New Flybe slots at Heathrow challenge British Airways

Domestic routes at Heathrow have largely been solely operated by British Airways since Virgin Atlantic ceased operations on their Little Red subsidiary in 2015, following low passenger numbers. During its service between 2013 and 2015, it operated on routes between London Heathrow, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen.

Flybe, the British low-cost airline, is understood to be finalising plans for picking up these routes and expanding its current domestic offerings. Currently, the company has hubs in Birmingham and Manchester, and is the largest regional airline in Europe.

Though Little Red is now defunct, Flybe holds codeshare agreements with Virgin Atlantic, and runs smaller turboprop planes than the aircraft used by Little Red. Chief Executive, Saad Hammad, believes that using these smaller planes, which are cheaper to run, would help Flybe to succeed where Little Red did not, though an official statement has not yet been made.