Bmibaby

[racedo]

I'm not a financial expert but I have been told by someone who knows a lot more than me that it would be very difficult for a parent company to simply allow a wholly owned subsiduary to simply declare insolvency and cease trading. They would be liable for any monies owed and, more importantly, it would have a significant impact on the credit worthiness of other parts of the LH business.

Unfortunately it is very easy for a company to let a subsidary go bust and because of Limited Liability there is no comeback on the parent company other than for direct cross company guarantees and I reckon LH would have minimised these well in advance.

Sadly its all too commonplace and generally companies planning this would have the major assets held in another company name with a contract between companies.

[OltonPete]

BHX-GLA

As mentioned on the BHX thread BHX-GLA ends next Thursday with
about two weeks notice. Is this due to an early end to an aircraft
lease or a cynical ploy to keep bookings with a hope of transferring
pax to EMA-GLA rather giving a months notice and this giving flybe
the business?

Most already knew that BHX will be three units this summer yet four
continued to be sold for winter and five for summer (still four now
I believe as EDI is still bookable).

Contrast to EMA-BFS which in December recorded 5567 pax or about
60 per flight and 40% load factor plus cheap fares.

How long will Baby persist with this service especially with FR
operating three daily BHD on silly fares?

Pete

[Facelookbovvered]

bmibaby BALPA meltdown

Lastest T3 costa coffee gosip is that BALPA membership at bmibaby is in free fall with a group of baby pilots having started a legal challenge against balpa over changes to the way pilots are selected for redundancy agreed to by BALPA to included sickness and LIFO but only time served in baby, which by a strange quirk of fate resulted in the crew council members being taken out of the drop zone and pilots with dozens of years service with bmi put in the drop zone.

The crew council have repeatedly rolled over the latest being the removal of fresh milk from the crews, to be replaced with UHT milk jiggesr that have been on the aircraft for months and that the cabin crew says tastes like cold sperm!! i guess they'd be an aurthority on that then?

[INKJET]

Muppets

Is anyone surprised, BALPA reps are between a rock and a hard place, dammed if you do and dammed if you don't

You do the CC bit for free, it takes up loads of time and hours on an evenning when all you want is a beer and a bit of telly, the best you can hope to get out of it is a line training position if you please your masters (not the membership) so how can you not look at your job security and think well a tweak here a tweak there and that me safe? It might not be right or moral but they don't pay the mortgage & car loan

It ought to be the BALPA PN job to provide oversight as they are employed by BALPA and not the company and as such are not/ should not be influenced by such issue's

Having only ever met one of them at bmi regional years ago, i thought she was nice enough but useless with little or no understanding of the airline world and seemed she would be better suited to be human rights lawyer like that Chicrabarti lass or what ever her name is that always pops up on the Beeb when they lock up some Islamist with a hook that wants to see the end of everything Western apart from the hand outs and benefits

Remember if you don't like what your CC do, you should stand for the council yourself not moan when they get it wrong (for you)

[acbus1]

.....to be replaced with UHT milk jiggesr that have been on the aircraft for months and that the cabin crew says tastes like cold sperm!!

Does you-know-who have an opinion, or is he keeping it zipped these days?

[TartinTon]

MANPMI seems to have disappeared for Summer 10. I thought this was a year-round route for WW?

[aidoair]

Yep, that seems like another cut. It was still bookable untill at least last week when I last checked. I feel the MAN base has been probably the biggest hit through these latest cuts. As much as I like bmibaby and see the potential they have, I feel that the MAN base could ultimately be closed by the end of this summer. W-routes could perhaps operate there but I feel they have really let their operation slide at MAN. A base which could have been their best performing or at least one of their biggest until just the pass couple of years they have given it all away to LS and EZY...

Again just my opinion but i'm sure there is some truth in there somewhere.

Aidoair

[TartinTon]

Hmm...I don't think it's LS or EZY...MON seem to outcarry all 3 of them on competing routes

[INKJET]

Aidoair

The problem is that there are far more routes that baby could fly (from 4 bases) than they have aircraft at least for now, so something must give.

baby didn't close MAN,CWL or BHX or pull everything into EMA for a reason, if they can get things right this year they will have access to Luffty owned aircraft next year.

LH focus for now has to be bmi international the brand is knackerd in part because of baby's sucsess (Google bmi and you'll see what i mean) and NT new business model, so its no longer seen as a premium product in the way that diamond class was in BD days in the 90's

The problem is that the damage is done and their is no way back for the brand, even culling the baby wouldn't change it, so what to do?

Well if i were Wolfe i would re brand bmi international but starting a new name now would just be seen as Oh that was bmi, i would go with Swiss, its a name that is respected for quality and would if bmi improved the product offering attract a premium, it would also simplify the LH structure.

There is IMHO no way back for bmi, that i am sorry to say is NT legacy

As for baby i would pay Bab's Cassini £3m a year for 3 years to run baby

[cortilla]

i'm feeling very odd about baby. I used to be ground crew for a company that handles them at one of their bases and i know alot of their crew. I also told Mrs C that she was fine in booking on one of their flights in a month's time for a wee skiing holiday.

Whilst I'm completely convinced that they will keep operating in the forseable future i have absolutely no faith in LH keeping them going beyond their current programme. Why would they. LH have never made any bones about the fact that all they're interested in is the LHR slots of mainline.

