bmi baby - new base announcement due soon?

[682ft AMSL]

I recall management at bmi saying that the site of the 2nd UK base would be announed during June. If so, presumbaly some sort of statement should be due this week?

682

[stevobeevo]

You're correct. The BMIbaby website says that it will be by the end of this month, so we should know by friday. I suspect there are a few airports with their fingers crossed at the moment, if they don't know already.

[682ft AMSL]

Simply based on the number of references around on other discussion groups, the 'favourites' would be appear to be (in no particular order)

MAN
LBA
MME
BOH

One could construct arguments for and against all of them I suspect, so it will be interesting to see which if any, bmi plump for.

682

[Young Paul]

I have no source of information, so this is speculative, but .....

In the North/Midlands, my hunch is that MAN aren't interested in being a low cost hub, and there is no need for connections for the low cost operation. Norwich is too close to EMA, as is Hull. LBA is tight on runway length and marginal for weather, although serving a good catchment area. I'd plump for Teesside. bmi has a long term relationship with the airport, which could easily absorb ten extra rotations a day, and Newcastle and the NE are close by. The downside is that if another low cost operator were to set up a hub at Newcastle, that would make MME look marginal.

In the south, Gatwick would be nice, although I doubt that BAA wants another low cost alongside Easyjet. Southampton is runway length limited. Bristol is covered, and provides coverage for south Wales. So my hunch for the south is Bournemouth.

A really radical strategy would set up a relationship with forces airfields, along the lines of most of the US and Europe. It always seemed a waste to convert Upper Heyford with excellent operational and ground facilities into a well-paved car park. How about the air force allowing 12 movements a day from Brize Norton?

[stevobeevo]

I have no inside info either!

BUT Bournemouth Airports website (www.flybournemouth.co.uk) hasn't been updated since June 7th and they normally update weekly.

The local tour operator who lease 2 aircraft was very late releasing their winter 2002/3 brochure (this week),and they have reduced the amount of flights to Palma and Alicante. This is really weird as these are 2 very busy routes, as loads of peolpe down here have apartments etc over there. Palma and alicante are ofcourse covered by BMIbaby and as Palmair makes plenty of dosh from selling seat onlys this would make sense reducing capacity.

Also the winter schedules haven't been released by the airport and we're nearly into July! Whats going on???

However, Maybe I'm just being too optimistic.:confused:

[TS Hauler]

Just heard from a mate - it looks like Cardiff.

[Small Pilot]

its official - Cardiff.

LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) - British airports operator TBI Plc said on Wednesday that its international airport at Cardiff, Wales, had been selected as the second UK base for bmibaby, the "no-frills" airline run by British Midland [BMID.UL].
TBI said the deal would bring an extra one million passengers to Cardiff International, which dealt with 1.5 million passengers in the year ended March 31, 2001.


Wednesday, 3 July 2002 06:41:02

[fokker70]

Website for Bournemouth airport is www.flybournemouth.com not .co.uk - Anyway it is CWL - 2 lo cost within a 40 min drive...strange decision:confused:

[Fraudsquads]

You may think it a strange decision but when considering the new base I think its more likely that they will look at their target.

Population of South Wales and Bristol etc I'm sure can well support both carriers. This versus BOH, nothing like the desity of population IMHO.

FS

[fokker70]

M25 just over an hour from BOH - Do it about once a month to fly FR to Frankfurt Hahn - Low cost pulls from the London area - The CWL area will not pull from BRS because they 'Easy - Go' are set up there. Only time will tell is CWL can support Baby...

[stevobeevo]

Fokker 70

You will find that www.flybournemouth.co.uk works just as well as .com! Anyway, well done Cardiff. Let the battle commence between go/easy and bmibaby. :)

[fokker70]

Steevobeevo - you are right - apologies - they publish .com not .co.uk -