Any money spent on flights in the future is being held by Flybe’s merchant card acquirers meaning Blue Islands can’t get it back, although negotiations on many issues relating to the collapse of Flybe are continuing.
Blue Islands said on Friday evening that it is continuing to “work hard to overcome some of the challenges caused by the collapse of its former franchise partner Flybe”.
One of the most pressing issues is financial, but that doesn’t appear to be an easy problem to fix.
Pictured: Blue Islands was a franchise partner of Flybe.
“Currently, funds from all future bookings for Blue Islands operated services made via Flybe are held by Flybe’s merchant card acquirers,” said the local airline. “These controls were put in place to safeguard consumer funds in the event of Flybe’s collapse. This means that the original booking for a Blue Islands operated service made via Flybe is no longer valid and requires rebooking with Blue Islands.”
Blue Islands is telling all customers they should look at the Civil Aviation Authority website for information on refunds, or they should contact the credit card company that was used for payment.
Any passengers with bookings on Blue Islands operated services, travelling this weekend should go to the airport with their booking confirmation and check-in as normal. Blue Islands will honour these flights without further payment.
Any customers without a booking, wishing to travel this weekend are able to book and pay for tickets at the airport of departure.
Blue Islands said it is hoping to get its own website up and running again soon and further information will be released as soon as possible.
The airline said “passengers will soon be able to book once again via blueislands.com and also via a new Blue Islands call centre.”
“As soon as both those solutions are live, hopefully later today, we will update our website and social media channels,” said Rob Veron, CEO Blue Islands.
“In the meantime, we understand that our customers will continue to have concerns and questions about existing and future bookings.”
Pictured: Rob Veron, Blue Islands CEO.
Further information will be released over the weekend about bookings for Monday 9 March onwards.
Mr Veron said: “We understand that the collapse of Flybe has left many passengers worried about their travel plans, and we apologise to our customers for the uncertainty and inconvenience that this has caused.
“We would like to reassure our customers that our schedule is operating as normal and thank our customers for their support and understanding, and our staff for their hard work during this time.”