From the Daily Telegraph 11 January:-
Austin's groovy venture may end up all shagged out
AUSTIN REID is doing his best to emulate his namesake, the International Man of Mystery. "British Midland remains and will continue to remain a full-service airline and we have no intention to become a budget carrier," he shrieked in November when someone had the temerity to suggest that he was about to launch a no-frills airline. He even went as far to write to a newspaper expressly denying that Britain's rather staid third-biggest airline was about to reinvent itself.
Groovy baby! But compare that with yesterday's froth about a "new no-frills airline based at East Midlands Airport." The new carrier will fly to Nice and Palma from East Midlands Airport and charge as little as £25 one-way. It makes the current British Midland operations look frillier than Austin Powers' natty flower-power shirts.
Ah, says the other Austin. This is a separate company. It will have a smashing new name and shagadelic corporate logo. Far from plunging British Midland downmarket, it will be an "independent and valuable addition to the British Midlands family" and will have a "long and successful future".
Perhaps, but try telling that to Easyjet's Dr Stelios or Ryanair's talkative Michael O'Leary. As no-frills airlines lower travellers' fare expectations, traditional airlines face being squeezed out.
The new AustinAir, or whatever it is called, may well have stringent cost control and super-cool efficiency, but launching it now will hardly fulfil the objective of driving down costs that the parent company waffled on about two months ago. Just ask British Airways.