With LH is taking on the pension liability £172.5m looks cheap, the slot portfolio alone must be worth consideraably more. Presumably it reflects the high level of BMI's expected losses in the short term and the likely restructuring costs.
It will be interesting to see what the regulatory authorities want in terms of slot divestments and if they must be sold or surrendered.
The obvious thing is for BMI to become a BA franchise with BA reallocating domestic slots to European services, "babysitting" them for use on long haul in the longer term.
Will Virgin be interested in starting services on some of BD's longer haul routes such as Saudi Arabia, Cairo & Moscow? They will doubtless acquire enough slots from the regulators but will they be able to make a success of them?
You may see one plane kept in bmi livery for
PR purposes & the BD code used on charter flights on a Saturday afternoon. It doesn't really make any sense to keep the brand.
Doubtless the best result for bmi but I certainly wouldn't want to be one of their employees, certainly outside Heathrow.