Flybe owners seek tens of millions in withheld payments

The new owners of ailing UK regional airline Flybe are working to recoup tens of millions of pounds being held by companies that process its customers’ card payments. Flybe warned in January that it was facing a “very bleak” working capital situation as the credit card acquirers retained cash as collateral in case the airline failed to meet charges for their services. Connect Airways — the consortium consisting of Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Air and Cyrus Capital that has owned the airline since March — now hopes to unlock that money, confirmed by two people familiar with the takeover as being in the tens of millions of pounds. Christine Ourmières-Widener, Flybe CE, said the company would reclaim the money once relations with the acquirers returned to normal, which was proceeding “step by step”. “You don’t unwind the critical situation we were facing suddenly,” she said. “We hope at some point to go back to the situation before the crisis but it’s taking a number of steps.” The failure of Flybe and the acquirers to come to a deal almost led to the collapse of the sale, with Flybe calling in insolvency advisers as negotiations faltered. Ourmières-Widener declined to say whether Flybe would be profitable in 2018-19 — it made a pre-tax loss of GBP9.4m the year before — but said there was “a potential for a good performance . . . if the shareholders want to do investment sooner rather than later”.<br/>