Flybe. Part 2: Demise may cause some airports to close

The world has been waiting for a while for a black swan to come back home to roost. Now it seems as if a whole flock of them have landed at once.

As things stand, the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak looks set easily to eclipse previous airborne viruses such as SARS, MERS and H1N1 and bring the global air transport industry to a grinding halt.

There are some countries where the medical event has arrived just when airlines are at their weakest. Accordingly, the demise of the UK-based Flybe, Europe's largest regional carrier, could not have come at a worse time, and the prospects for some British regional airports where Flybe was a critically important customer are not encouraging.