V-Flyer

Lufthansa appear to be losing patience with their UK offshoot!

This analysis suggests bmi Regional ending up with FlyBE, with Middle Eastern carriers the most likely for the rest if LH have no use for those Heathrow slots.

Selling bmi

Interesting - and a great shame.

I've flown with BMI many times over the years, tpyically on domestic and european routes and always enjoyed flying with them.

I hope the domestic routes can be of use to someone - it would be a good feeder for someone o)

Concorde RIP wrote:Interesting - and a great shame.

I've flown with BMI many times over the years, tpyically on domestic and european routes and always enjoyed flying with them.

I hope the domestic routes can be of use to someone - it would be a good feeder for someone o)

I have flown quite a few times with BD and agree it will be a shame to see them go as they were my preference for domestic routes for the 600 VS miles each way and a better level of service to any BA or BE route i have flown.

It would have been a shame ten or more years ago, when BD was superior to BA on their European network, and my family's choice when flying to the South of France say.

Sadly, it's a shadow now, I think SMB lost interest when he got the LH lock in and made his hundreds of millions, then LH hasn't really know what to do with it, then events like MidEast troubles hit it when BD switched focus to those routes, and its brand suffered when the product was downgraded, etc.

I can't see how BD can survive as is, even as a subsidiary of a larger airline. A break up seems destined to me, LH will sell a big chunk of slots to make some money back, BA might get some with the Airbus planes BA would like, hopefully VS might get some and the A330s (which aren't that old methinks) ... LH will keep some to feed its network, just my guess.

I can't see BA being allowed any more LHR slots given the Governments wish to encourage competition and diversify providers.

The athorities can hardly demand that BAA sell LGW and Stanstead in the name of 'competition' yet allow an already dominant player at LHR gain an even bigger presence.

It's been interesting to read about this on a.net as well. Loads of different opinions as to what they should do with it.

Some people think that BMI feeding into VS long haul route would be the best turn around, but others think that it would be a disaster. I think a LH, VS, BMI joint venture allied to Star might be the best way forward.

Never personally flown with them but it would be a shame to see a british player go. Still don't get BMIbaby!

Glad I spanked all of my BD miles last year...!

If bmi were to divest some of its assets (aircraft and LHR slots), could a merger with VS or acquisition of SQ's 49% be possible?

Would continuing bmi operations within Europe be economically feasible to feed in/out of VS's network? A Virgin Europe airline could be the missing link in a Virgin alliance...

I think the rot set in with that awful rebrand to bmi. Their travel industry manager at the time, when asked what does the "i" stand for, said "whatever you want it to". I always remembered that as the moment British Midland lost it's direction.

British Midland, with it's diamond, was a highly regarded airline. The name "bmi" had none of that pedigree, and bmibaby: well, what can you say?

Throw into the mix bmi Regional, offering inflight service to all passengers and you have a very confused company, and confused passengers.

A very unsettling time for their employees: I hope something good comes out of this restructure, their planes are so smart inside and their staff are superb.

I hesitate to post this, but what the heck...

Making a huge decuctive leap, is the recent hint (again...) from SRB about a Virgin alliance linked?

Still, if there's one think I've learnt, if events seem to point somewhere, and you can see it makes sense, it won't happen!

The British Midland Diamond service used to be quite something, I must admit, flew a number of times on that, and yes, the staff were (and still are) great...

I hope this gets sorted out soon for the sake of the staff, and many of them continue working for what ever phoenix rises...

Concorde RIP wrote:I hesitate to post this, but what the heck...

Making a huge decuctive leap, is the recent hint (again...) from SRB about a Virgin alliance linked?

Still, if there's one think I've learnt, if events seem to point somewhere, and you can see it makes sense, it won't happen!

The British Midland Diamond service used to be quite something, I must admit, flew a number of times on that, and yes, the staff were (and still are) great...

I hope this gets sorted out soon for the sake of the staff, and many of them continue working for what ever phoenix rises...

It sounds lovely to have bmi as an alliance with Virgin, but I don't think the volume is there. Virgin could buy the company with assistance but do they really need the distraction?

Here you go, where's there's smoke there's often fire!

And there are some links on ANet in German that imply it's pretty much dusted, and with the banks to agree financing.

Well, well!

I actually think it'd be a good match - and might, just might, be a really good thing.

Did BMI loose the slots already for the GLA/MAN/LHR routes? (didn't they announce that those services were terminating?)

