VC10man

It looks like Germanwings from Manchester for my wife in May. She has booked a hotel for 4 nights in Cologne with a no cancel clause, it was cheaper, she's a bit mean.
I will wait a while for my trip in October to see what happens. I hope Easyjet come back and take over the Baby slots. It would be bad for Ryanair to have a monopoly IMO.
To me it looks as if Baby are finished, sorry Inkjet, but no one seems interested in taking over the loss making baby.
My daughter lives in Jersey and we fly there quite often, I hope this flight will continue.

dog in park

The tea leafs say it will be fine. Now enjoy Easter.

FQTLSteve

Hi VC10man. Just a little info which may be useful, but Dusseldorf is perfectly good alternative airport to visit Cologne. There are very frequent daily services from both MAN & BHX with BE & LH. Cologne is less than 50km distant easy by car and train, very short transfer time.

Hope you have a good time, there's a fantastic pub in the Old Market Square, full of character etc.....but you probably know about it!

handsfree

Peter's Bar I believe.

nigel osborne

Inkjet,

Sadly the bottom line here is that LH set a clear deadline, like any other business does in takeovers or mergers.

The companies coming to the table failed to meet that deadline after months of talks.

LH have been generous in extending the deadline, lets hope IAG does the same.

Nigel

VC10man

Thanks for the info, Steve. I will look into flying to Dusseldorf and will certainly try Peter's bar!

easy6826

I hope baby survives, I have ex easyjet colleagues working there now and really hope they will be flying this time next year

Facelookbovvered

Well a company that's cutting a single underperforming route CGN whilst in ownership talks shows commercial focus in my book, if it was to be closed at the end of Summer then why bother? or an immediate shutdown, again why bother?

Clearly some one has their eye on the ball and I wouldn't have thought CGN wouldn't be top of BA concerns. I hope baby gets a new owner soon.

mart901

Its been a while since WW cut anything and the new summer routes out of all 3 bases seem to be performing extremely well. Its not saying some other sweetener couldn't be offered to lure a buyer in. Be interesting to know what IAG,mean when they say they have plans for baby in the event of aquiring it.

Granite City Express

Because until a sale is finally completed it is Business As Usual - anything else would be commercial suicide. Since the staff know nothing it would make sense to continue as though nothing has changed.

Is 2 base closures not enough? Unless they are showing consistent load factors in excess of 85% and corresponding good yields, I would be reluctant to say the routes are doing extremely well.

All communications from both IAG and WPS have made it clear that niether Baby nor Regional will be integrated into BA, so unless there is some desperately optimistic thinking in Hastings House I don't think IAG have any plans for either, with the exception of closure. If no winter schedule has been released for Baby yet then I guess that gives an indication - the baby website doesnt go beyond 31/10/12 btw.

I am willing to bet that the new owner of Baby is IAG...

dog in park
If we have resorted to the Mystic Meg School of Management then we truley are f@ked! If you work for bmi in any management capacity you should be ashamed. The total lack of information has been appaling, certainly in ABZ we know the square root of shag all about OUR future and whether we will be able to pay the mortgage next month. I am starting to get angry at the way we, the staff, have been treated throughout this whole exercise, and still with less than 10 working days to go we STILL know NOTHING!

thebayflyer

I wish people would engage brain before posting. We are talking about some people potentially losing the roofs over their heads.

mart901

Given that Ryanair, king of load factors can't even hit the 80% mark at the moment dont you think expecting 85% consistently out of bmibaby is rather a big ask? I think its fair to say consolidating their limited resources into the midlands has been a good move, giving them a stronger presence.
As for lack of information I've been through 7 company take overs in my life and each time its felt like theres no information and everyone is being kept in the dark. If theres no worthwhile info nobodies going to contact you. Imagine if they did announce every bit of news - you would feel a lot more dejected in the long run.

Say again s l o w l y

GCE, we have been told that there will be no sale of Baby or Regional prior to the sale to IAG. They will become part of IAG and will then be either sold or disposed of by IAG.

Whether Granite or ASL/whoever end up buying the two business in the end, I don't think anyone has an answer on that at the moment.

All I'll say is good luck to my colleagues in all companies. This is a rubbish time for all of us at bmi.

Sonic Bam

We haven't been told what is planned because:
1. BA/IAG are not allowed to discuss or tell British Midland Airways Ltd what is definitely going to happen because this compromises the competition legislation and BA are totally paranoid about being prosecuted for this again
2. They (management) could tell us what they think might happen but what if it doesn't pan out that way? They would then be accused of being idiots for getting it wrong.
3. Potential buyers for Regional and baby will have non-disclosure clauses written into the agreements so management can't legally tell us what's going on. If they did then the potential buyer could sue the company.
4. I think some people in the company know what might happen with BA but again, they will be bound by non-disclosure agreements until the sale is completed.

I'm as pissed off as the next person not knowing about my future but I understand that I can't be told until the deal is done. We've just got to get on with it.

Say again s l o w l y

That has changed a bit since the deal was approved by the EU. We now know a bit more than we did about what is going to happen to mainline, for example 4 departments have already begun their consultation period required before redundancy. Many others will be starting that process from next week.

It's also clear that there will be very few people taken into BA from bmi apart from flight crew. Certainly people based at Donington are highly unlikely to be taken on at least. Now, we all knew that, but it's now been confirmed in briefings this week.

When it comes to what happens to regional or baby, then no-one in bmi is really in control of that. It's a buyers market there and you can't make any judgements until the deals are actually signed and sealed. At the moment, that hasn't happened for either company for whatever reasons.

mart901

Also baby is a brand in its own right that has its own unique and well marketed mascot, particuarly well known in the midlands and that carries weight to potential buyers. Regional is a subsidary type brand that doesnt really resound in anyones mind for anything.

Justin Cyder-Belvoir

Apart from the bulk of your post being a complete waste of energy: have you actually seen the numbers - huge losses, passengers down 50% in 4 years etc etc this takes the biscuit -

You definitely don't know what you are talking about: parking was for a completely different reason.

random_bandit

One thing I find truly amusing is the pleasure some people seem to get in shooting down positivity...

Big win for you, you've proved someone is wrong, you've also made a lot of people feel worse about their future.

Nobody on here knows anything more thathasn't already been released...

INKJET

I think you'll find that I'm spot on.

But hey ho it's a free press. It's a baby thread.......

Justin Cyder-Belvoir

That will be why there are no plans to park anything for winter 12