Any intelligent report will see that there is very little domestic Heathrow traffic already except for Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Manchester (Belfast City finishes 29 October). BMI only compete on EDI and MAN and even if there was no competition from the other London airports (and there is plenty), two routes would probably not be a good reason to stop a huge buyout which IAG/BMI would be. Or at least one would hope not :bored:

Uhm Belfast City ending October 29? Did I miss a memo somewhere? Pretty certain this hasn't been announced.

bmi at BHD
 

I can find no announcement about bmi ending its route from LHR to BHD either in airline related announcements nor in the general media (and as the oly real way from Northern Ireland to get quickly to Britain is to fly, the media are usually very quick to pick up any chnages. In addition, the route is bookable well into 2012.

Are you sure?

FWIW, wikipedia says bmi regional will end LHR-BHD on October 29th, but not mainline. Is it this which has caused the confusion?

That may be the issue. bmi seem to be pulling the regional aircraft off the Belfast, Dublin and Edinburgh routes (hurrah!) this winter and sending them to Norway instead. I'm fairly sure we'd have heard something by now as we got about 2 months notices when Glasgow was canned. In my opinion BHD will probably be the last domestic route to go.

Out of the norm - saw visual and heard radio ads today for BMI pushing man-LHR at £29.99 one way - never seen or heard BMI ads around Manchester before!

Some changes at the top this evening, I hear. Interesting times.

There was big feature in the Daily Mirror today plugging how much cheaper BMI was on domestic routes + DUB than trains or cars. Sorry haven't got link.

FT link
 

Lufthansa names Sørensen BMI chairman - FT.com

Any views on this character`s remit?

Lufthansa want out and are going to try to recover the maximum they can from their hugely loss-making investment in bmi. Scary times for all the staff involved. The front-runner will be the IAG group without a doubt. They'll be desperate to secure their home base and prevent somebody with lots of wonga (like Qatar) coming in and bringing competition to their coveted long haul routes. They hate VS enough as it is! I don't think in our dodgy economic times there'll be much regulatory opposition to any deal as it will protect UK jobs. This has been on the cards for a long time now after Bishop selling up to LH and it's finally coming around to the end-game, I only hope it goes well for everyone employed there.

Lufthansa may want to be out, but very much on it's own terms, it will not give it away, to do so only crystallises it's loss.

There are huge problems for anyone considering buying bmi, pensions,competion authorities amongst them, add to that mix a Castle, regional, bmibaby and extensive lease commitment.

My own view is a further extensive restructure, particulary bmi mainline operations is the most likely out come, DLH would rather do business with Branson than BA and Virgin are unlikely to get any deal called in.

There is a long way to go on this yet

I'd buy the castle though and leave someone else to the airline, I have to admit.

i think whoever buys it will restructure the company as a single airline and lose the name baby, at the end of the day having these two companies in the airline costs a lot of money from having to advertise 2 different brands, maintain different websites etc etc. both baby and mainline offer pretty much the same product as the service of baby is in my eyes the best service by a LCC, it will save alot of money to make it all just 'BMI' and different aircraft types, i dont think makes a big problem

The only problem there is that it's the bmi mainline portion that's bleeding the overwhelming majority of the cash. The bleak UK economy, volcanic ash and importantly the 'Arab spring' uprising have all played their part to destroy the reason for existence of a long established UK airline.

i worked handling BMI at LHR 10 years ago. They are a very good company and still have a very good reason for existence..their passengers like flying with them:ok:

BA ready to bid for BMI to expand at Heathrow - Telegraph

BA ready to bid for BMI to expand at Heathrow
British Airways is ready to throw its hat into the ring in an auction for Lufthansa-owned BMI, the second biggest operator at Heathrow airport.

BMI rescue aircraft
 

The 1730 LH956 from FRA to BHX (G-MIDS) due 1800 has been cancelled tonight and G-MIDX has positioned up from LHR as BMA9571 (arriving just after 2000) to operate the delayed LH957 1840 BHX to FRA.

There have been long delays in FRA today so not sure whether there is a technical problem with the A320.

Looks as if G-MIDX will operate the delayed 2225 departure back to BHX from FRA - Lufthansa showing an anticipated delay of 1hr 35 mins.


EDIT: LH957 eventually departed BHX at 2150 (3hrs 10 mins late)

Airline BMI 'for sale' after losses