It certainly would be a mammoth undertaking for Flybe if it were true... Even integrating Regional and Baby would be difficult enough let alone mainline! When I first heard about this, I assumed people were just talking about Regional (as that made more sense) but seemingly not, French wants pretty much the whole lot...
I'm sure Flybe will want to pour over the figures and perhaps come up with some kind of deal with Lufthansa, much like they did with BA during the merger with BAcon. bmi is heavily loss making and would be a huge financial burden to whoever take it on, its a risk that Lufthansa no longer wants and one that others should be wary about because to turn a company who still makes hundreds of millions of pounds loss with a billion pound turnover isn't going to change overnight.
What ever happens, it would radically change Flybe from what it is now... Especially as Jim French is even said to be interested in 'parts of the Heathrow operation'. I'd be very interested to hear what Flybe have in mind for it, because if it were to happen, it sure as hell wouldn't be staying in its current form!
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