If you're not FR or EZY in the UK then low cost is a dead duck. You either go the way of BE in Niche markets that the Q400 can cope with and stuff apart from charters that keep the 195's busy or you go the way of LS and dump the city routes post haste and turn yourself into a quasi charter airline.

Baby are a wholy low fare subsidiary (notice i said low fare not low cost) of mainline. Unfortunately their focus is on city pairs such as AMS BFS ABZ EDI MAD BCN FCO etc etc that just aren't lucrative anymore since the pound crashed against the euro. City pairs are no longer an option if you're not FR or EZY.

Don't get me wrong i'd love it if the great team at WW were kept in work but the glory days of baby were 2004,5,6,7 and they are now unfortunately over.

I'd love to be proved wrong but my prediction is there won't be a winter 2010 programme. That doesn't mean that the excellent people at baby will be out of work but the brand BMI Baby will be no more.

[INKJET]

Cortilla

The 2010/11 will be on sale in around 6 weeks time and word is there will be a few more winter routes plus more charter work

Baby's cost base is falling due to the expensive lease aircraft ending their term and the other measures being taken to cut winter crew cost through seasonal working, in effect a 30% pay cut as few baby pilots do more than 600 of 900 hours allowed anyway.

Whether it will be still within the LH family? i think the answer is Yes

Baby will break even this year (a profit before re structuring costs) and a profit for 2011 should be on the cards

[mathers_wales_uk]

There are a few encouraging signs that shows WW will hold on for a bit longer.

The 737-500 with the new tail logo
The two 737-300 aircraft that remained in the fleet which were due to leave.

So what do Bmibaby need to do? When they sort out their operational and logistical issues and become profitable again then is the time that mum (LH) will put money into the company and allow them to be like a lo-cost/lo-fares airline should be.

Don't forget that LH own germanwings so they know how a lo-cost arm of a large carrier should work and WW will be turned into something similar.

But they need to keep aircraft moving in the winter and need to fly where passengers want them to fly.

[OliWW]

not only the B735 being painted, but one of the B733's is having a paint between the 21st - 26th Feb up in Manchester, so we will be seeing 2 of the new tails flying about

[mathers_wales_uk]

Looks like their rolling it out slowly then. Are we looking at seeing the newer large logo being rolled out accross the fleet too?

[OliWW]

Im guessing that it will be the "newer" B733's to get painted if any, so YF, YG, YH, YK...

Though going to MAN next week could well be a B735, as the details just stated a B737.

I think a aircraft is also booked in at EMA at the end of March and one in April after that aircraft?? needs confirming though

[cym]

Baby Winter 10/11

Think there is a good chance that CWL will bite the dust come October 10. Their flying programme this winter has been minimal with very low.

In my opnion they will either need to rethink CWL (and up their game, which they should have given that TOM used to be a big loco player at CWL in previous years) or just pull the plug and let someone else have a crack at CWL

[OliWW]

They will probably leave CWL and move to BOH to stop flybe getting in there as well!

[mathers_wales_uk]

Well if Oliww is correct about winter 2010 schedule out in 6 weeks and more charters then we will have to just wait and see.

Yes CWL this winter has been a ghost town but with BFS not selling well and EDI being contested with by BE then it is not suprising thats it's been quiet.

Both GNB and GVA never really sold that well either hence GNB removed from all stations.

There is no need to operate aircraft on a loss just to have the flight number showing on the departure boards they may as well keep the aircraft on the ground. It makes commercial sence to me.

The issue that WW has at CWL is that for lots BRS can be as easy to reach as CWL. Now with Ryanair and Easyjet offering much lower base fares than WW with better times and frequencies they find it easier and more convenient to go to BRS.

WW don't really advertise at or around CWL other than the airport, 1 or 2 buses at Newport and Cardiff and on the ITV Wales Weather.

So with 2 based aircraft for S10 it will be very quiet for WW at CWL but i can assure you if WW pull out at last minute, it will be a while and lot of jobs will be lost before a replacement will come in.

Don't forget other than the big 2 (Easy and Ryanair no one is taking risks in this current climate)

[cym]

Mathers - agree with you that you cant operate flights at a loss but also bare in mind that aircraft sitting around does cost significant money too.

WW should have kept a much better service on both ALC and AGP running this winter as there was already a significant cax reduction yr/yr due to with withdrawl of TOM from these routes. The alternative is that there will be further slippage across the bridge

I dont want Baby to withdraw from CWL but do feel they need to up their game.

BOH for WW? Me thinks not - MOL has already marked that patch.

IMHO I think WW's retraction into EMA is a bad move. FR are already well established there and I feel will just take on WW route by route even if they loose money in the short term

[mathers_wales_uk]

WW would be paying reduced fees as they are based at CWL. Don't forget the operating costs for fuel, landing take-off, handling staff, crew, engineering, catering etc

If you getting lower than required operating proffit then it's better to cut your losses and have the aircraft sit on the ground generating a small loss.

Now if WW moved onto operating some charter flights then you could see more profits coming in similar to what Jet 2 and GSM used to do with their 737's.

There is a reason that the Charter airlines such as TOM, TCX etc are withdrawing out of the traditional spanish destinarions which is £ v Euro. A holiday to spain is not as cheap as it used to be hence Turkey now being added to most tour operators.

We are in a recession and until the airline industry comes out of it and passenger numbers start increasing again there will be a reduced need for flights to the likes of Spain and Portugal.

If WW brought in their 4th aircraft to CWL and not sent it to BHX then we would have had a greater offering of flights in the summer. And not just withdraw services to replace them for new destinations,