Flybe is 'hiring' people to travel on flights between Norwich airport and Dublin to avoid a £280,000 penalty. In the terms of their contract at the East Anglian airport, Flybe must carry 15,000 passengers on the route by March 31.
The ‘ludicrous’ terms of the contract have been blasted by Flybe chief commercial officer Mike Rutter: “We have a deal with Norwich Airport. We had to deliver 60,000 passengers. We have delivered 136,000 passengers but there was a clause buried in the bowels of the contract that we had to hit 15,000 passengers on Dublin to Norwich”.
“We are 172 short. So, in essence, we offered to give them back large amounts of money to avoid doing this but we had to hire 172 people to fly backwards and forwards between Dublin and Norwich to get across the boundary and not pay a £280,000 penalty.”
Flybe have hired temporary staff that are enjoying a free bar and in-flight entertainment, despite the disapproval from not just Norwich Airport but also from environmental groups. A Greenpeace spokesman said Flybe's environmental efforts were a sham. "This just shows there is no such thing as an environmentally-responsible carrier. These revelations are indicative of the binge-flying culture where environmental considerations come so far down the list of priorities as to be virtually ignored."
