I'm trying to dig deeper into what makes the company tick. It's true there seems to be issues with leadership, but it's very difficult to narrow it down to any particular area.
The brand is well known, and has a very good service standard, but it does suffer from poor advertsing. Whenever I mention the company to friends and reletives, they immediately respond with "Oh, bmi Baby!" which is fine, but there doesn't seem to be the wideranging concept that there is a company out there in direct competition with British Airways.
I don't understand the problems behind the image issue either, with regard to a business/leisure airline. On a quick comparison of routes from London Heathrow/Gatwick to Alicante, bmi and BA have identical fares. The main stumbling block for airlines is the fare against level of service conundrum, but again bmi compares very favourably with BA on service in the cabin. bmi can operate commuter flights to large cities in the UK and Europe and still operate flights to holiday destinations with the same level of service. Why does this create problems?
As far as bmi Regional are concerned I'm surprised and dissappointed that it is seen as such a separate company to mainline. The history behind the company, with it's origins in Aberdeen, may well be a major stumbling block with the full integration in the group. Regional should be able to feel like it is part of the group, and is a required operation which stimulates traffic within the heathrow and longhaul operations, however this does not come across.
Also, I am baffled by the Star Alliance membership, and it's use. Why aren't the benefits of code-share fullfilled with airlines such as United? For example, with the introduction of the Washington route from Manchester, a passenger should be able to route anywhere on the United network from Washington. A quick look at the website, and you can't even connect on a shuttle from the US Capital to New York. There are mutilple examples of this, and they change again when you wish to travel from London Heathrow. Maybe I'm missing something, but it would be nice to get an explaination of why the website is so lacking.
bmi feels as though it is restrained by some thing/one/people, but I can't put my finger on what.
HS