airline	bmi
logo	British Midland Airways Limited logo.png
logo size	200
fleet size	28 (+3 on order)
destinations	31
iata	BD
icao	BMA
callsign	MIDLAND
parent	Lufthansa (100%)
founded	1949 (as Derby Aviation Limited)
company slogan	Better for Business
headquarters	Donington HallCastle Donington, United Kingdom
key people
alliance	Star Alliance
website	www.flybmi.com }}

British Midland Airways Limited (styled as bmi, British Midland International), is an airline based at Donington Hall in Castle Donington, England, United Kingdom, close to East Midlands Airport, and a fully owned subsidiary of Lufthansa. The airline flies to destinations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia from its operational base at London Heathrow Airport, where it holds 11% of all take off and landing slots and operates over 2,000 flights a week. In January 2007, BMI bought British Mediterranean Airways which has enabled it to serve a wider range of mid-haul destinations.

British Midland Airways Limited holds a United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority Type A Operating Licence, permitting it to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats.

The airline is currently ranked as a 3-star airline by Skytrax.

History

The airline dates back to the formation of Derby Aviation Limited on 16 February 1949. Derby Aviation was a subsidiary of Air Schools Limited which had been formed in 1938 to train pilots for the RAF. In 1949, the company formed both Derby Aviation based at Burnaston near Derby and Wolverhampton Aviation based at Pendeford, near Wolverhampton offering ad-hoc charter and freight flights with De Havilland Dragon 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 the 1960s British Midland had its head office at 78 Buckingham Gate in the City of Westminster, London.

British Midland Airways

On 1 October 1964, after buying the Manchester Airport based schedule and charter airline Mercury Airlines, the company changed its name 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.

Minster Assets, a London-based investment and banking group, acquired the airline in 1968, and in 1969 promoted former Mercury ground handling manager Michael Bishop to become the company's General Manager. Bishop from this point forward drove the company with 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. In 1972 Bishop became Managing Director, and agreed to withdraw the BAC 1-11s from service and lease the 707s to other airlines, as BMA concentrated on turboprops such as the Vickers Viscount which was operated from 1967 until the mid 1980s. Though the 707 fleet was increased, none operated for BMA on scheduled services, or charter services on their behalf until 1981, leased to other operators. The Douglas DC-9 gradually converted most of the airline's domestic and European service to jet operation with its introduction in 1976.

In 1978, Minster Assets decided to sell the company. With the help of a Californian entrepreneur, Bishop raised £2.5million to lead the management buy-out, and was appointed Chairman as a result, afterwards stating "I had to borrow the money from an American citizen. Most venture capitalists want a return of 40% to make up for all their other failures and they want an exit strategy." That year, British Midland and British Airways agreed to route swapping, resulting 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. 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 (see right). 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.

BMI

In 1999, Scandinavian Airlines System (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. BMI joined in 2000 and launched a new corporate identity in 2001. This involved the rebranding of the airline as BMI British Midland. The new identity features a brighter blue, the replacement of the grey with white and a fading Union Flag on the tail with "BMI" on it. In 2003, "British Midland" was dropped from the name and the airline is now referred to simply as BMI, although the legal name of the company remains British Midland Airways Limited. The new identity coincided with the launch of transatlantic services in 2001 to Washington, DC and Chicago from Manchester Airport using wide-body Airbus A330 aircraft. Services from Manchester to Las Vegas followed soon after.

BMI operated a service to Mumbai from London Heathrow between May 2005 until October 2006, 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 2007 the airline launched nonstop services from its Heathrow hub to Cairo and Amman, raising the airline's profile in the Middle East significantly.

The BMI Group carried 7.95 million passengers during 2002. By 2005 the total had risen to 10.1 million, the third highest of any UK airline. In early 2006, the Association of European Airlines 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 a pre-tax profit of £10 million for the year ending 31 December 2005.

In late 2006, BMI launched a scheduled service to Moscow Domodedevo in co-operation with Transaero on 29 October 2006, which used a dedicated A320 aircraft (G-MIDO) with special seating for the service, including leather seats and a 40" seat pitch.

In November 2009, following the complete takeover of BMI by Lufthansa, the airline announced a restructing of both mainline and regional operations in an effort to suspend loss making routes and adjust capacity. The measures include a fleet reduction of nine aircraft from the mainline fleet (two of which are operated by BMI Regional) and the suspension of routes from London Heathrow to Amsterdam, Brussels, Tel Aviv, Kiev and Aleppo in 2010. Seasonal routes from London Heathrow to Palma and Venice will also be discontinued. It was said that the restructuring could result in the loss of around 600 jobs – around 13% of the airline's workforce.

