There are of course various factors that have brought bmi to the present situation, some are not in their control, LHR cost increases, Goverment APD, additional security costs post 9/11 and the chaos that is LHR. bmi compounded these by adding its own mistakes, the main one being the current CEO "new business model" which was no more than a cost cutting exercise, which meant you had to pay for food and drinks on all short haul flights, only to be changed within weeks to exclude DUB,BRU,BHD,EDI&GLA,mean while the regional operation continued to provide food and drink. As the loads declined so slots were changed making the services less attractive. The train service has of course improved and there are far more services to other airports with out going via LHR
bmibaby then pulled out to put the aircraft into BHX, despite the spin the loads were good and the yield could have been improved with a few route tweaks.
This is worrying for DTV, but more so for bmi, the figure i was quoted yesterday by one of their skippers was that they are bleeding a >£1m a week and i can't see that been plugged by this weeks announcement
sad to see such a once fine company in such a tail spin
