to buy Flybe to reject the proposed takeover by Connect Airways, a consortium of Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Group, and Cyrus Capital, City A.M. has reported.

The carrier confirmed that it had received a "very preliminary, short and highly conditional outline contingency proposal" from Tinkler and subsequently agreed to hold a board meeting to discuss the proposal.

Several of Flybe. shareholders, including the biggest one Hosking Partners LLP, previously opposed the sale to Connect Airways for a meagre GBP2.8 million (USD3.6 million), far below the airline's market capitalisation which currently stands at GBP43 million (USD56.1 million).

I thought that such deals would be an order of magnitude higher, reaching the level of the GDP of a subsaharan African country

Unfortunately flybe are close to bankrupt, with significant amounts of debt. It's pretty much just a "name your price" scenario - without the takeover, the airline collapses within a few weeks.

Ex-Stobart CEO moves in to buy Flybe to reject the proposed takeover by Connect Airways, a consortium of Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Group, and Cyrus Capital, City A.M. has reported.

This is interesting - I'm not sure if this is even possible. The airline was so close to bankruptcy,that they have already sold the operational side of the business to the consortium, in exchange for an instant injection of cash to keep them afloat. I dont think there is anything left for the Ex-Stobart CEO to buy?