I did not say they weren't specced out for MAN, I said they were never ordered or intended to be deployed to MAN at all. If you care to read what I said, feeding MAN out of London makes little sense.

London enjoys cheaper fares in economy as the larger number of business and first class travellers subsidise the seats down the back. Regional long must pay a premium to fly direct as it does not have the same level of cross cabin subsidy. Hence the last thing any long haul from MAN needs is bargain hunters from the London area driving yields down.

So when you say you can feed from anywhere, then there's some truth. However in this case feeding from London, an already overcompetitve market you are driving down yields and pushing up losses.

Quote: "The bmi flights included in the codeshare are: Yerevan (Armenia); Baku (Azerbaijan); Addis Ababa (Ethiopia); Tbilisi (Georgia); Almaty (Kazakhstan); Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan); Beirut (Lebanon); Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Khartoum (Sudan)."

Is Amman (Jordan) not included?

Interesting that this is the list that BA (through its Bmed subsidiary)offloaded to BD a few years ago.

Is it the case that they flogged the operation, but not the slots, hence the demise of many BD short haul routes at around that time?

They say what goes around....

BA did not own therefore did not flog BMED, neither did BA offload the routes. The comment about the slots might be correct.
Bb

Quote: "BA did not own therefore did not flog BMED, neither did BA offload the routes. The comment about the slots might be correct.
Bb"

What exactly did happen?






Quote: "Your first sentence is closer to the reality, but that isn't what they were thinking. At the time they thought that although MAN was profitable (allegedly) they could make more money by using the 330s from LHR - with 20/20 hindsight not the greatest commercial decision ever made."

Quote: "Yes I remember, it was the inability to actually maximise the potential of these aircraft at LHR that hurt them. Everyone went into India at the same time and no one made much money, so LHR-BOM was never what they had hoped, indeed even VS dropped it later and are just going back this year now Kingfisher are leaving LHR."

Never understood why BD abandoned the BOM route so soon after starting it, especially as the route was thriving at that time, whereas VS suspended the route much later, during the recession.

AFAIK VS have recently returned to the route, using the A330.

It wasn't thriving on the bottom line, loads flying, no one making money. Good decison by VS to get back into the market now it seems to have settled and the overcapacity is receding. i.e. Kingfisher

However, BA did own all the branding that was used ......

I believe also that the branding franchise commercial agreement with BMed also stipulated that BA had first refusal in the event of any sale. BMed didn't do well enough commercially, and thus was offered by its owners to BA first, who did the Due Diligence and said "no thanks". Quite rapidly, if I recall correctly. BMI then throught they had scored a considerable coup. Alas not, it seems.

I never used the BMI Mddle East routes, but I did once get one of the so-configured A320s as a substitute on BMI Inverness-Heathrow one evening, when BMI did this route as well. On boarding I couldn't believe the size of the business class cabin, for a narrowbody I have never seen an aircraft with such an enormous area at the front for premium seating. Incidentally, when checking in at Inverness we were told the aircraft was "full", which knowng the route and typical loads seemed extraordinary. Turned out this business cabin was to be unused, and so for weight & balance purposes the rear of the Y-class was likewise, and the 35 or so passengers (typical load) were all squished in 6-abreast, wth groups split up, in the first 6 Y rows. What a bizarre way to run an airline.

Asking on behalf of Cabin crew based at MAN. Any news for BMI crew based outside London? They are currently using their language skills on the German routes but aren't getting any indications from the company.

Options would appear to be BA LHR or redundancy so big decisions need to be made.

Thanks for any news..........

Same for ground staff based outside LHR , it is a waiting game to see how much is offered :sad:

ETOPS, I imagine anything you hear on here will be rubbish, there is a lot of rubbish going round (as you know;)) and I think we will know more in 2 weeks time.

But, can you really see BA operate a LH route out of MAN 2 FRA full of lovey LH connecting pax's ? No thought not.

If that's not good enough, I have a friend who has a friend that's pregnant works for BA and now in uniform stores and she say's we are all going on Euro fleet, Worldwide and Mixed ****e. So take your pick. :ok:

C'ant see any BD crew going directly on to Worldwide Fleet as this would annoy a lot of existing BA crew. I think Worldwide is basically 'closed' to new members and will shrink overtime as crew leave/retire.

Mixed Fleet is the new Fleet and this will grow as Worldwide declines.

I would have thought the vast majority majority (if not all ) BMI crew will go to mixed fleet at LHR . I suspect the BMI crew will remain as a group operating the former BMI routes for this summer ,and then from W12 some of these routes will cease and the remainder merge into the BA network and the crew will merge into Mixed Fleet at this point.

What utter tosh :ugh:

I suppose "Preggars in Uniform Stores" trumps the usual sources of accurate information like The Cleaners or The Caterers.
:ok:

Both bmi A330's require heavy MX this summer.

A330 G-WWBM is due to be ferried LHR-MLA on 19th May for MX and then for repaint before returning to LHR. Rumour is that a EuroFly A330 will be wetleased in to cover. G-WWBD will follow shortly afterwards.

Also A320 G-MIDX is being ferried LHR-EMA on 24th April for repaint.

Royal Family , care to elaborate on what you think is Tosh ?

Given G-WWBD and G-WWBM had a livery swap and fresh paint last year, this is just removal of STAR ALLIANCE liveries? Is G-MIDX expected to return in Union Flag colours?

G-MIDX is one of our Star Alliance livered ones so I would have thought with the target date of 20th april for change of ownership it will return in BA colours.

G-WWBD is in full livery not star livery. I'm gonna be sad to see this re-painted. I love the BMI livery on the A330.

As it would seem that the A330 aren't coming to BA does anyone know what livery there getting painted into ?

I would expect them to remain in the bmi livery untill they leave the fleet...

So Cazza_fly are you suggesting that G-WWBM will get painted into the BD livery, I really hope so. Would be glad to see both A330 in the livery before they leave. Also they would be the last aircrafts in the livery.

Sorry no. I rather mean that G-WWBD will most likely just remain in the bmi livery. As for G-WWBM, I'd be expecting it to remain white (Star Alliance removed) just with basic 'bmi' titles added. Obviously this depends on what the maintenance plans with the aircraft are going to be etc...