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Old 17th May 2011, 21:40
  #1133 (permalink)  
G-AWZK
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: UK FIR
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Low cost airlines rely on constant expansion, baby has done nothing but contract in recent years.
The fleet is ancient, fuel hungry and in desperate need of upgrade work (ACARS upgrade to comply with CPDLC, stringer AD's etc) which will cost at least a million quid per airframe.
Engineering work and some back office costs are covered by Mainline and accountancy jiggery-pokery.
From a pax perspective, the cabins are clapped out and generally fairly dismal. Fares do not in general have a big enough differential from full service carriers to be attractive and the Belfast half-base is just madness. The concept of Fortress Midlands is deeply flawed at best, hopelessly optimistic at worst.

There are a lot of good, highly talented people at bmi, sadly very few of them appear to be in upper management.

I am willing to bet that bmiBaby will not exist this time next year.
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