Poor Management
You've to admit that the present state of BMI has been due to the poor quality of management. I have been informed by reliable sources, In Engg the managers @LHR were bleeding the airline by sanctioning O/T to the lads where they were paid for a whole shift (10hrs) having worked for 1-2hrs only. To add insult to injury they also had contractors on shift, some literally lived there 7on-7on. Obviously they were overstaffed or rather productivity was poor, i am led to believe it was the same in Cabin crew.
I wonder how much of the $700m slot valuation was used in the past as a collateral for loans to pay for these excesses.
The underlying fact that you have to accept is, that every country in EU has one major intl airline and it is only U.K. that has 3 intl airlines. It is LHR that has been supporting the 3, due to the credit crunch and the slow contraction of the financial services industry LHR based airlines will have to take the brunt of this drop in pax numbers.
There might be room for BMI-baby but i've my doubts on BMI schd @ LHR or MAN.
The middle-eastern airlines will pick up the slots once they are auctioned for a bargain. Unfortunately the last decade is not going to be repeated in our lifetime.
It is a sad state of affairs in UK aviation, i am affected too but we have to move on.