To be honest, I believe Flybe is an overpriced, "semi-frills, semi non-frills" airline that wishes to compete with the likes of Easyjet, Ryanair and Jet2 but its product and unique business model means that it competes on the British regional market more easily against British Airways, Eastern Airways and British Midland Regional/ Baby.
Flybe have become Britain's largest airline on the regional front owing to monopolies' at airports such as Exeter, Birmingham, Manchester and my local airport of Southampton which have made strong enough to sustain and coexist with the "Major players". The codeshare/partnership with Scottish regional airline Loganair have made it possible to compete on routes where there are less demand such as the scottish routes/Blackpool to the Isle of Man or gaining access to the Inter-Scotland routes allowing passengers to fly in one stop from Exeter to Stornoway or Southampton to Benbecula. However, as an airline enthusiast, I see this partnership as a poor attempt to compete with the smaller regional airlines such as Manx2, Aurigny, Blue Islands and most importantly Eastern Airways who had to close their Inverness hub due to Flybe's decision to start flights on all of Eastern's routes to Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Southampton imminently.
Last year, I actually used Flybe for one leg of my journey to stay with my friends in Carcassonne. Flybe fly into Toulouse from Birmingham and Perpignan from Southampton and Exeter. My brother and I were due to fly to perpignan from Southampton on a Wednesday in August with my parents arriving later by car train from calais. Unfortuneately, complications regarding my brother's passport meant I was to travel alone. The two tickets set my dad back £245 one way for both of us which was paramount compared to the £170 it would have cost for all for of us to fly from Bournemouth to Dublin, then Dublin to Carcassonne and back again. I used the online check-in system 24 hours before which was efficient meaning I only had to turn up and show my boarding pass 20 minutes before take off.
The flight took off briskly with no complications. I was sat at the very back which was freezing as I was right above the propulsion system. I am very tall, 6"4 to be precise and when sitting, I had barely 3 inches space. We had to pay for luggage to go on board at a hefty £7.50 for 10 kilos!! not even Ryanair charge that much! The trolley dolleys (Cabin Crew) asked everyone if they would like to purchase anything. (I paid £2.50 for a bag of minstrels) The Airline obviously takes advantage of duty-free. We landed on time and it only took 2 minutes for me to leave the plane and clear customs before I met my friends.
My Father ended up paying £25 to change the booking on my brothers flight to the Friday which I think is quite steep compared to American Airlines's free booking change or BA's £15. My brother and I both arrived on time safely on their new Bombardier Dash 8 Q400's which are small and comfortable but quite daunting to travel in over to the south of France.
Overall, I would rate Flybe 5 out of 10 as they are stuck in the middle of being a Low Cost Carrier or a Lower Cost Regional Airline.They do like having monopolies at airports as they can charge over the top for flights (£325 last minute return departure Southampton-Manchester at peak times!!!) but they put the money to good use through their investments in the comfortable E195 and Q400