Though its grood to see bmi serving Cairo, they have now announced the termination of Alexandria (HBE) flights from this winter. Bmed have been operating the route for a number of years but bmi now claim that with the new CAI service the UK-Egypt BASA does not allow the carrier the required frequencies to maintain both CAI and HBE. I can assure you that this reasoning is NOT true. Egypt operates an almost open skies policy out of all its airports (except CAI), and services from all other airports like Alexandria (HBE and ALY), Sharm El Sheikh (SSH), Hurghada (HRG), Luxor (LXR), etc are not restricted by any BASA.

It's a shame bmi cannot be forthright with their explanation. Having done work with the airline in the past, this can almost be percieved as the norm.

Rotterdam - RTM
 

From the Netherlands Slot Co-ordinators website BMI have been allocated slots at RTM for W07? Where will they be flying from? And how come they got RTM slots when its says they only allocate slots on historic basis?

Apparently, perhaps someone can confirm, bmi R have ABZRTM slots.

Maybe that what the BRU aircraft will do once ABZBRU is axed later this month, in between the ABZAMS rotations.

Heres the slot application

A RTM BD301 29OCT 28MAR 1234500 037 ER3 ABZ ABZ 0850
D RTM BD302 29OCT 28MAR 1234500 037 ER3 0920 ABZ ABZ
A RTM BD303 28OCT 28MAR 1234507 037 ER3 ABZ ABZ 1815
D RTM BD304 28OCT 28MAR 1234507 037 ER3 1845 ABZ ABZ

Could this be expantion for bmi??

I was just looking through Airbus order, and delivery sheets and noticed that bmi have got 6 more A319 on option, compared to the 3 it said on there a while ago... Also another 3 A320 on option and then not forgetting the aircraft coming from BMED...

Could this mean big expantion??

The big expansion is most likely the 10 Airbus aircraft which have already been ordered. There's going to be big expansion on flights to the Middle East following the BMED purchase with an increase in frequency and maybe one or two new routes all operated by the A321s. Add to that the A330s which are going to be launching trans-Atlantic flights and it's going to be a really exciting year for bmi out of Heathrow. What remains to be seen is what will happen with regional and baby, as well as if anything is meant by a comment made by the deputy CEO two months ago that bmi group is more interested in buying other airlines rather than being bought. There's been a lot of rumour that with less focus at LHR on shorthaul, the existing 319s and those on order could be coming to baby, but I'll only believe that when I see an A319 position in with tiny scribbled across the tail. We certainly know the baby 735s are on their way out over the next couple of months, though it looks like they're just being replaced by 733s from another part of tropical obscurity.

Too be honist,

It will be hard for baby to find B733 now, they had enough trouble finding G-TOYJ and G-TOYK and still no sign of G-TOYI, so Im not sure how they will find more, maybe they will look into A319

Would be a nice change in the fleet if they did!

But a nice change of fleet a sustainable business model does not make, as it were. For baby to move over to the Airbus you'd need to retrain everyone from the bottom up. That's not so much of a problem if you're a massive operation like easyJet, but for a small airline like bmibaby, it'd be costly in terms of both time and money. The benefits of a new fleet are obvious - less likely to be tech, less likely to be fuel guzzlers, less likely to be peeling all over etc. but if baby can keep using the tried & tested -300s there will. Obviously they're not as cheap or as available as they were two or three years ago, but the market is still pretty fresh.

BMI Baby Aircraft
 

According to CH Aviation it states Baby have got hold off 2 x AirOne 733's and one ex Varig 733.

No dates are mentioned.

The last two aircraft in the fleet were ex US Registered (TOYK, previously Qantas) and other was Indonesian registered (TOYJ).
I assume that these three aircraft mentioned on CH Aviation are "new" and will replace some of the 500's?

Pete

I'm sure i have read sumwhere that BmiBaby were considering to sell their 6 735 in order to purchase 8 733.

And one of them sould be on their way to CWL if one ofthe most recent interviews by Crawford Rix is correct regarding further expantion at Cardiff.

Hi,

Lots of subjective information in this thread which is good to see!
I'm trying to find information on BMI's most profitable route pre BMED integration or what effect the ceasure of Bermuda 2 agrement will have from next year.

I'm thinking Moscow but can anyone clarify or tell me where on the interweb I can find this kind of info?

Kempus

I think the Belfast City to Heathrow is the most profitable at the moment, partly due to currently (soon to change with the arrival of Aer Lingus from Aldergrove) having a monopoly on the route.

Huh, it wasn't ages ago that MME was their most profitable - now they've told Aviance UK that they're axing the route after the winter 07/08 season. :mad:

MME is just to retain some of the LHR landing slots, IIRC.

With ABZ-AMS/BRU being chopped, does this free up an ERJ for SOU-MAN?

They've apparantly got slots for Rotterdam from Aberdeen, not sure if that has been mentioned already or not.

Forgot about that - they had slots for double daily at RTM so ABZ-AMS could be directly replaced by AMS-RTM if bmi take those slots up

Ams-rtm? ;)

Slot filler:ok:

Can anyone say why BMI has booked 10 rooms at a hotel near Manston, Kent for this Friday?