FlyBe
DEBI’s 2008 series of industry visits took off to a flying start with an excellent evening spent at FLYBE’S operations and aircraft maintenance centre at Exeter Airport.
Flybe is now Europe’s largest regional low-cost airline operating from 24 airports in the UK and 30 in Europe and employs over 1000 staff in Exeter
23 DEBI corporate supporters and members were treated to a rare glimpse behind the scenes at Flybe’s Exeter headquarters.
We were met by Niall Duffy, head of PR and Public Affairs, (the presenter of the 2007 DEBI Awards) and Stefan Kontorravdis, Director of Engineering. They took us into the massive hangers where aircraft maintenance was taking place. FLYBE have a fleet of 77 aircraft and we were shown the Flybe Emdraer 195 jet aircraft and the new fuel efficient Flybe Bombardier twin prop Q400 aircraft both under going detailed checks before being brought back into service following some maintenance.
FLYBE’s Eco-labeling scheme was explained and can be seen for each passenger to view as they enter the aircraft beside door with more detail for every passenger to read from the card in the seat pockets.
There were also extensive workshop facilities where they manufacture a wide reach of aircraft parts. Aircraft maintenance is carried out 24/7 364 days per year and about 60% of the maintenance work conducted at Exeter (due to the expertise of the maintenance staff and the specialist nature of the work) is contract work for other airline companies.
We also visited the companies operations room which controls all the functions of the airline such as aircraft and pilot availability (they employ 645 pilots!), flight attendant roistering, together with managing any issues that might arise such as adverse weather conditions, aircraft breakdowns and airport delays to ensure there is minimum disruption for the 7 million passengers that FLYBE carry each year.
FLYBE have a number of plans to increase employment at Exeter Airport with a new pilot and cabin crew training and education facility incorporating a hotel.
The evening finished with a food buffet and a chance for further questions to Stefan and Niall together with the usual networking.
We are very grateful to FLYBE for getting DEBI’s 2008 programme of industry visits off to a great start.
