LGWcrew

Is it April 1st? I'm watching the space and got bored of waiting after 5 mins.

When is it happening?

Why BRU for discussions?


To add to the rumours of new LH routes previously on this thread, new routes to Japan and Brazil.

FF

And I bet Sir Bish and Sir Dicky didn't have to mess around standing in line for the SSCI machines, or get allocated middle seats right at the back of prole-class and then told they couldn't be changed, or get told they weren't allowed into the lounge because their cards no longer meant anything to the airline, or get told that the BOB butties were sold out, and not even get to buy a G&T because time for selling had run out! :eek: :eek:

A

East Mids, I am glad to see things are improving.

Well if the latest round of merger rumours are true at least the staff would have a better idea of the company's direction.:hmm:

East Mids

That is probably because the BRU - LHR flight has retained the full service element!

HWB :bored:

Not for the poor sods who travel in steerage it hasn't.

A

February passenger stats make more unhappy reading for bmi - pax figures on Heathrow down 13% with some routes like Glasgow and Manchester looking even worse, despite little or no change in capacity versus last year.

First figure is last year's carryings, second figure is this year's figure and final figure is the percentage change.

ABERDEEN 16,010 14,700 -8%
ALICANTE 6,801 4,796 -29%
AMSTERDAM 45,108 45,055 0%
BELFAST CITY 53,022 52,822 0%
BRUSSELS 24,795 22,720 -8%
DUBLIN 47,657 45,310 -5%
DURHAM TV 13,293 9,152 -31%
EDINBURGH 54,147 44,760 -17%
GLASGOW 49,283 37,352 -24%
HANOVER 9,989 5,414 -46%
INVERNESS 3,631 3,148 -13%
LEEDS BRADFORD 13,352 12,697 -5%
LYON 2,561 #DIV/0!
MADRID 6,914 5,768 -17%
MANCHESTER 39,640 30,912 -22%
MILAN (LINATE) 5,299 3,250 -39%
MUMBAI 5,094 #DIV/0!
NAPLES 4,052 -100%
NICE 5,561 2,498 -55%
PALMA 3,769 4,636 23%
PARIS (CDG) 26,906 20,342 -24%
RIYADH 1,904 #DIV/0!
VENICE 5,557 4,869 -12%

Went to Venice with my wife & kids for a few days, full outbound and almost full inbound, good crews & service reasonable price, wife & kids had traveled ryan and paid £4 for a coffee & pringles got coffee & sandwich for the same bmi, a lot of slagging for nothing here I often wonder reading the posts if there is not a 'dirty tricks' in the process.

I personally think loads of it rubbish, but hey I am sure the management are reading some of the so called rumours.

good post inkjet, couldnt agree with you anymore!

bmibabyfc

Good post Inkjet. The only problem now is I've just paid £374.35 for an economy return MME/LHR/MME on the same day. Taking the p*** or what?

Who says we don't want a meal ? There are many of us (as a quick straw poll round my office just showed) who get up at 05.00, leave home at 06.00 for LHR, which is as LATE as possible so no lounge time, onto the 07.30, half hour hold in the departure queue, get to EDI at 09.30, taxi to client where they are all waiting to start, rushed/no lunch, leave at last moment at 17.15 for the 18.30 departure so no lounge time, Bovingdon hold on the way home (of course), rush out through T1, home at 21.15 where they all ate long ago.

Tomorrow, the same to Brussels.

Yes, who says we don't want a meal in flight, the one chance in the day to do so ? We don't fly in business class because the client will not pay for it, but any (in reason) Y fare is OK, whether £50 or £250. We never see the fare paid, our travel dept does all that side of things. We do maybe 50, maybe 100 such sectors a year. We keep the trunk service carriers in business, not the £19.99 pax on the midday flights. We can choose our own airline. One has full hot meals and drinks both ways, one has a sandwich, one has an overpriced trolley which is often sold out.

Which airline do you think we choose ?

as has been expressed here, and as a pax, bmi is suffering from an identity crisis at the mo. When you book EZY, BA, or even bmibaby you know what you get and expect. For me its all a bit confusing and a bit of a lottery at the moment.
Bmi made its name and reputaion as British Midland - ouzed quality - thats what you paid for and expected. Coupled with that was its Diamond service - pax enjoyed it and its staff liked delivering it. Its frequent flyer programme was also attractive.
For me its quite simply-
bring back British Midland - even add the International if you like - (can keep the impressive livery that way - which would cost £££'s to reverse) bmi sounds like a cheap American bank or illness to me!
Split cabins on all services, but market business class as Diamond business class- give them a brekky etc etc - whilst behind the curtain can get pax to pay for what they want - perhaps give them a free cuppa for there bother.(thereby retaining £££'s thats spent on the new service and gaining income)dont be fooled -There are business class pax out there!!
Finally bring back a rewarding freqflyer scheme - pax will want to return - and bring there custom back.
regards IMHO

bmi lost the plot for the following reasons

It's become a marketing-driven, reactive organisation that doesn't understand its own product, knows even less about what its customers want (or need) and hasn't a clue about where it's going.

And they really think that they're soooo sh1t hot that they won't listen to anyone with a modicum of common sense.
And how can they? - they discarded their knowledge/experience base post 9/11 and then again and again in recent years, they've confused and alienated their customer base and they treat their staff like trash.

Oh, and did I mention that their management is arrogant, to boot?

But we all know that, don't we.....

I agree with all of the above, But I do feel sorry for what IMHO are the best staff working for any airline out there.

WHBM
 

Whoa Fella

I agree that a breakfast on a morning flight is most welcome and popular, the afternoon take up was always more mixed. The point is that many were happy to sit behind the curtain on the shorter flights and have a free G&T or 3!!.

4 years back the 737 service from Leeds would have the curtain at the back row just before they dropped business class it was 2 or 3 from the front the product was more or less the same (very good) and in real terms the prices hadn't changed, they lost a rotation, so something else had changed?

In part that was LoCo and a cost awareness in staff travel departments

So i can see why they (bmi) had to do something, that they got it wrong is probably the verdict and will probably need the rest of the Summer to believe it and come up with a plan to change yet again.

Viktor

BMI (merged)
 

BMI passenger numbers collapse

Leaked figures obtained by the Guardian show that the privately owned airline's flights from Heathrow carried 13% fewer people in February than they did a year ago. Its most intensive routes between London and Scotland suffered the most dramatic slump in popularity. Passenger numbers on its Glasgow flights dived by 24% to 37,352 and the number of travellers on its Edinburgh flights fell by 17% to 44,760.....the number of people on its flights from London to Paris fell by 24%, passengers on its Manchester flights were down 22% and its Brussels route suffered an 8% fall.... The statistics come hard on the heels of data from the Association of European Airlines, which reported that BMI's aircraft were only 53% full in January, among the lowest in Europe and comparing unfavourably with British Airways' loads of 72%, Virgin Atlantic's 71% and Air France's 77%.

The BA card advert in the middle of the linked article was a nice touch. :)

Applying common sense, I wonder how so many valuable Heathrow slots, transporting so few people, can be justified. I also wonder how Easyjet or Ryanair would fare with the same slot allocation. I think the answer is pretty obvious, though!

"Use it, or lose it" seems fair to me.

I love journalism these days. Read a message board, lift a story and its numbers and call it a "leak"...

Anyway, been on BD115 mid-week with a 100 per cent load and stand-by passengers not making it on-board......

Clearly a great piece of Rip and Paste.
Dear journalist when reading this: next time do your own homework or start paying Pprune ;)