BMI announced on 5 November 2008 that it would end all longhaul operations from Manchester Airport. The two Airbus A330 aircraft based there were moved to Heathrow.

On 12 January 2010 BMI announced that from 28 March 2010 they would reduce the number of flights between Dublin and London Heathrow from 6 to 4 per day due to the current economic climate leading to low consumer demand. This resulted in the closure of the Dublin base which consisted of one plane and 33 cabin crew.

In April 2010, the airline announced it would begin using the British Midland branding in its marketing for the first time since the rebrand to BMI in 2001, although the airline will continue to be known as BMI.

Ownership

Lufthansa purchased some of Scandinavian Airlines System's stake in British Midland in 1999. BMI joined the Star Alliance in 2000 as a condition of the stake sale and launched a new corporate identity in 2001.

Between 1999 and 2004, Lufthansa sought to sell its share in the airline. Virgin Atlantic was the main airline hoping to buy the shares and then forming a merger of the two airlines. BMI was already Virgin's preferred feeder airline into Heathrow and a merger would have brought together two well respected airlines with combined ticket sales of more than £2 billion, forming a powerful force in the aviation industry. Neither company would comment on the talks. BMI, headed by Sir Michael Bishop, is believed to have initiated the talks after it fell deep into the red following the 11 September 2001 attacks. A merger would give Virgin Atlantic a far stronger base at Heathrow, where BMI has hundreds of valuable take-off and landing slots, to increase the competition with his rival British Airways.

The two airlines would have 17% of Heathrow slots against British Airways's 43%. British Airways was worried about the rivalry it would face if a merger went ahead, and considered the takeover of either BMI or Virgin Atlantic to stop the merger of the two airlines. British Airways concluded it would be easier to take over the smaller airline Virgin Atlantic. In 2004, talks of any merger of the three airlines stopped.

In late 2006 the airline again dismissed renewed speculation that Virgin Atlantic was preparing to make a bid to acquire full control of BMI, despite Sir Richard Branson repeating in a radio interview that such a merger would be a logical business move.

In June 2007, SAS announced that it would sell its 20% stake to improve its own group profits. The airline commented that it was in early discussions with Lufthansa over such a sale.

In April 2008 Lufthansa announced plans to take over BMI. Lufthansa already owned 30% minus one share of BMI and held an option to purchase shares from the 50% plus one shareholding of chairman Sir Michael Bishop from December 2008 to June 2009.

On 28 October 2008, CEO Nigel Turner announced to staff via the company intranet that Lufthansa had agreed to exercise their option to purchase BMI with the deal expected to be completed in mid January 2009.

In a statement on 14 May 2009, the European Antitrust body approved the take over plans by Lufthansa clearing the way for the German flag carrier to become the controlling majority stakeholder in its British partner. The statement said: "After examining the operation, the Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it." A Lufthansa speaker later announced that this cleared one of the conditions for the take-over bid. She did not however reveal what the other condition was, simply stating that not all of the contractual agreements have been met and therefore the deal had not been finalised.

In June 2009 it was announced that Lufthansa would buy the remaining stake in the airline from Michael Bishop for less than originally agreed upon. Due to landing rights issues the stake will tentatively be held by a Lufthansa controlled but British based LHBD Holding. Once new bilateral agreements are in place, Lufthansa will take direct control.

Subsidiaries

In 2002, BMI set up a low-cost subsidiary Bmibaby using Boeing 737s which were displaced after BMI's fleet renewal programme favoured an all-Airbus fleet. Bmibaby now flies routes between major and secondary airports around Europe, but does not operate from Heathrow.

In January 2007, BMI bought British Mediterranean Airways (BMED), a British Airways franchise partner, and as a result has gained access to new markets in Africa, Middle East and Central Asia that were served by the carrier. As part of the deal to buy BMED, BMI sold BMED's Heathrow slots to British Airways for £30 million. These were handed over to British Airways in late 2008/2009. This sale meant that they had to reduce some of their other flights to fit the former BMED flights in to the schedule in 2009. BMED was fully integrated into BMI on 28 October 2007.

Destinations

Codeshare agreements

As of 17 July 2010, BMI has codeshare agreements with the airlines listed below. an asterisk denotes a Star Alliance partner airline.

