Flybe coming to Shetland

[Spinner72]

What's everyone else's experience of booking flights with Flybe been like?

 

Initially, looked very good, and planned to fly to Stornoway for Xmas with family (2 adults and 3 year old). First try about 6 weeks ago gave a price of approximately £312 return, very resonable.

 

Prepared to book this weekend, and because we have had to fly a little later (19th Dec), the price had skyrocketed to over £500. (if you don't fly early on a tuesday morning, you really pay for it!)

 

Ah well i thought, we'll fly out, and take the bus/train/boat route back, possibly stopping off somewhere, as we have no great hurry at that end of the trip.

 

It turns out each leg of a single flight is £173 per person. Thats £527.01 taking into account the discount for a 3 year old.

 

Add to that £6 per leg, per person, to ensure we get to sit together, and a £6 card fee, that comes to £569.01 one way.

 

To book the exact same flight TOMORROW with BA, is £ 489.60.

 

However, even more frustrating is that despite our dates being fixed - every time i've checked the flybe bookings page, the price has been different.

 

Add to that the measly luggage allowance, and there was simply no contest. We'll be going via Northlink.

[tarotangel]

Originally I was supposed to be coming up in November but going round the FlyBe site and work out prices was a pain as I'd noticed that they had flucuated. In the end though I came up last week on Northlink the good thing being it's far easier to work out the prices and not have to worry about the amount of luggage you were taking (I took 2 suitcases up wi me)

[trooter]

Just been having a play around on flybe website and noticed taxes and charges differ between aberdeen and sumburgh, any idea what these charges are and why the difference. Also if you book an emergency exit seat it costs £15 instead of £6.

[insouciant]

So £30 rtn for something that was free on BA. Awesome.

[Rasmie]

trooter sed

aberdeen and sumburgh, any idea what these charges are and why the difference.

 

Aberdeen is run by a Spanish company i.e BAA. Sumburgh is run by a quango/ branch of the Scottish Government- HIAL.

 

They each set their own fee's HIAL charges just under £14 per head on departing passengers as a service and security recovery fee - you pay to get searched iow! their fees are published on www.hial.co.uk. Alastair Goodlad is a director of HIAL so a small amount will go to him.

There's no fee to pay for landing passengers.

Other fees are charged against the aircraft e.g £250-£300 for landing on the runway.

 

There is also UK government tax on passengers - used to be £10. No VAT yet but GB is trying to rectify this inconsistency.

 

the airlines lumps these various taxes together but as you noticed not every airport is the same

 

 

BAA's fees I am not sure about

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Having listened to Orkney radio talking to Flybe this morning, i find it difficult to understand how Flybe are saying they know all about "Lifeline" services, by comparing Shetland and Orkney to the Channel Islands.

Believe me having been to Guernsey and Jersey quite a few times, they are slightly more connected with the "outside world" than we are

[trooter]

Aberdeen is run by a Spanish company i.e BAA. Sumburgh is run by a quango/ branch of the Scottish Government- HIAL.

 

They each set their own fee's HIAL charges just under £14 per head on departing passengers as a service and security recovery fee - you pay to get searched iow! their fees are published on www.hial.co.uk. Alastair Goodlad is a director of HIAL so a small amount will go to him.

There's no fee to pay for landing passengers.

Other fees are charged against the aircraft e.g £250-£300 for landing on the runway.

 

There is also UK government tax on passengers - used to be £10. No VAT yet but GB is trying to rectify this inconsistency.

 

the airlines lumps these various taxes together but as you noticed not every airport is the same

 

 

BAA's fees I am not sure about

 

Surely these charges should be part of the ticket price or clearly explained rather than just added on as 'charges'

[groilick]

 

Surely these charges should be part of the ticket price or clearly explained rather than just added on as 'charges'

 

If your flight is cancelled or if you cancel your flight you are entitled to a refund of taxes and charges. Flybe/Loganair charge you an admin fee of £25 to refund money that is not theirs but they would like to keep.

http://www.loganair.co.uk/service-info/flybe/customer-relations

If you saw BBC Watchdog on Ryanair (who Flybe are copying) last night you will know that the actual cost of Credit Card transaction to them is just a few pence.

[insouciant]

Considering the taxes and charges amount to little over a tenner each way and they're charging £25 admin fee for each way you're claiming it's a bit of a disincentive since you'll end up owing them...

 

What a shower of *****

[PJ of Hildisvik]

H aving listened to "Out of Doors" on Radio Scotland this morning, it was great to listen to the coverage of the shady goings on of Flybe, here as well as in other parts of Scotland, people are disgusted with them.

But will they listen and adhere to what we demand of them, or as they are the sole daily airline out of here, tell us to sod off?

We have very little options, as people have to use the service even if they hate dong so. So a boycott of their airline would be out of the question

[JustMe]

That admin fee only applies when you have cancelled your flight and want to claim a refund of taxes which you can do even if you are not entitled to a refund of the "fare". Would be interesting to know what happens to the taxes that are not refunded.

 

I would also like to know what happens to the credit/debit card charges already paid if Flybe cancel a flight and you are entitled to a refund. I reckon you ought to get that money refunded as well.

 

In fact I think that anyone who has a flight cancelled by an airline should not only get a full refund but should also get, as a minimum, compensation equal to whatever we, as customers, would have lost had we cancelled the flight on the same day as the airline did which for Flybe would be the fare paid including taxes since mostly the taxes are less than the £25 fee to recover them.

 

Maybe a good moment to point out that despite the Flybe paint job on the aircraft all Shetland flights are still operated by Loganair with their own planes and crews.......not sure about the ground staff.

[Seaflech]

Any truth in the rumour that FlyBe have won the contract to fly oil workers between Scatsta and Aberdeen starting in February?

[Pooks]

Haven't heard anything definite but they certainly seem to be the main contenders. A Flybe Dash 8 was recently seen training around Sumburgh and Scatsta.

 

Flybe Dash 8 at Sumburgh

[Magnus Oily]

Any truth in the rumour that FlyBe have won the contract to fly oil workers between Scatsta and Aberdeen starting in February?

It may surprise you folks in Shetland that the IAC have not yet seen fit to inform their passengers about Flightline losing the contract. We have read it in the Shetland Times and on this forum, we have also heard it verbatim from the flight crews. We have also heard the rumour about Flybe taking over, we were kind of hoping they would be using their surplus 146s. Your reports of a Dash 8 doing training flights is a little worrying, having experienced many hard landings at Scatsta and Sumburgh in the last 30 years, an aircraft prone to a collapsing undercarriage does not fill us with confidence.

[Seaflech]

We have also heard the rumour about Flybe taking over, we were kind of hoping they would be using their surplus 146s. Your reports of a Dash 8 doing training flights is a little worrying, having experienced many hard landings at Scatsta and Sumburgh in the last 30 years, an aircraft prone to a collapsing undercarriage does not fill us with confidence.

 

If Flybe do win (or have won) the contract they almost certainly won't be using 146's, as they have phased out all their own and replaced them with Embraer 195's.

The Dash 8 is a very capable aircraft, and in a lot of ways less restricted in operating in and out of Scatsta. I believe the undercarriage collapses have been attributed to maintenance rather than design fault. Its not the thumpability of the landing that's the problem, just getting the dunlops down in the first place!

 

Shame they haven't informed you as frequent users yet, though if it hasn't been announced officially then there's probably not much they can say to you at present.