If Virgin, either solely as the Virgin Group or more likely with a partner company, decided to put in a bid for bmi, does anybody know how much the airline is worth? Would Virgin only be looking at the slots for LHR, or does anyone think that they'd want to keep the trunk routes where pax & crew connect from as well as some other key cities to go up against British Airways? Could Virgin keep a presence in the regions or is bmibaby likely to go, strange what it would have to be called if they had to get rid of "bmi" connotations?
Essentially, from a human resources point of view this merger has the makings of a disaster, with very different corporate cultures as well as a lot of potential job losses. However, given bmi want to expand into the already crowded longhaul market and have made a complete dog's dinner out of their shorthaul services, maybe it'll take some Virgins to turn it back around.