It has been largely profitable..........
It has outlasted other airlines with various heritages.........
It has Heathrow slots, for goodness sake ! (for want of more appropriate words).
It acquired and expanded upon those Heathrow slots courtesy of Grandfather rights (sheer luck and a wierd law) and a sympathetic Thatcher Government !
Give
any other airline a nice bundle of Heathrow slots to cover the majority of it's operation and you'll also see them profiting and outlasting others, regardless of management incompetence.
When one surveys the longhaul "effort" one realises what a shambles the whole outfit would be without Heathrow slots. I doubt that bmi would even exist today, even as a tin-pot, cash-crisis-prone, grubby Viscount operator.
