Flybe shares slide as airline’s full-year forecast disappoints

Shares in Flybe Group slumped more than 20 per cent after the budget airline said it would break even before tax in its financial year ending in March 2015 after a fall in third-quarter passenger revenue.

The embattled carrier posted its first pretax profit in four years in the year ending March 2014, helped by brutal cost cuts that involved giving up airport slots, slashing jobs, exiting unprofitable flight routes and grounding surplus fleet. But Flybe has since been on rocky ground, swinging back to a loss in the first half of its current fiscal year due to one-off costs and a charge related to its exit from its Finland joint venture.

The full-year forecast followed a 3.8 per cent drop in passenger revenue in the final three months of 2014 to £126.8 million on the back of competition on some new London City airport routes.– (Reuters)