Flybe boss primes airline for take-off

When Saad Hammad took the controls at Flybe almost 3 years ago, he knew he was in for a challenge at the ailing regional airline. But no amount of due diligence could have prepared the former EasyJet executive for the crisis he faced when he touched down. “I literally came in and realised: 'God, this could be very, very serious very quickly’,” he says of Flybe’s finances when he arrived in Aug 2013. “I thought I had a bit more time.” Indeed, there were moments during his first few weeks and months when it looked like Flybe would drop out of the sky altogether. Hammad was forced to make painful cuts to rescue the business. About 1,000 jobs were slashed not long after he took charge; a third of the work-force. And now, “after several years of underlying losses we are going to be profitable this year,” Hammad declares. <br/>