I sincerely hope that the CAA say to Virgin that if they can't operate viably three days a week then they'll give all seven Mumbai frequencies to BMI.
Yeah Right
Time to realise there is a world outside of the biased and blinkered Toad Hall/management wannabe world which you and young paul inhabit - one in which reality exists....
Come to LHR for a few days and experience the reality of the bmi commercial airline operation. The fact is that there are not the resources in place to operate the new routes effectively and profitably. Let alone the aircraft required - unless we drop the LAS/Caribbean routes... Shock horror - bmi drop a route after 6 months? Surely not...(see Barcelona, IAD, etc etc)
How can we afford to buy any new aircraft (340's HA!) when we have lost £9 million every year since the 1990's, and if we have a 1.5% pay increase the airline will go under?!
Farcical.
However much a few new routes 3 days a week may be trumpeted internally, externally it is nothing. Try going to the USA in uniform and answering the question 'Gee, which airline do you guys work for?'
'bmi'
'who?'
'british midland'
'Oh british airways'
'OK, yes'
Try the same, replacing bmi with BA or Virgin and see the difference in response.
Our marketing is cr@p, and bmi will never be a world class airline (Airline for Scotland, maybe) full stop. To achieve that one needs more than a few 330's. After all, bmi/Midland has been about in one form or another for 60 years plus, and has tried longhaul before (707's) whereas Virgin (and the new BOAC) have been around for a much shorter time, but have achieved much more.
SMB will retire in the next few years and flog the operation to Lufty or someone else, we'll all be looking for work, and you and young paul will be bemoaning the fact that you have been betrayed...
Take off the blinkers, please, and stop bugging all of us in the real world.
