LDY hit as its the London route

Perhaps Bristol in terms of passenger numbers with flybmi providing around 2% of the airport's 8.7 mppa through its seven routes from there. One of the routes was Brussels but that will be taken over by CityJet in April, an announcement made some time ago.

Probably biased as we both know we're locals. Besides the PSO being renewed is fresh in everyone's head and contact has been made between here and Gregory Campbell has said...


"The transport secretary indicated that he is hopeful that a new operator will agree to take on the route.

"There needs to be as seamless a transition as possible from Flybmi to the new operator in order that the travelling public suffer as little as possible."


BRS has lost a great deal of German connections so I would say it could be.

Goodness. I did not see that coming :-( I've worried about them in the past, but for the last year or so they seemed to have the most stable network they've had in a long time.

I assume you have retracted this accusation?

Alex Macheras does himself no favours by making it all about himself. "His exclusive", his coverage of Monarch was a clear pitch to media agencies to pay him to come on air and pontificate as his role as an aviation analyst. Except he categorically isn't an analyst and he has zero industry ceredentials. He's a well connected young man who comes from a VERY wealthy background and runs his own website and pushes out gushing sponsored content. The key point being he gets off on this sort of thing collapse because it raises his media profile.
He makes me sick.

A real shock as they ' seemed ' stable.
Makes one wonder about others like Eastern as well .
Are they secure , just always seems to be many negative posts on the company over the years .
And part owning HUY, it begs the question why not offer more routes , using their own Aircraft ( sorry off topic ).
Anyway back on BMI.
A sad day my thoughts are with all the people who have lost their way of life .
Another great airline bites the dust .
Pity some kind of Rescue package can't be found ( Eg virgin , they seem to have deep pockets) and it would create a very large domestic carrier ..

I see the airline conveniently blaming their collapse on Brexit. How convenient. Nothing at all to do with any other non-Brexit factors, really? I find that spin as complete denial, here is that spin.

However, meanwhile, and separateky there are more balanced and less lazy journalism and comments:

Source

So basically, the cost cutting that should have been delivered over the past 5 years wasn't fully delivered and it seems convenient to point and oh, look over there, it's Brexit! Not creditable at all. Another example of management failure to aggressively and relentlessly squeeze costs out of the operation. It weakened their ability to withstand fuel price pressures and ATC strikes and chaos they caused. Yes, Brexit is 'one' factor, but the destruction was rooted in much deeper issues from the sound of it.

Pretty sad to see the end of the British Midland dynasty now over.

I think a cost would have been the need to set up a European AOC to keep doing what they were doing in Europe.

No, I still believe what he wrote was irresponsible. It read on the basis of fact, without citing sources, even if he couldn't disclose them (regardless of what he had was accurate or not). That is not responsible journalism.

On the subject of bad reporting a sky reporter this morning said BMI were part of IAG

Both FR and EZY are reported offering rescue fares from £9.99 for any stranded BMI pax

Isn't the problem that there only seems to be one commercial model for shorthaul and that is low-cost? I wrote an MBA thesis on small regional jets for BA when I worked for them (1991) but since then lo-co has dominated. It is to be expected that as an industry becomes more mature, everything will trend to the most efficient operating model and we have seen this in aeroplane design (all twins, engines under wings) as well as the commercial model which consists of the lowest seat/mile unit filled with anyone that will pay a contribution to its operating cost. Where the model will go next is up for debate. Probably a hybrid, ironically, of lo-co down the back and a better full-service up front. If you are paying for a fully flexible fare which includes bags and maybe a meal, then a bit more comfort would be nice, like BA from LGW where they are doing middle seat free. The difference is now that the operating costs have been squeezed to the lowest and the (bigger, optimally sized) aeroplane is full. Easyjet has often said that their culture is about low cost, so no mixed fleets for example. Just lots of the same, keeping costs down. This is the long run part of the product life cycle. So if FlyBE and Flybmi were not in this space they either had to change or go bust.

Exactly, well explained. Cost synergy savings is key, the margins will flow so long as the costs are aggressively tackled.

Is it just costs though? I would have said it's markets as well. Thinking back to the days when BMI was strong at Leeds/Bradford, they had the small jets operating to Paris, Brussels, Edinburgh and Glasgow. None of those are viable business/ high end leisure three per day routes now. Those markets have gone, some to rail, a bit of Paris to Jet2, maybe some to business jets. The space in which to operate anything scheduled smaller than a 737 has got smaller and smaller. The contract market such as Toulouse, Stuttgart, oil industry traffic etc seems to have got weaker. Cost control--- sure, but that can only take you so far.

So why haven't the management taken aggressive decisive actions on the past couple of years to get ahead of this, asleep at the wheel comes to mind and now they've ruined employees futures. How some of these so called 'directors' gain employment after the fact deserves investigative journalism piece, the old boys network is alive.