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Old 28th Jul 2011, 22:33
  #2439 (permalink)  
Flightrider
 
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 1,485
Received 8 Likes on 6 Posts
I think the only thing which is absolutely certain is that things cannot carry on as they are. Lufthansa will end up with a shareholder revolt if bmi continues to report losses of this magnitude. Lufthansa, with 356 aircraft, managed to improve its result from -200 to -100m Euros in the first half. bmi with 60 aircraft managed to lose 120m Euros - i.e. far more than Lufthansa itself. No public company can allow that situation to continue indefinitely - it's destroying shareholder value at a prodigious rate.

bmibaby may have the lowest unit costs, but it would also be no surprise for it also to have the lowest revenue. A low cost base is useless unless you can earn revenue with it, and you don't even need to reach for a calculator to work out that kamikaze suicide missions like Belfast-Stansted will be burning cash. There simply are not enough markets in which the bmibaby fleet at its current levels can be profitably deployed, and probably not enough markets in total to create critical mass for this venture to be sustained in the long term.

Regional has challenges on the UK domestic markets, potential uncertainty around the longevity of the Airbus contract which has flattered its results recently and will ultimately have to find homes for the ERJ145s being moved out of Heathrow if/when/as that happens since E145 operations into Heathrow can be nothing other than short-term slot sitting services.

And finally you come back to the core operation. Yes, they have been unlucky with the political uncertainties in the Levant and Middle East at a time when that was the main focus. Was this foreseeable? Well, perhaps if you consider that they only ended up taking over BMed for bugger all (after the slot sale to BA was taken into account) because BMed was in a mess after political uncertainties in the Levant had demolished its traffic.

The core operation does seem to be performing u-turns at a rate faster than the Coalition Government though. bmi pulls off Nice and then restores services not long thereafter. They close the Dublin crew base and then reinstate a nightstop there after only one season. It doesn't instil confidence that there is a workable plan for the future, really.
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