And, they've got A330's - hmmm!!!

slinky09 wrote:Here you go, where's there's smoke there's often fire!

And there are some links on ANet in German that imply it's pretty much dusted, and with the banks to agree financing.

What's the date on that press release Slinky? I wouldn't be 100% sure that it is recent as the 'latest press releases' on that page date from 2008!

And doing a search for press realeases for September 2011 = 0 issueed!

And on the main press release page the latest one is 3rd April 2011 and relates to the new red shoes!

Thought it looked familiar - and those red shoes are very important afterall!

Concorde RIP wrote:Thought it looked familiar - and those red shoes are very important afterall!

They are incredibly important!

Sealink wrote:I think the rot set in with that awful rebrand to bmi. Their travel industry manager at the time, when asked what does the "i" stand for, said "whatever you want it to". I always remembered that as the moment British Midland lost it's direction.

British Midland, with it's diamond, was a highly regarded airline. The name "bmi" had none of that pedigree, and bmibaby: well, what can you say?

This post reminded me of this

Whereas some of the old time British Midland staff believed it to stand for "Bishop's Mental Institution".

slinky09 wrote:Here you go, where's there's smoke there's often fire!

And there are some links on ANet in German that imply it's pretty much dusted, and with the banks to agree financing.

and LH and BMI are *A members ... ok I am starting to bore myself with this as well.

tontybear wrote:What's the date on that press release Slinky? I wouldn't be 100% sure that it is recent as the 'latest press releases' on that page date from 2008!

Well it directly maps to thisBloomberg news story published last night. Reuters and other news orgs are carrying the same. .

It is such sad news. What was a truly great airline has been destroyed. Whilst many may blame LH since it took over, I think BD was pretty misguided (under SMB) to believe that it could break America once Bermuda 2 was history.

There has clearly been a lack of direction at the carrier for about the last 8 years. They couldn't decide if they were the airline of Manchester, a leisure airline trying to muscle in on the VH/B+S long haul crowd, an airline of the middle east, a domestic carrier or a Euro short haul operator.

In my mind the opening of TATL routes ex MAN was long over due the problem was that even *A membership couldnt make them work. More recently it has been a great shame seeing BD basically being used as the LH bi*ch and just providing capacity as and where the LH Group needed it. A recent TR on A.net summed it up pretty good- the guy boarded an LH Italia flight to LHR which was operated by BD metal and flight deck crew with LH German based crew! For all the good LH has done in the world in postioning itself as a major airline group the envy of IAG and AF/KL it has clearly been unsure exactly how to use BD.

As for the future I see it as this. BE taking over a sizeable amount of the regional routes as they continue on their quest to become Europes regional airline, although I would expect that the OFT may have an interest in this...I mean can you actually fly any other airline domestically (off the trunk routes) in the UK/Eire/Scandinavia? I wonder if, the Stobart Group, may end up picking up a couple of routes for Aer Aeran which they now own.

As for the LHR operations. Slots will be used by LH Group members as and when needed before the likes of EY/EK/QR et al roll into town and take up the rest. VS may got the odd slot. VS would probably be interested in some of the more 330 friendly routes, CAI seems to do very well for BD and of course they also operate into places like Addis Ababa and Freetown which could possibly appeal to VS given the success of ACC etc.

VS may love to think that they could acquire BD but if they do it will be for slots only. I cant see them keeping the range of mid haul routes BD has. Remember VS could have easily gone done the mid haul routes when the 321's were in the fleet, indeed IIRC, VS had the rights to operate LHR-DME at one stage (something they got ahead of BD).

slinky09 wrote:

tontybear wrote:What's the date on that press release Slinky? I wouldn't be 100% sure that it is recent as the 'latest press releases' on that page date from 2008!

Well it directly maps to thisBloomberg news story published last night. Reuters and other news orgs are carrying the same. .

Well given VS's seaming inability to date things you can't blame me for thinking it was an old PR (especially given the dates of the other releases on the page !

tontybear wrote:Well given VS's seaming inability to date things you can't blame me for thinking it was an old PR (especially given the dates of the other releases on the page !

Tonty, re the VS Web site, anything is possible and you could well be right!

BA have acquired 6 daily slot pairs from BD at LHR.

Suggests another route facing the axe?

Article

Sealink wrote:BA have acquired 6 daily slot pairs from BD at LHR.

Suggests another route facing the axe?

Article

Now that is what VS needs to do, quickly, or buy part of the damn thing.