Flybe Making Flying Better

Flybe, UK’s largest domestic carrier and short haul European carrier has recently updated its website, brought on a new non-executive director and banished evil debit card charges from its bookings. What with a new ‘Making Flying Better’ slogan, perhaps they mean what they say!

Flybe’s new website is slick, it is finished too, something that both Virgin Atlantic and BA didn’t execute well when they launched their new look homepages. It echoes their business model as a light and flexible regional business carrier, offering direct point to point services with convenient times, frequency and flexibility in their tickets. The site has taken away the ‘fun’ and ‘vibrant’ look of its origins, and has produced something a lot calmer and more at home in a corporate environment. The softer smarter colours help really hold the whole site together, and no doubt this ‘maturing’ of its brand will be seen throughout its literature, such as inflight magazine ‘Uncovered’ and onboard / lounge offerings too.

Flybe has also launched a new ‘Essential’ ticket system, at £19 cheaper than economy, this allows people to buy lower priced tickets for just taking carry on items with them, whilst still earning frequent flyer points. Economy and Economy Plus pretty much stay the same. The loss of the debit card charge will really make prices transparent and actually maybe even surprise consumers when they finally pay for the ticket, not having random surcharges appear just before they click on the ‘pay now’ button.

The lounge offerings will have some time and money pumped into them this year, which obviously starts to confirm the fact they are pushing themselves as a business carrier, dropping their emphasis on the leisure side of their operations, whilst still maintaining the routes.

Finally, in this barrage of change at Flybe, the airline appointed Lord Digby Jones as a Non-Executive Director. Lord Digby Jones was a former minister of state for Trade and Investment, he also held position as Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry. Currently Jones holds the position of chairman of the British Airways International Business Advisory Board, and also holds a position as Senior Advisor to HSBC. “I am extremely excited to be joining Flybe, one of the UK’s outstanding business success stories which, in just a decade, has become Europe’s largest regional airline. Flybe, for me, embodies the best of British business and I am greatly looking forward to working with my new colleagues” he said.