On 19 October 2020, reports emerged that Lucien Farrell, in charge of former shareholder Cyrus Capital's European office had formed a new company, Thyme Opco, to purchase the Flybe brand and relaunch the airline, subject to regulatory approvals.

[11] The new company also obtained 86 slots at Heathrow Airport in London for the summer 2021 season, to be used for flights to Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

[18] In November 2021, the airline announced that it had picked Birmingham Airport as its new base, with operations scheduled to begin in early 2022 to "key regions across the UK and EU".

Despite saying that the cancellation was due to aircraft shortages, the airline was required by Heathrow authorities to continue operating the route if it was to retain its highly valuable slots at the airport.

[27] In October 2022, Flybe ceased flights between Leeds and London,[28] largely due to low demand as a result of competition from rail networks, and confirmed that it would not be resuming services.

[34] The administrators expressed hopes that a rescue deal could be struck and noted their intent "to preserve scaled-back elements of the operating platform for a short period".

[35] In that respect, the administrators applied for a temporary operating licence, valid for up to 12 months to enable a restructuring proposal to be developed.

Talks were held with the Lufthansa and Air France-KLM groups, which were both potentially interested in buying Flybe's assets including in particular its slots at Heathrow and Schiphol.

[36][37][38] Despite "intensive" discussions with interested parties, no agreement was reached and on 15 February the administrators announced that the company would be wound down and the aircraft returned to lessors.

[41] The company's head office is on the second floor of Diamond House at Birmingham Airport,[42] within the metropolitan borough of Solihull.