Bmi (airline)

Encyclopedia : B : BM : BMI : Bmi (airline)

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bmi (IATA: BD, ICAO: BMA, and Callsign: Midland) is the second-largest full-service scheduled airline in the United Kingdom. The airline's headquarters are at Donington Hall, close to Nottingham East Midlands Airport. It flies to destinations across Europe as well as to the United States, India, the Caribbean and Saudi Arabia.

bmi's operational base is London Heathrow, where it holds 11% of all take off and landing slots and operates over 2000 flights a week. It was formerly known as British Midland.

History

bmi's roots lie in the formation of Air Schools Ltd in 1938, a company which specialised in flying instruction for RAF pilots. In 1949 the company formed Derby Aviation and Wolverhampton Aviation, based at Burnaston in the Midlands offering ad-hoc charter and freight flights with De Havilland Rapides, as well as aircraft maintenance and brokerage.

Flying instruction ceased in 1953 with the start of scheduled flights from Derby and Wolverhampton to Jersey. When the first Douglas DC-3 arrived in 1955, Wolverhampton Aviation had been phased out and the company's sole base became Burnaston Airport. International services commenced in 1956 to Ostend and holiday flights to mainland Europe began. The company was also contracted by Rolls-Royce to transport aero engines to customers throughout the world. In 1959, the company changed its name to Derby Airways. Domestic scheduled flights within the United Kingdom were launched toward the end of the decade.

In 1964 the company changed its name once again to British Midland Airways (BMA) and moved operations from Burnaston to the recently opened East Midlands Airport. The corporate colours of blue and white were adopted at that time, with the introduction of the first turboprop aircraft, the Handley Page Herald. Minster Assets, an investment and banking group, acquired the airline in 1968. Domestic and European expansion continued apace and in 1970 BMA entered the jet age with the introduction of the BAC 1-11, followed by the Boeing 707 in 1971. The BAC 1-11s were withdrawn from service in 1972 and the 707s leased to other airlines as BMA concentrated on turboprops such as the Vickers Viscount. Though the 707 fleet was increased, none operated for BMA on scheduled services, or charter services on their behalf until 1981. Instead they were leased to other operators. The Douglas DC-9 converted most of the airline's domestic and European service to jet operation with its introduction in 1976.

In 1978 the company directors purchased the airline from Minster Assets. The consortium included Sir Michael Bishop who was now the airline's chairman. That year, British Midland and British Airways agreed to route swapping. This resulted in British Midland Airways relinquishing its continental routes from Birmingham to Brussels and Frankfurt and BA handing over its routes from Liverpool to Heathrow, Belfast, Dublin, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Glasgow. As a result, annual passenger numbers topped 1 million for the first time in 1979.

In 1981 an application to fly between Heathrow, Glasgow and Edinburgh was denied by the CAA. The ruling was overturned, however, after an appeal was lodged with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. With the introduction of these services, BMA and BA were now in direct competition.

BMA, together with British & Commonwealth Shipping, formed Manx Airlines in 1982, and the following year BMA purchased a 75% stake in Glasgow-based airline Loganair. In March 1987 Airlines of Britain Holdings (ABH) was formed to act as a holding company for British Midland and British Midland Aviation Services. ABH became British Midland in 1997 when it was de-merged as part of wide restructuring.

A new colour scheme was unveiled in 1985. Aircraft were now painted in very dark blue, with a deep grey lower half of the fuselage and a red relief. At this time, the airline simply became British Midland, and a new logo of a stylised red BM crowned with a diamond shape appeared on the aircraft tailfins. Airport lounges were introduced at UK hubs and the Diamond Club frequent flyer programme was launched. The charter market was abandoned and the 707 fleet withdrawn at this time.

In 1992, British Midland became the first airline to offer a vegetarian choice of in-flight meals on UK domestic services as well as one of the first airlines in Europe to do so. Towards the end of the 1990s, British Midland switched to Airbus and Embraer for its fleet renewal programme.

In 1999, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), a shareholder in British Midland since 1987, sold some of its stake to Lufthansa on the condition that British Midland joined the Star Alliance. This happened in the July of the following year, and led to a new corporate identity being launched in February 2001. This involved the rebranding of the airline as bmi british midland (though bmi officially does not mean anything, it implies 'British Midland International'). The new identidy features a brighter blue and the replacement of the grey with white. It brings a modern, fresh appearance with sweeping curves. In 2003, the name "british midland" was dropped and the airline is now referred to simply as bmi. The new identity coincided with the launch of transatlantic services to Washington, DC and Chicago from Manchester using wide-body Airbus A330 aircraft. Services to Las Vegas followed soon after.

In 2002, bmi set up a low-cost subsidiary bmibaby using redundant Boeing 737s which were displaced after bmi's fleet renewal programme favoured an all-Airbus fleet. bmibaby now flies routes between secondary airports around Europe, however does operate from Heathrow.

Despite the launch of transatlantic routes from Manchester, bmi has fought to gain the rights to serve the United States from Heathrow. Only British Airways, Air India, Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, United Airlines, Air New Zealand, and Kuwait Airways are permitted to offer such routes.

bmi launched a new service to Mumbai from London Heathrow in May 2005, after the UK and India concluded amendments to their bilateral air service agreement. Services to Riyadh followed, commencing on 1 September 2005 after British Airways ceased to serve Saudi Arabia earlier that year.

In early 2006, the Association of European Airlines [link] reported a drop in passengers carried and load factors for bmi mainline and regional services (excluding bmibaby) whilst reporting increased loads for other AEA members over the same period. Despite this drop in passenger figures, bmi group reported [link] a pre-tax profit of £10.0 million for the year ending 31 December 2005.

Today, the airline is owned by Sir Michael Bishop (50% plus 1 share), Lufthansa (30% minus 1 share) and SAS (20%).

Destinations

Fleet

The bmi fleet consists of the following aircraft, as at January 2006:

• 3 Airbus A330-200
• 6 Airbus A321-200
• 11 Airbus A320-200
• 9 Airbus A319-100
• 13 Embraer 135/145
• 1 Boeing 767-300 (Leased from Arkefly)

In March 2006, the average fleet age was 4.9 years.

Code sharing

The airline has code-share agreements with the following airlines (as of May 2006):

Air Canada

Air France

Air New Zealand

ANA

Austrian Airlines

Etihad Airways

Gulf Air

LOT Polish Airlines

Lufthansa

Malaysia Airlines

Qatar Airways

Royal Brunei

SAS

Singapore Airlines

South African Airways

Spanair

Sri Lankan Airlines

TAP Portugal

Thai Airways International

United

Virgin Atlantic

Incidents & accidents

On January 8, 1989, British Midland Flight BD092, a Boeing 737-400, G-OBME, crashed onto the embankment of the M1 motorway short of the runway of East Midlands Airport, Leicestershire. The incident became known as the Kegworth air disaster.

Frequent flyer program

bmi has a frequent flyer program called diamond club with blue, silver and gold levels. Awards are achieved by mileage flown. bmi has established a considerable following in its frequent flyer program due to its lower requirements and Star Alliance membership, but in 2005 changes to the program and the airline structure meant that lower fares now earn significantly fewer miles.

External links

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