BD Low Cost ex EMA!

[JB007]

[quote]Bmi's announcement to set up a low cost airline shows an airline in disarray.<hr></blockquote>

BMI is responding the best way possible...as I said before, this sort of competition is good news.

And having worked for GO, this comment is typical of the management - haven't got a clue!

[beekoy]

The word is that the new airline will be called Baby bmi. An agency in London has registered the name yesterday.

Apparently it also featured in a publication this week called something like "Design Week"

[In trim]

Having recently moved from a full-service airline to work for a low-cost airline, I am aware that there needs to be a real culture change for all people involved. You don't just become low-cost by removing the catering and lowering ticket prices to fill the planes.

The entire philosophy of existing bmi staff involved in this venture will have to change. Working practices, culture, in order to achieve quick turnrounds, etc. That is not going to happen overnight, and if they are transferring significant numbers from bmi it will take a long time to get this approach up and running properly.

[Navy_Adversary]

This has all been just like waiting for a bus in the middle of Leicester, wait ages and then two come at once!!
My very best wishes to GO and Baby BMI, let's hope that there are no losers , but perhaps that is hoping for too much. <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

[David Hurst]

Seeing the slagging of bmi by other low-cost carriers; note Transavia's Basiqair service. Cheap fares, internet booking, different ticketing, cabin crew, cabin service, check-in but same aircraft and flight deck crew as the 'normal' Transavia service. They chose two popular routes and serve them from both Amsterdam and Rotterdam, dropping the previous 'normal' scheduled service.
Market research showed the Dutch public wanted cheap fares but were very worried about safety and reliability of low-cost airlines. Pax get different ticket stock and check-in but reassured by same livery aircraft. Seems to be doing well.

[Peter Skellan]

So BMI are going to lose a lot of lucrative business pax on domestic routes. They are then going to fly the same sunshine routes that they always have done but they are going to drop their tickets to £25. Hmm. Not a business plan I would like to present to my bank manager.

Isn't this a bit like Jaguar responding to the new Fiesta by cobbling together their own hatchback replete with wood panelling, leather and a "Stately Hall" trim?

Perhaps they are just planning on a money fight with Go hoping to drive them off. I hope not. BMI really doesn't need to lose any more money at the moment and I don't suppose Go have any to start with.

Surely it would be better if BMI focussed on delivery an world class full fare product whilst Go concentrate on a world class low cost line?

What next? Go announce a fleet of Gulfstream V's for EMA with a Conran designed new executive check in and lounge, wall to wall lambswool carpeting with free flowing champagne dispensed by dozens of Swedish 6ft cabin crew...

This industry is changing more in the last couple of years than it has in the last couple of decades. Thats for sure.

PS

[crab]

I think Steliarse has a nerve slagging off bmi when he was most vociferous in his objections to GO competing with him.How would he react to BA`s cast off competing with him in his own backyard.Maybe now that they are no longer owned by the arch enemy BA they have become acceptable to him.He reminds me of Freddie Laker who was all for a level playing field as long as he was playing downhill.He was most put out when Dan-Air undercut him on some charters!

[twistedenginestarter]

Well, Babs was on the tv at tea time and she's not giving in. She "wishes them well" (yeah right she does).

Meanwhile B Mid are saying they are going to have normal BMI service, quality, food (yes) - just they are going to be no frills. What ??????????!!!!

I dunno what they are on but I didn't know you could obtain it in Castle Donnington.

[crab]

The report I saw on local TV stated that food and drinks would be available for purchase.That seems reasonable to me given the projected low ticket price.Hopefully the staff will have the friendly approach which bmi are well known for unlike the low cost carriers.

[willryderdaley]

Now that 'low cost airline mania' is finally hitting our streets, one wonders just "how low can it go" We've seen this all before a few years ago but then, it was with travel agencies ripping out each other's throats by flogging holidays with T.V. thrown in for your troubles.

Mr O'L, my wife would like a Dyson Vacuum cleaner - any chance of throwing one in on our 2 quid return tkt from DUB?.........AWWW FANX!!

