Here here bmybaby81!! Spot on. I had Wolfgang on a flight and he happily discussed all that's been going on with me, quite candidly (which suprised me slightly). Having been to one of his initial business briefings when he took over I asked what had become of his vision of bmi as
"simply needing to replace small aircraft flying to low yield shorthaul destinations from one of the world's most expensive airports, to an airline with larger aircraft flying longer and more lucrtive routes to make the most of it's slot portfolio". His answer was pretty easy to de-code and simple, Lufthansa got COLD FEET. He is not somebody who came to do a mopping up operation, he had big plans to expand bmi, just as he did at Jet in India, but when he went to Lufthansa to find some a/c they just got cold feet. Direct quote: "It was a case of the aircraft just not...being made available to us", there were...certain reassurances that we just couldn't provide to our shareholder".