Flybe to buy BMI?
 

Flybe enters race for British Midland - Times Online

The story continues....

It would be great to join companies. Flybe is a good company to work for and I reckon joining forces with bmi would be really benefit everybody.

Please define everybody?

Perhaps they are going to buy it with all the money they saved not giving us a pay rise or bonus this year!:}

"Benefit everybody"
 

Not for those of us in the bmi/bmir hold pools it wouldn't (assuming Flybe would disband the hold pools like they did with the BACON one).

From The Times article:
The obvious suggestion would be for Flybe to grab bmi regional and possibly baby too. As for LHR - I suspect that would be (unappealing) for French and Co.

However the rumours about Flybe and bmi regional have been on and off ever since Lufthansa announced their intentions. So in theory, this article does not really tell us anything that we did not know already! ;)

BMI hold pool
 

I was in Connect holdpool and was offered permanent position with Flybe when they took over. Have not looked back but with overall job situation expect this takeover(?) may be different.

Best of luck to those waiting anyhow, try and stay sane. It is worth it.

Now that would be an interesting acquisition. Especially as BA owns a 15% stake in Flybe as negotiated as part of the BA Connect deal.

Perhaps not so simple a buyout unless BA took the LHR operation and Flybe the regional and BMI Baby.

Pure speculation obviously.

Or a joint Flybe/Virgin bid........Flybe take Regional and Baby, Virgin take the LHR operation!

TBE.

TBE,

And with what, exactly, would Virgin buy BMI with? Branson doesn't have two pennies to rub together at the moment despite his smoke screen rhetoric.

Mergers = lost jobs - period !

BACON Hold Pool
 

How many guys did or did not get taken on buy Flybe who were in BACON's hold pool. Did everyone get an offer take or leave it etc? How many are in the Mainline and Baby pools's. I believe the Regional pool has around 12 to 16 or so guys swimming. With a much larger Flybe would there be a need for a combined Midland group and Flybe pool. Good luck to all involved. :ok:

Apparently a double decker bus has been spotted on the moon this week.

Any truth in this rumour?

Does anybody want BMI? An extraordinary airline with apparently one manager per staff member. I have never seen so many managers running around, and all to little avail- not a happy place. Flybe would not swallow this one at all well- it is not the same business model, no commonality on types- in short a massive indigestible lump of business with nightmare staff amalgamation scenarios. Whatever was the OP thinking?

I think the difference with the FlyBe/BACon takeover is that the job market was totally different then as it was just about peaking if not already peaked. Lots and lots of pilots left BACon when FlyBe announced the takeover, thus creating lots of jobs for pilots in the BACon hold pool (me being one of them). Times are different now, and there are not many other jobs that pilots would or could move on to, thus not creating spaces for swimmers.

I realise that BMI are under some pressure, it would be great if Virgin took mainline and Flybe took regional and baby! I just want to wish all my ex work mates the very best whatever happens.

For those on the 737 Ryanair and Flydubai are real options. i've been interviewed by both and am just considering my options.

TGH

If Flybe are interested in anything it is surely only BMI regional. That would fit quite nicely into Flybe's very successful business model. They have proved they can get rid of 145s and have plenty of Dash 8s on order to replace them. It would also further help the business / leisure passenger mix for Flybe. I suspect it would only be taken on if they can negotiate similar terms to the BACON take over ie Lufty pay Flybe to take it off their hands. Otherwise I'd say Flybe would rather see BMI regional fall on it's arse and fill the void themselves without the hassle of a takeover. Lets be honest, who else in the UK would want or has the resources to take over BMI regional?

Thats my 6 pence worth!!

Gordon Brown is more likely to win the current series of X Factor than Flybe taking on the festering corpse of BMI.

Mainline has no relevance to Flybe whatsoever; Baby is about as appealing to the directors as an acid enema; and Regional does not offer anything to the Flybe network that is worth the cost and hassle of taking it on. BACON did offer many advantages in terms of size increase, route growth and a big payout from a profitable (at the time) parent.

BMI group has none of these. You may as well speculate on next weekend's lottery numbers, because you have far more chance of success.

Theoretically, isn't it a little tricky to split the businesses, because certainly as far as pilots are concerned, all employees are actually employed by the holding company with a corresponding global seniority list aren't they?

I know the company ignored that at the beginning of the year but...

:confused:

The three companies have separate seniority lists. Group date of joining only determines redundancy (and staff travel!) within the individual company you work in- ie, baby pilots (max seniority 8 years) and regional pilots (all but the top15 or so, seniority less than 9 years) would not be displaced to make jobs for mainline pilots (average seniority about 15 years) if all the redundancies happened within mainline.
All this, of course, is true if LIFO is applied as the main criterion for redundancy; this is still subject to revision to comply with age discrimination legislation.

I did hear a rumour (note: rumour), that should flybe acquire baby and/or regional they wouldn't want the pilots or airframes.