BMI

[Skipness One Echo]

The Indian call centre shamble as a point of contact is a major joke. I had booked LHR-MME last year and on hearing it was going to be axed I phoned them up to discuss options. They of course assured me that the flight was going to operate even though it had been announced days before it was axed. Any refund would have to wait on the announcement should that ever be made. Er....forget it. I stick with BA.

[Cyrano]

Originally Posted by Flightrider

The introduction of LHR-GVA from January is the first of a few moves of Heathrow slots across to Star Alliance partners, apparently at the expense of LHR-MAN services.

A quick look at the new GVA times from a Swiss press release here:

Route Flight number Dep. time (local time) Days of operation
LHR – GVA / GVA - LHR LX359* / LX352 07:00-09.40 / 07:30-08.15 All days
LHR – GVA / GVA - LHR LX353 / LX350* 08:55-11.35 / 10:20-11.05 All days
LHR – GVA / GVA - LHR LX351* / LX354 11:45-14.25 / 12:15-13.00 All days
LHR – GVA / GVA - LHR LX355 / LX348* 14:25-17.05 / 15:15-16.00 All days
LHR – GVA / GVA - LHR LX349*/ LX356 16:40-19.20 / 17:45-18.30 All days
LHR – GVA / GVA - LHR LX357 / LX358* 19:30-22.10 / 20:00-20.40 All days

(the "*" denotes the bmi codeshare, i.e. bmi aircraft)

suggests that in fact the LHR slots being used for this might be closer to the current DUB-LHR times (with a bit of shuffling) than to MAN-LHR... Ah well, have to wait and see.

[Bang Or West]

Noon tomorrow (Wednesday) for the official announcement apparently. It's not going to be good news either. Good luck to those involved.

[11K-AVML]

Good luck to all concerned !
Will be thinking about most of you !

[one day soon]

Good luck to all of us!

[Paper Lad]

Fingers and everything else crossed. See you at 10.30 tomorrow.

[Jet2]

Little Blue wrote:

This was about the time that all the staff were given those bloody silly kites

I've still got mine. Doesn't fly though! Use it as a groundsheet when decorating

Good luck to everyone tomorrow. Fingers crossed it's not as bad as feared

[22/04]

As a research scientist with an interst in aviation I can't agree more

Banking and being a lawyer seem safest today!

[davidjohnson6]

2204 - At the risk of going off topic, I would have thought that becoming a doctor or dentist is the way to guarantee both good income and job stability - people will never stop getting ill after all. Making ill people better probably also counts fairly high for job satisfaction as well.

[mutualswap]

or a funeral director

[Miss Management]

Sainsbury's

[skip.rat]

Memo just out- up to 600 jobs to go across the airline. 7 mainline hulls to go; 2 regional.
Not good.

[K.Whyjelly]

Flights from Heathrow to Brussels, Tel Aviv, Kiev and Aleppo will be suspended in early 2010 with services from Heathrow to Amsterdam being suspended at the end of the winter 2009/10 period. We will however still continue to offer services from London to Brussels through our codeshare agreement with Brussels Airlines. In addition to these route suspensions the seasonal services from Heathrow to Palma and Venice will not be reinstated in summer 2010. This will mean in 2010 a total of nine mainline aircraft are surplus to requirements compared to 2009. This includes two of the five Embraers operating on mainline routes that will be returned to bmi regional. Leases will not be extended on aircraft when they expire in the first half of 2010, including two of the three long haul Airbus A330 aircraft. We will therefore continue to serve mid haul markets with two long-range aircraft and our fleet of A321s.

From a friend at Heathrow........79 Captains, 50 F/O's and 69 Flight Sups to go. 600 jobs to go in total

[EI-RB]

Any word on LHR - DUB being pulled or reduced LHR - Man services ??

[K.Whyjelly]

The routes mentioned above are the only ones going...................at the moment!!

[globetrotter79]

Not sure if my sums are right?

LHR-BRU-LHR = 1 or 2 ER4 aircraft
LHR-KBP-LHR = 1 A319/A320 aircraft
LHR-TLV-LHR = 1.5 A330 aircraft
LHR-AMS-LHR = 2 A319/A320?
LHR-PMI and LHR-VCE = could both account for 0.5 aircraft per day?
LHR-ALP - tied in with DAM anyway, so maybe no real total frequency reduction as a result?

I make that:
2 ER4 aircraft going back to regional (tallies with release)
2 A330 aircraft going back to lessor (again, tallies with release)
4 A319/A320 aircraft going back to lessor

...so that just leaves one more airbus unaccounted for?

Also: above comments appear to suggest that 2 A330s will be going back to lessor (leaving one) but that the fleet of "two long-range aircraft plus A321s" will service the mid-/long-haul routes.
I assume this means that despite laying off their own flight crew and returning aircraft, BMI intend to extend contract for the B757...this presumably being the second of the "two long-range aircraft".

[Bearpit]

What about regional???

Does anyone what is happening at regional? Can't see where they're going to redeploy Embraers - maybe on Baby routes at Birmingham?

[DTVAirport]

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but surely bmi are not giving away slots to other Star Alliance carriers? Would it not make more sense to lease the slots to them? You don't just give away your most valuable asset?

Also, does the above, along with todays announcement, mean that bmi are no longer the second biggest carrier at Heathrow?

[jedigtr]

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but surely bmi are not giving away slots to other Star Alliance carriers? Would it not make more sense to lease the slots to them? You don't just give away your most valuable asset?

Selling some slots and leasing others to Star Alliance members was what I was told.

[Doors to Automatic]

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but surely bmi are not giving away slots to other Star Alliance carriers?

They will be selling them rather than giving them away in a last ditch attempt to prop up their haemmoraging balance sheet I would speculate.

What a mess!