A Virgin, a baby & a Greek

[KAT TOO]

Well this story is an interesting development!

Baby could well be in a mess at the minute, but they have some grand plans, these include opening a base in Birmingham in a deal that will see Mytravel-lite pull out of the Loco sector. With baby taking delivery of a batch of ex-Easy jet 737 financed by Virgin? They could start with 5-7 aircraft with a similar number at London Gatwick.

Virgin-bmi are moving ever closer together and sorting out the low cost side of things could give both Chairman a fair size train set to play with EACH

Virgin will provide the funds to jump start baby in a move designed to squeeze the third tier Loco Eujet Jet2 to name but two. Easy and baby are starting to talk more with baby putting more flights to GLA just as Easy pull of the route. It also helps Easy move more quickly to an Airbus fleet.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Rubbish!

WWW

[KAT TOO]

Don't hold back ! say what you mean!!

[EastMids]

Nah... Sir Bish's retirement trainset is Regional, maybe renamed to plain and simple British Midland (talk about a blast from the past) now the former bmi british midland has rebranded again to just bmi. Major challenge to the BMI/Virgin merger/takeover is the Scando and Lufthansa shareholdings (fair price, etc). Baby can be sold off now its an AOC holder. What has Stelliosair to gain from what's suggested above -they're whipping Baby where they compete, so its only a matter of time.

A

[682ft AMSL]

Sorry KAT TOO, if this is all from the same source as the stuff you were pumping out about the fantastical things baby were going to be doing up at Leeds this winter, you'll forgive us for taking it with a pinch of salt.

To be honest, it sounds as just as far fetched.

682

[alterego]

East Mids

"their whipping Baby where they compete"

What like easy pulling off the routes or reducing frequency?

If anything is sold of it is more likely BMI. It is losing money where(according to Sir M in the Independent) Baby is not. Lufty have a grip on BMI, not sure about Baby. Regional is not doing a great deal to swell the cofffers at Donington, so I can't see that being a retirement fund.

[egnxema]

I'm with WWW - KAT TOO, what you have suggested is TOSH.

[Hawk]

Looks like this one moving into personal attacks. Give it a few more days and see how it goes. In the meantime read Capt Pprune's sticky at the top.

[colegate]

Has anyone got facts about how bmi and Virgin might be getting closer? They are very different airlines with very different cultures. Virgin is purely long haul with a fundamentally different cost structure than any short haul airline. The only logical basis for Virgin financing the aircrfat of any other airline would be that it is so profitable that it was unable to use its present tax capacity. My info is that quite the opposite is the case. Virgin needs to use the tax capacity of others because it is not sufficiently profitable to use all its own tax alloweances.

bmi has a less coherent strategy than say Ryanair and easyjet and it is also using less economic aircraft. It also does not have to make a profit for survival. The only money it has to make is what Sir Micheal wants it to make. But please remember that Lufthansa wrote down the value of the stock thay hole in bmi earlier this year to well below its purchase value.

Please alos remember that Virgin seem very keen on long haul expansion. This will keep them busy with all the new aAirbus aircraft the order about which is due ti be announced this week.

The City of London will tell you that agreed mergers rarely work and that hostile takeovers almost always do. So if Virgin and bmi got together would it be friendly and therefore likely to fail or hostile and likely to succeed. Can you see Lufthansa and SAS agreeing to sell bmi to a ferocious ling haul competitor? I can't.

[Buster the Bear]

My Travel Lite pull out of Birmingham and baby take over thier routes? If MTL are making money why would they move out of low cost. If they are not, why would an alliance between baby and MTL work?

Are Lufty trying to shaft TUI at Coventry via baby?

MOL was totally correct, a blood bath this winter. Interest rates are rising, so lo-co bookings therefore will be slow, a buyers market?
http://whipsnade.co.uk/picturelibrary/jpeg150/br/brown_bear_120_wide.jpg

[EastMids]

alterego,

Sir MDB doesn't need a retirement fund, he needs a trainset to play with which won't cost him an arm and a leg. Regional fits the bill. Lufthansa have bailed out bmi in the past and whatever the balance sheet value of their shareholding (and Scando's) they want to see a return on their investment before parting with the shareholding. Baby might start making serious money if they can get their network right, but more likely it'll be sold - its the most easily sellable, as there's no one will buy Regional.

As Baby divest themselves of the business routes from NEMA and focus on holiday routes, which will happen over time, the space is left for Regional to put more capacity into NEMA. That takes us full circle because if Sir MDB can negotiate the sale of bmi to Virgin (or to anyone else for that matter), he'll have Regional as his trainset with amongst other things a base at EMA - just like the old days of British Midland.

[KAT TOO]

SMB is not short of a bob or two, its the only airline group that makes no money and is yet full millionaires!

Its worth remembering that Mytravel (Airtours) had SMB on their board for many years and that bmi charter aircraft to Mytravel (that was what the 321 were bought for) The baby rumour at Brum is growing by the day and they have already said they will make Gatwick a base and have the slots in place, baby never said it would make money until year 3. As Mytravel start to get the ducks in line and sell off non core assests, Lite is a distraction
and unless they go all out for it, then it will never attain a critical mass, so doing a deal with baby would make sense.

