FlyBe

All aboard

Hayley Bentley is FlyBe’s Qualifications and Funding Manager, based at the company’s headquarters at Exeter International Airport. She has overseen much of the Foundation Degree’s development. “I look after education and qualifications for the FlyBe Academy, making sure the content and delivery methods match FlyBe’s vision,” she explains. “Our experience working with the Business School on the Leadership and Management Aviation Foundation Degree has been excellent. They have been really hands-on throughout, and encouraged us to get far more involved with developing the qualification than we expected. This has been really refreshing, and means we now have a degree that reflects accurately what FlyBe is about.”

A maiden flight for both parties

The Leadership and Management Aviation Foundation Degree for FlyBe is the first degree the Business School has developed and validated, and the first of the FlyBe Academy qualifications to roll out. “It’s been a new and exciting experience for both parties,” says Hayley. “And it’s been great working with a team of academics who are so in tune with what’s actually going on in the business world. I think this has been a major factor in making the project such a success for us and for the School. We’ve also been impressed by their willingness to collaborate and take input from such a wide range of stakeholders in our Partnership in Education programme.”

Resources close at hand

Hayley is keen to point out that FlyBe’s decision to partner with the University of Exeter Business School had very little to do with geography. “Yes, it’s very handy that we’re only about ten miles apart, but that’s a bonus. We approached 34 educational institutions all over the UK about this project, and the University of Exeter was simply best suited in terms of understanding and sharing our vision. It’s the icing on the cake that such useful resources and expertise are on our doorstep.”

More about FlyBe

Europe’s largest and most successful regional airline, FlyBe operates three times more UK domestic flights than any other. It’s also the third largest employer of pilots in the UK. Running 73 regional aircraft on 525 flights a day, on 184 routes from 66 airports – 35 in the UK – FlyBe carries 7.5 million passengers a year and has a turnover of £0.5 billion.

FlyBe employs over 3,000 staff, 800 of whom are skilled engineers at its regional maintenance facility – the largest in Europe.