V-Flyer

Just coming in on the news wires. All part of a restructuring plan.

More to follow.

What would their loss making routes be i wonder?

alex

Most of the domestic routes in the UK must be pretty tight on profit?

All of them?

Heathrow to Brussels, Tel Aviv, Kiev and Aleppo will be suspended early 2010
Heathrow to Amsterdam suspended at the end of the winter 2009/10 period.
Heathrow to Palma and Venice will not be reinstated in summer 2010.

BMI seem intent on running themselves into the ground in a big way if you ask me.

LH seem to be busy raping them for LHR slots and aircraft as part of the 'restructuring' - a number of BMI LHR slots and metal have gone to LH Italia, or to the TXL flight which transferred over from LCY.

The AMS route used to be a great performer for BMI, but they shot themselves in the foot by cutting frequencies down to 4 flights a day, and removing the early morning AMS-LHR flight (sure, it saves a crew nightstopping in AMS) loses them Dutch business day-trip traffic.

They currently have an A319 and crew which sits in AMS for 5-6 hours each day, having worked in from LHR, it can't turn around and work back, because the slot has been flogged off or pinched by LH.

Meanwhile KLM fly LHR-AMS something like 9 times a day and must be rubbing their hands together, as they also dominate BA on this route too.

This seems to be the standard BMI tactic for killing off any European route which once had semi-respectable business yields - cut the flights which are attractive to business pax, yields drop, switch to Embraers, cut frequencies, yields drop further, close route.

Mike

quote:Originally posted by clarkeysntfc
Most of the domestic routes in the UK must be pretty tight on profit?


I read somewhere that BMI also use many of their domestic flights as LHR slot-minder flights.

I think BMI currently have more slots than capacity. They seem intent on guarding their slots more than anything at the moment.

Regards

BMI are also 'donating' one of their Airbus A320s to Swiss as LX are going to 6 daily LHR flights to GVA.

BMI are going to reduce mainline aircraft by nine from the 39 they have now.

http://www.ttglive.com/air

Apparently out of those 9 A/C going, 2 of their 3 A330's are not having their leases renewed from 2010 so it's pretty much bye bye long-haul for BMI.

Regards

All added toegether means bye bye BMI.

LH are just doing what I said VS should do, yes they will have to pay for the workforce layoff's, but they will more than make that back from slot sales, aircraft sales and moving slots to another member of the LH family.

It's a real shame they are having to cut back.
I flew on Bmi last month to Tel Aviv and the service was really
great. Flight full both ways on the A330.
I spoke to the crew who told me they are getting rid of the
A330's when the lease runs out but would carry on long haul
with the A320's. [:0]