{| |- valign="top" |width=20%|

Aegean Airlines *

Air Canada *

Air China * Air India

Air New Zealand *

ANA *

Austrian Airlines *

Asiana Airlines *

Azerbaijan Airlines

Brussels Airlines *

Croatia Airlines *

EgyptAir *

|width=20%|

Etihad Airways

Ethiopian Airlines * (Future)

Gulf Air

LOT Polish Airlines *

Lufthansa *

Malaysia Airlines (Oneworld – Future)

Oman Air

Qatar Airways

Royal Brunei Airlines

SAS *

South African Airways *

Spanair *

|width=20%|

SriLankan Airlines

Swiss International Airlines *

TAP Portugal *

TAM Airlines *

Thai Airways International *

Transaero Airlines

Ukraine International Airlines

United Airlines *

US Airways *

Virgin Atlantic Airways

|}

Fleet

As of January 2011, the BMI fleet consists of the following aircraft with an average age of 7.1 years:

Fleet reduction

As a result of a restructuring of mainline operations announced in November 2009, in which BMI will suspend loss making routes and adjust capacity across the group, nine aircraft will be withdrawn from the airline's fleet in 2010.

The aircraft due to be withdrawn from the fleet are:

3 Airbus A320

2 Airbus A321

2 Embraer 145, part of the BMI Regional fleet.

In-flight service

On flights from London Heathrow within the UK and to Ireland, economy class have a selection of buy onboard catering available for purchase, flexible economy class have complimentary snacks and drinks.

On European flights and services to Tripoli, Tunisia and Morocco, a two class in-flight service is in place, with a hot three course meal for the business cabin, and complimentary food and drinks served in the economy cabin.

On Midhaul and the Freetown route, a two class in-flight service is also in place. The business cabin includes a three course meal and in-flight entertainment. A hot meal and complimentary drinks are served in the economy cabin.

On A330 services to Saudi Arabia, business, premium economy and economy cabins are available, each providing with complimentary drinks and food.

Diamond Club

Diamond Club is the frequent flyer programme of BMI, with three membership levels: Blue, Silver and Gold. There are approximately 750,000 active Diamond Club members.

Incidents and accidents

The Stockport Air Disaster: a Canadair C-4 aircraft owned by British Midland Airways, registration G-ALHG, and operating a holiday charter flight, crashed near the centre of Stockport, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom on 4 June 1967. 72 of the 84 aboard were killed in the accident; 12 were seriously injured.

On 20 February 1969, Vickers Viscount G-AODG was damaged beyond economic repair when it landed short of the runway at East Midlands Airport. There were no casualties. On 20 March 1969, Vickers Viscount G-AVJA crashed on take-off at Ringway Airport, Manchester. Three of the four people on board were killed. On 22 January 1970, Vickers Viscount G-AWXI was damaged beyond economic repair at Heathrow Airport, London when an engine caught fire on take-off. A successful emergency landing was made at Heathrow.

The Kegworth air disaster: on 8 January 1989 British Midland Flight 092, a Boeing 737–400 registered G-OBME, crashed onto the embankment of the M1 motorway just short of the runway of East Midlands Airport, Leicestershire. 47 people died out of 118 passengers.

On 24 August 2010 at 02:25 hrs, Airbus A321-231 registration number G-MEDJ, serial number 2190, en route from Khartoum to Beirut as flight BD996, suffered a serious electrical malfunction which caused the intermittent failure of the captain and co-pilot's electronic displays together with the uncommanded application of left rudder trim. In this particular instance, the latter caused the aircraft to stray 20 nautical miles off course. The aircraft was cruising at 36,000 ft at the time with both autopilot and autothrust engaged. The captain ultimately disengaged both and flew the aircraft manually landing in Beirut without further mishap. Airbus indicated that an electrical power interruption had occurred which had caused a reset of the Flight Augmentation Computer (FAC). Such an event may cause a small incremental offset of the rudder trim according to the aircraft manufacturer. The Air Accidents Investigations Board (AAIB) subsequently issued Safety Recommendation 2010-092 recommending that Airbus alert all operators of A320 series aircraft of the possibility that an electrical malfunction may not be clearly annunciated on the Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitoring system (ECAM) and that such an event may lead to an uncommanded input of rudder trim.

See also

Air transport in the United Kingdom

List of airports in the United Kingdom

Transport in the United Kingdom

References

External links

Official website

Voyager official website

Category:Airlines of the United Kingdom Category:IATA members Category:Association of European Airlines members Category:British Air Transport Association Category:Airlines established in 1949 Category:Companies based in Leicestershire Category:SAS Group members Category:Star Alliance

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