The gain for Easy is less clear, except the capacity is coming on stream at a time when they could do with less (growth) so moving some kit early might help them and if baby is going to buy more units any way it might as well be there's at least they won't be in the state the ex Malev was (Knackered)

Luffty has no long term plan for bmi, it only bought it cos it thought it might get more access to LHR and it would stop bmi undercutting its fares into the Germany (bmi pulled off all German routes) ditto SAS but its all changed now with low cost and the UK/US talks stalled.

The so called funding that bmi gets from its European partners is no more than a pay out for coming of their routes and that is set to end next year, hence the pressure on project blue sky to get cost down.

682AMSL

A little paitence please!

bmi & baby are far from finished with LBA. The latest that i have heard is that 2 Fokkers will remain in Leeds until the start oF S05
The 319 will go on LHR from 1st of NOV and CDG will be done on the F100 thrice a day with F100/2 used to `screw` the yield on what ever Jet2 are thought to be making money on.

You may think that this is rubbish, but don't forget this is the group that spent a £1-2 Million last year on reducing Easterns fares on NWI until they sat round the table and did a deal. The reason! Eastern welched on an earlier deal! and bmi feel that Jet2 have done the same at LBA.. remember its a (bmi) a private company and running two Fokkeres that would only be parked up otherwise to spoil Jet2 party is well within their mindset, we will see

[FarNorth]

The reason! Eastern welched on an earlier deal!


I think you'll find it's the other way round and BMI went back on a so called 'Gentlemans Agreement'

[682ft AMSL]

Fair enough KAT TOO, let's see what occurs. You have to admit though, if everything that had been rumoured about bmi and Leeds had come to fruition there'd be everything from Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Munich, Copenhagen and London City to Palma and Malaga in the schedule. Yet by and large, nothing ever comes of these so you'll excuse the scepticism I hope.

For what it's worth, the weekday winter schedule off of the screen for Leeds currently shows:

Weekday

1 x A319: LHR x 4

1 x E145: EDI x 4
1 x E145: CDG-JER-CDG

1 x E135: GLA-ORK-GLA-GLA
1 x E135: BRU x 3 (op by City Airline)

1 x F100: CDG (495/496 - weekday only)

I can't believe that a F100 will be dedicated to just 5 return sectors per week so perhaps you are right and the intention is to fly all the CDG sectors with the Fokker. If so, then that leaves a -145 with nothing to do all day other than the Jersey.

682

[Cargo]

KAT TOO

bmi acquired 10 x A321s to do a bit of seasonal MYT flying????

[KAT TOO]

No not only charter, but it was/is pert off the plan.

[KAT TOO]

Told you so. So Rubish??????????

[Mooncrest]

682,

I see City Airline are stepping forward for BMI once again. What's the deal here ? Is there a lot of Embraer maintenance carried out in the winter and a lack of custom for City :confused:

I've seen SE-RAA at Manchester recently in it's own livery. The tailfin is quite reminiscent of British Caledonian. Happy days ;)

[alterego]

East Mids

You seem to have a great knowledge of how Sir M's mind is working! Do you any facts or are you just summising?

Regional got rid of its Saabs a few years ago and now the group need some @45 seat Prop A/c it would seem logical to use Regional, if it is the trainset you say. How come Air Wales are used then?

IMHO entrepeneurs like Sir M don't want trainsets, they want success. Even Sir Freddie Laker is still trying in the Bahamas.

Perhaps Baby got its own AOC so it would survive if BMI was swallowed up by Lufty/SAS for it's LHR slots; or if the infamous Virgin merger ever came, who knows.

[KAT TOO]

Not sure about city airlines, its an ATR that covering the Embraer C checks (BTW) they'll be coming back in the new colour scheme, after the next lot the ATR gets to spend winter in LBA (You lucky lucky boys!!) still i guess you can put an ATR down on 27? or you should if you can put it down on LCY.

[KAT TOO]

Well the bits seem to be falling into place, Mytravel lite out of BX just has baby turn up

What i need confirmation on is were the aircraft are coming from, i'm still hearing ex Easy kit using funds from RB IPO mobile deal

I also hear that bmi regional are to transfer up to 10 pilots to baby over the winter, with their own susage machine (training department) gearing up for a major training program.

Pilot requirements : can start quickly, fund 2k up front, and it would be very usefull to have already applied for a basic disclosure document from disclosure Scotland, this last bit is very important has this can take 10 weeks for the pen pushers to sort out if you have ever been to Afghanistan for a holiday or a day trip.

I fancied putting down that i trained at the "poppy heads flying school Kabul" for a laugh

BMI response (if thats what you can call it!) to Jet2 Paris launch is as predicted to drop the price, so from about the second week in September (just as the KIds are back to School) bmi are offering CDG at £1.00 plus tax, the week before it will set you back a grand to take a family of four!...still if your daft enough to ave kids!!!

Next up is EDI-MUC with luffty on a 135 with a new route out of MAN for the winter, but not sure where yet

[KAT TOO]

Now confirmed baby are to take a total of 10 737 from Easyjet, the first 5 will be here before Xmas and the rest between xmas and S05:ok:

[alterego]

Confirmed by who?

Won't be BMI on the weekend!

[Banzai Eagle]

MyTravellite Summer 2005 flights are on sale up to end July 05 anyway.