Great for competition all this - but ALWAYS a loser at the end, sadly.



Great

[Electric Sky]

whether bmi is prepared for this or not remains to be seen but i think it is the best response that they could give to Go's arrival. I believe that Go would have easily won the "battle of EMA" before this announcement. Lets face it who is going to pay £300 to get to Palma when they can go for £40. I understand that the 2 737-300s are excess to requirements on the scheduled network at LHR so that is where they are coming from. I do think that it will take some of the wind out of Go's sails but like all the successful low costs they are aggressive and will not shirk to the challenge at this stage!

I hope to see both airlines do well at EMA and hope that they don't pursue a target of killing each other as it is good for our jobs ... sadly i think i have false hopes!

ES <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

[high & fast]

Dear Chaps, I have just arrived in from the pub!! I personally hope that bmi sticks it to 'GO' in the EMA battlefield. I must admit I do admire the success of the low cost operators and I hope they choke when the airline with the deeper pockets squeezes out their market share at East Midlands. Get out of the bmi backyard or prepare to lose money!! (maybe the drink talking!)

[Son Of Piltdown]

From the Daily Telegraph 11 January:-

Austin's groovy venture may end up all shagged out

AUSTIN REID is doing his best to emulate his namesake, the International Man of Mystery. "British Midland remains and will continue to remain a full-service airline and we have no intention to become a budget carrier," he shrieked in November when someone had the temerity to suggest that he was about to launch a no-frills airline. He even went as far to write to a newspaper expressly denying that Britain's rather staid third-biggest airline was about to reinvent itself.

Groovy baby! But compare that with yesterday's froth about a "new no-frills airline based at East Midlands Airport." The new carrier will fly to Nice and Palma from East Midlands Airport and charge as little as £25 one-way. It makes the current British Midland operations look frillier than Austin Powers' natty flower-power shirts.

Ah, says the other Austin. This is a separate company. It will have a smashing new name and shagadelic corporate logo. Far from plunging British Midland downmarket, it will be an "independent and valuable addition to the British Midlands family" and will have a "long and successful future".

Perhaps, but try telling that to Easyjet's Dr Stelios or Ryanair's talkative Michael O'Leary. As no-frills airlines lower travellers' fare expectations, traditional airlines face being squeezed out.

The new AustinAir, or whatever it is called, may well have stringent cost control and super-cool efficiency, but launching it now will hardly fulfil the objective of driving down costs that the parent company waffled on about two months ago. Just ask British Airways.

[SLF3]

Any airline should be continuously looking to reduce it's cost base - that way you make more (or lose less) than you otherwise would. The way for full service airlines to prosper is to differentiate themselves from low cost carriers, by offering a 'better' product than they do, whilst continuosly cutting their cost base. This is how BMW compete with Ford.

Right now economy class travel in Europe with a full service carrier is expensive and squalid. Business class travel in Europe is extortionate and (with a few honourable exceptions) marginally less squalid. Travel with a low cost airline is cheap and squalid.

Imagine an economy class European flight from Heathrow with:
- 30 minute minimum check-in
- No queue at the check in desk
- 30 kg baggage allowance
- Generous but consistently applied carry on allowance
- No queue for security
- A seat in the departure lounge
- An air bridge, not a bus
- Leisurely boarding
- 34" seat spacing
- On time departure
- Smiling staff helping passengers (not chatting)
- A decent meal, appropriate to the time of day
- Hot coffee
- Air bridge (no bus)
- Bag starting it's second lap of the carousel as you walk up.

Would I pay more for this than for a low cost carrier? Definitely! Would you be happier working for an airline that delivered this consistently day in day out? Almost certainly. Would the word get round? Like wildfire.

[mainfrog2]

SLF3 I think that is a very good point you make. The full service airlines need to look at improving the environment we put passengers in especially the european business routes. Maybe BA BMI etc could consider having less seats in their aircraft. Provide a far higher quality service in business in Europe.

Pax point of view.

