quote:Originally posted by mike-smashing
My reaction is that this isn't a bad thing.
Solid, stable management, with a long-term strategy and vision, is what BD needs right now, as opposed to what I can only describe as the confused dithering between strategies which seemed to characterise BD for the last 10 years or so.
I hope this means that BD's resultant identity crisis (is it a mainline, a network, a regional carrier, or low-cost) is a chapter which is over too.
Taking over Brussels Airlines, BD, and OS, LH are now in the position of a very strong pan-European operator.
The LH model seems to work well. They get good economies of scale, and hopefully these will be applied to BD in the fullness of time.
Given the recent noises coming out of BA recently, LH must view their purchase as a positive strategic move.
While they do have experience in low-cost operations with Germanwings, I have to wonder what will happen to Baby? Merge back in to BMI mainline/regional, merge into Germanwings operations, or sell?
Mike
I think this all depends on any pressure from Swiss / Belgian governments to retain their 'national' airline brand (given they couldn't or couldn't afford to that with Swissair*/Sabena); perhaps politically, having 'your' airline rebranded Lufthansa is too much to swallow, but lets have LH take over the thing, but retain a semblance of a national airline. There's probably a more articulate way to say this.
bmi as a brand is useless, I'd venture worthless, but given a certain longhaul airline's continued interest in doing a deal with BD/LH, maybe another brandname would be stronger?
*out of all the airline failures in the last decade, this still shocked me most.
