The pension will not be moving to IAG, it is being kept by a Lufthansa Subsidiary in the UK.

As stated by BA CEO today:

My objective is for bmi to be integrated within British Airways’ operations.

Discuss.....

Lights blue touch-paper and retires a safe distance.

True. Sorry all you BMI supporters. Some of us recall when London to Scotland had BA Shuttle operation, which in my experience worked brilliantly, 757s, always competent service and crew, etc, and British Midland, very obviously trying harder, A321s, better catering (remember Diamond Service for all ?), tried to stick you on at the last second if possible, all that sort of thing.

Now you have BA, still a good show with a good team, and BMI, things like crew standards still good but some wacky scheduling, ridiculously small aircraft (the Embraers) in use, silly economised catering, and despite this many recent flights I have taken at 25-50% load factors, which when you see it on morning peak services you know something is badly wrong with the sales and marketing side.

To give an example of the loss of service standards, a BMI flight returning from Aberdeen to Heathrow in the evening a short while ago, when the A319 was still in use. Surprised when checking in to be placed in a middle seat between two others "because its full". Aircraft turned out to be a substitute by one of the Middle-East configured A320s, with a very large Business Class section up front that nobody was allowed to sit in on this economy-only domestic flight. Being all sent to the back, for Weight & Balance reasons the rear rows were not permitted either, so the total load (about 42 of us) were squished into the first seven economy rows, while the rest of the aircraft front and rear could be seen to be completely empty.

Anyway, with much transfer traffic at Heathrow for both, the "profitability" depends more than anything else on how the accountants behind the scenes do the revenue attribution for through fares between the two sectors. Being a bit of a beancounter myself I can demonstrate examples of where the books have been cooked (or not) to show either considerable profitability or extreme loss. For BA it doesn't make any difference to the overall cash taken, just an internal reporting point, but for BMI, where Star Alliance long-haul partners grab the lions share of the money, it certainly does.

Interesting times. Presume I can expect a single Avios account soon enough containing my BA, BMI and Airmiles miles/points.

Not unless you spend all your Diamond Club miles on some juicy redemptions before then Businesstraveler, which is what I'm planning. I'm going to miss both miles & cash redemptions and C class redemptions across the *A at 1.5 x the cost of Y :{

In the full memo he says no decision has been made about how bmi will be integrated and BA will have to reform the profitability of its short haul business if bmi is to be integrated. It's no secret that BA LHR EuroFleet is no model of efficiency. If bmi's short haul operation was transferred into EuroFleet as it is, then costs would just balloon.

I understand BALPA has been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to secure integration rather than having a separate equivalent of Iberia Express.

Now, I wonder whether another BA workgroup has learned the lessons of the past couple of years that collectively sticking your fingers in your ears when change is coming over the horizon and then throwing your toys out of the pram when the rest of the world carries on without you doesn't work? Probably not.

The reason that IAG will pay less money if Regional and Baby are part of the deal is the cost of closing them down which IAG will probably do immediately if they are in that position.

Rougueg

Due diligence was completed at the end of November, which was on schedule. I cant comment on what has been happening behind the scenes (mainly because I don't know!) but my understanding is that Granite are still on track to have things sorted out by end December, or first week in January. With deals like this the devil is always in the detail.

'I understand BALPA has been doing a lot of work behind the scenes'

If they have, their general secretary on the TV this lunchtime appears to know nothing about it.

Skipness/EI-BUD, whilst I agree that it would be easier for IAG to palm of Belfast and Dublin routes to EI, do EI have the aircraft available to ramp up capacity?

I can't speak for Dublin but I don't see how three daily flights from Belfast to a totally separate terminal at Heathrow will benefit BA. That won't even be enough capacity to support the traffic terminating in London if BD weren't around.

As you guys know, Dublin should be considered a serious challenger to LHR for Northern Irish travellers with Etihad (Emirates adding soon) providing 1 stop services to many destinations east/southish of the UAE and EI/UA/DL/AA all operating westbound providing 1 stop to many destinations in the America's and Eastern Pacific region. If BA think there are enough £'s to be made, they will most likely want their 'brand' operating in Ireland but probably in co-operation with EI.

Short to medium term they will need to retain the majority of the BD A32X aircraft to fill slots. BA currently have no new long haul aircraft arriving until 2013 at the earliest and that is unlikely to change given their aircraft selections. Without minimising the amount of time the current long haul fleet spends on the ground, they don't have immediate capacity to switch BD slots to longer routes and even even if they did, are time limited as to where they could deploy those free'd aircraft without adversely affecting current routes. Perhaps their mates down under could lend them at a cheap price some of the 767's they are looking rid of to plug a gap? When the changes eventually happen I'd imagine the first bmi domestics to be majorly shook up will be MAN and EDI where BA/BD are currently competing.

AC

Ps. No idea how this happened but e t i h a d is being changed to Teahid when I press submit and it isn't an autocorrect at this end!

This is a fair question EGAC but with the addition of bmi to the BA operation (whether integrated or ran as a separate brand) it is unlikely that the bmi flights will be able to accomodated at T5 in the near future, currently some BA ops from T3 and looks like bmi will stay at T1 for the mean time so no great difference to EI offering in terms of terminal, which posed no problem for interlining with BA T1 to T5 at present?

EI-BUD

BA took new B777 G-STBE last week and G-STBF is due next year, with G-BNLA / D / H as an option to return to service from KVCV, though unlikely, there are options to ramp up. EI are getting A319s from IB so there may be options there too. We shall see.

Aer lingus have aircraft but not enough to increase both belfast and dublin to fil the gap by bmi. Is it possible that ba may take belfast and ei use there belfast slots at dublin

mvvdatabaseBranson/VS must complain - because that's their job. If the situation were reversed, then IAG would be doing the complaining.

As for a plan? In the past 25 years (since privatisation) the plan has been:

• Buy another airline
• Asset strip
• Dump them

Since BA is the dominant force in IAG, please do not expect the 'plan' to be any different. As I have said, Bye-Bye BMI.

EGAC - this e t i h a d autocorrection has been a problem on pprune for months if not years. I don't know why the mods don't fix it.

Belfast and Dublin
 

Jobs to go as BA buys BMI - European, Business - Independent.ie

G-BMED
 

And they get all those lovely routes to the mid-east back, just as the Sh** hits the Arab Spring:{

Whilst it's true that BMI failed to identify and target its market, and this is probably a fundamental reason why they are losing so much money due to poor yields and loads, they are, from a passenger perspective, a fantastic airline.

For sure other airlines control more than 56% of slots at their home base, that doesn't make it healthy. The national carrier in its own country invariably has a dominance which leads to the high handed and arrogant attitude that makes it enemies in its own country. The plus side to that is if I fly SAA out of JNB and they have a tech delay I know they are more likely to find a quick solution than another carrier.

Probably a bit late in the day but does anyone else think Eastern Airways would have been a good fit? They were born themselves out of British Airways's regional operation and seem to offer a similar service with good punctuality.

If we assume the merger goes ahead unhindered by competition authorities, presumably IAG will be keen to consolidate some short haul flying and use the spare slots to expand long haul - which means a need for something with range.

How many aircraft can BA + Iberia call on from storage in the next 12 months to service this for a few years until Airbus / Boeing can supply some new metal ? Are the aircraft in storage too decrepit for profitable use ?

Alternatively is sourcing aircraft from other Oneworld airlines - or even leasing firms a credible option ?