More space for luggage, quicker boarding and checkin less pax to board, faster turnarounds,
more space per pax, more personal service, increased flexibility, direct connections to longhaul flights. Little or no difference between the short and longhaul service.

BA could drastically cut it's shorthaul fleet, improve the cabins, laptop powerpoints etc. making the a/c predominantly business and link the major European business centres to their longhaul fleet.

But pay for it. Most people like quality products and if the quality is their they will pay for it.
But full fair services need to provide a big difference to low cost which I don't think their doing at the moment.

[flypastpastfast]

Completely agree with SLF3. If only it would happen.

Competition at EMA will be very good for punters in the area. Go probably thought they could just turn up and charge expensive 'budget' tickets, but now they have a competitor. Excellent.

Thinking as a punter, if I can get a really good service for only 2-3 pounds more than certain budget carriers then I will go for it. Accordingly, Go will have to raise their standards to compete effectively at EMA.

Unlike other posters, I do not think this is an impulsive move from BMI, they have been in the airline game for a long long time, and have seen freddie laker, easy and GO. What they have deployed is true business skills, in continually misleading the competition.

On a purely business level, their staff are of a very high level of competence having successfully run a large European airline for many years, and the squeals of 'unfair' and other nonsense from easy and Go, further confirm this. The budget airlines suddenly sound a bit unsure of themsleves.

For months the likes of Go and Easy have been screaming that they have real business sense and can successfully run airlines while the likes of BMI cannot. Now they will have REAL competition from professionals.

Good for aviation, jobs and competition. This will be the real shake up in UK/European aviation.

[Hew Jampton]

Who knows for sure that Toad Hall costs "absolutely zip"? Consider a (totally hypothetical of course) alternative: somebody buys a near-derelict building for practically nothing, receives a substantial grant to do it up, then rents it out to an organisation for a tidy sum.

[ 11 January 2002: Message edited by: Hew Jampton ]</p>

[Peter Skellan]

Hang on a minute.

My sympathies lie with the low cost sector here. It is they who are growing the business and generating the traffic.

BMI as the 2nd largest carrier is getting a very easy ride on this forum. Take the same situation and apply it to BA and I think there would be outright condemnation on these pages.

e.g. Tomorrow BA announce its going to start a new low cost division called Baby BA at Gatwick and they have 8 737's in the paintshop as we speak. They announce that Baby BA is going to fly 90% of the same routes that easyJet have announced they will start flying in 2 months time.

Every man Jack here would be up in arms accusing BA of trying to drive easyJet out of Gatwick. People would start banging on about putting Laker and Danair out of business and point knowing fingers at the Virgin dirty tricks fiasco.

And yet when the number two scheduled airline and the number two low cost airline in the UK go through exactly the same scenario people are slow to decry it.

Baby BMI should lose money for a good few years if it really is a new enterprise. All airlines do up to and including SouthWest when they start up. So what we have here is old Michael Bish willing to throw money away for a couple of years to drive out Go. And don't try and say that this hasty painting up of two surplus 737's is part of some grand strategic move by BMI. As their previous recent statement made clear they have no intention of becoming a low cost airline.

Go certainly has a much much stronger brand than Baby BMI or whatever they will be called. I'm sure Sir Bishop has deep pockets. He will need them.

PS

[Banzai Chap]

Bmi had no choice but to react and a Summer schedule to the Med will see lots of full flights. One can only presume that Go had these destinations earmarked and they may have lost round 2 of the publicity war. However, what happens in the Winter of 2002 should be interesting as these destinations become less attractive.
At this stage given a choice I'd select Go because their move into EMA has made Bmi react. If they had not arrived Bmi would still be riping me off
big time

[STAN DEASY]

I am confused.

When Go announced its EMA venture, postings were praising thier initiative, boldness and flare whilst at the same time heralding the demise of a stuffy, staid and cumbersome airline.

Now the old maid has woken up and put her teeth in, postings are still against her biting back.

What do you want? bmi are, in pruners eyes, dammned if they do compete and damned if they don't. One things for sure, judging by the response, their announcement has certainly put the wind up some of the low cost airlines.