FlyBE and BA Connect

I think the sale of the BA Connect business will have major implications for the UK aviation industry and particularly our national flag carrier.
BA has turned itself into a virtually wholly London based operation. Its hanging on grimly to its valuable Heathrow slots but these are under attack via the supposed EU/American open skies agreement. Its no wonder BA keeps putting forward reasons why the open sky talks should fail. Outside of London it still sells flights on its website but these are mainly operated by franchise partners such as GB Airways and Loganair with their planes and staff kitted out in BA livery. BA has allowed one of its franchise partners BMED to be bought by its rival bmi, so losing access to a number of medium and long haul destinations as well as London airport slots.
BA was losing money with BA Connect and judging from the number of routes being shelved by the new owner FlyBE, particularly from Bristol, they saw no prospect of turning them round in the near future. It will be interesting to see if any of the more aggressively "no frills" airlines fancy their chances on the dumped routes. The destinations that have gone can be loosely described as business destinations such as Munich, Zurich, Milan Malpensa, Geneva, Lyon Satolas and Madrid, so maybe easyJet with one eye cocked to the business sector will have a look. EasyJet were already competitors on the Bristol to Milan Malpensa route for example and of course Geneva is one of their hubs.
Maybe it's the way forward for BA, cut your short term losses and rely on code shares and alliances, but maybe it's not. As usual time will tell.
As usual jetnav.co.uk keeps you up do date with the latest flight and route availability information.