BMI Regional announce ABZ-AMS
 

In competition with KLM, who are due to increase to 4 daily flights themselves.

BMI Reg new route starts Mar 06.

3 flights daily, 0715, 1155 1630 depts.

ERJ v B737.

Thought the BMI GRQ route would make way, but seems that route remains.

They also announced new routes from Edinburgh and Luton a few months back. Even sold seats on the web only to cancel the whole programme before the first flight took off.

Not for the first time I find myself wondering: what the hell are BMI Regional up to? They announce LTN-BRU (if I recall correctly) then cancel it. They spend forever humming and hawing about EDI-MUC, an obviously attractive route (and one which attracts Scottish Route Development Funding), and then finally pull back from that. And for what? Three times a day ABZ-AMS in competition with a 4x daily 737 operated by the AMS hub incumbent? :confused:

Is there some amazing corporate account that they have wooed away from KLM to justify this service (whose key selling point according to the press release on ATI is that "convenient timings of the BMI flights provide excellent links for the business traveller, allowing for a full working day in Holland’s capital without the early start required by the current schedule operator")?

So that's OK then. We can justify launching an inferior schedule on a less comfortable aircraft, up against an operator known for aggressive competitive pricing, on the basis that we'll win all the business from having an 0715 rather than an 0615 departure?

Where can I buy the recreational pharmaceuticals that are apparently being consumed in Donington Hall?:cool:

They have had at least 2 abortive attempts at LBA-CPH where the route has gone on sale and then been pulled before launch. Countless slot applications into various German airports, many of which resulted in wholly workable timings for services such as LBA-DUS or LBA-MUC and yet always handed back. Yet despite the obvious attractiveness of such routes (STAR connections, point to point business traffic, the economic rationale for consolidating at existing bases etc) they seem determined to pull ideas out of left field that seem entirely inconsistent with what a regional airline within the STAR umbrella shold be doing.

It may of course be the case that the regional people have lots of good ideas but are prevented from fulfilling them by the politics from the major shareholders in bmi. Pressure from SAS & Lufty at MAN has often been cited as the reason many LBA plans never get off the ground.

682

I've read Shell is the reason for BMI's decision, presumably on the "promise" that seats will be filled, but I thought that was why they launched the GRQ route.

I asked a close friend in bmi about this after reading what people are putting, and they said that they had intended to operate to Munich from Edinburgh but didn't get slots good enough to operate a decent schedule hence it was dropped.

And Luton Brussels was only put on sale as they described it "as a beauty contest" to show Munich that they could go elsewhere if they didn't deliver, and also try to get the same out of Luton & Brussels - however they looked at ABZAMS later on when it appears that many people going to AMS don't like KL, and don't like their schedules, so this is a great opportunity for bmi to capture the top end market and make it work.

My friend doesn't work for regional, but does say that he envies them - apparantly they have got together a great team in all areas and are the most punctual airline in these parts, and have the best engineering record for the Embraer fleet - so they must be doing something right!!!!

But if this washes over those of you who don't like to know the real reasons behind things, don't like to see people make a success out of things and don't like an intelligent debate then maybe I should have replied with an un-educated insult of my own like certain others instead!!!

As BMI's losses are currently underwritten to the tune of 90%, by SAS and DLH, they can currently afford to muck airports willing to host them about!

I assume that BMI did not actually agree with Luton, terms for their operation, they were just hedging their bets!

Why not start an Aberdeen - Amsterdam route, if their parents are to endure all/any losses?

no,no,no:

Thanks for the input which is quite interesting, if a bit confusing.

I haven't come across the idea of putting route A on sale in order to persuade airport B to cough up more marketing funds, as you say happened in the case of LTN-BRU - isn't that just using your unsuspecting passengers (who book in the naive assumption that the airline is committed to starting the route rather than just staging an airport "beauty contest") as bait? Seems to me that if I'm airport B and I see the airline has already launched route A with the aircraft they were planning to use to fly to my airport, I'll figure the game's up rather than being motivated to give them a still better deal.

No, I'm still confused. And your friend seems to be suggesting that they were playing this game with Luton in to get a better commercial deal from Munich, but then you're saying that it wasn't the commercial offer at all, but the slots, which scuppered the Munich service.

Not sure who that was aimed at :cool: but bmi regional does whether you like it or not have a somewhat chequered recent record of route launches, even before LTN-BRU and EDI-MUC. Remember NOC-GLA? LCY-LBA? The back-and-forth with Baby over EMA-CDG? That's not exactly "making a success of things" to use your words.

You're quite right on one point - if they have the best record for punctuality and reliability, as long as it's in comparison with other operators with similar utilisations, then that's evidence they're doing some things right on the ops/engineering side.
(In the last full year of CAA punctuality stats - 2004 - and taking scheduled operations to all UK airports, bmi regional does indeed have about 89% of flights arriving within 15 min, just behind Eastern, on a par with VLM, and well ahead of BACX on 82%). So take a bow, bmi regional Engineering and Ops.

But I continue to find many of their route decisions perplexing, even - I confess - after some further insights such as your own. Of course an airline can do all the market research it wants but ultimately may have to actually launch a service to figure out if it'll work. I'd entirely understand if bmir launched (say) EDI-MUC or LTN-BRU and then later said, "no, we did our best, the forecasts looked good and we did all we could in terms of marketing, but in the end it didn't work." It's just that (recreational pharmaceuticals or not :) ) they've picked some non-intuitive candidate routes on which to take those leaps.

C.

PS Buster: you're quite right! Presumably though if the parents underwrite the losses they would expect to have some share in the decisions about which routes to launch?

How much of a loss does BMI regional suffer from? Also who underwrites it?

I think I have touched a nerve with someone - who has taken to write a lot about the history of bmi - obviously a close follower of their actions (were you turned down for a job with them?).

If you've got one aircraft to launch a new route and you want to get the best deal you can, why wouldn't you? To be honest I can see them having a very close look at LTNBRU and EDIMUC (which I think would have started if slots had worked) in future - along with other new opportunities as always - some work and some don't - all airlines do that at some point - even BA who change their routes about from London (Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Caracas, Belfast, Hannover, Cologne, Melbourne) - the fact of life is somethings just don't work - but don't you have to put your best foot forward - and if you know you can make a better go of investing in option c rather than option a or b isn't that what they should do - after all they do have a responsibility to the shareholders like everyone else, and also their employees. Then you can make more money to bring in more aircraft to launch more routes to grow a network - isn't that how other airlines from Virgin Atlantic to Ryanair to Eastern Airways have done it???

And increasing flights from their main base in Aberdeen versus launching a one-aircraft operation in Luton must surely bring about greater efficiencies?

Anyway I am off - everyone have a great Christmas and a fantastic new year

Base skipper cost.. :confused:

.. a couple of grand a year is insignificant, would'nt even cover the hire car and hotac between bases :hmm:

Paper Lad...

BMI regional makes a profit ! The rest of the group underwrites it...how is anyones guess :ooh:

(...they (bmi regional)..)


Us and Them now is it, inky? Ok for those who have moved to bigger and better things, I suppose, but you are still in the same group nonetheless....

Happy New Year mate.

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