Well I was going to write about the Virgin threat, but lets be frank – It isn’t creditable unless they manage to throw a big spanner with the EC/Monopolies Commission. So let me wrap up this discussion for a bit – until it all goes pear shaped (which knowing BMI – is entirely likely)

• Status – If you’ve got to a certain point, hang on tight. If you’re short before say April, boost your miles and fly to get those status miles
• Miles – You should be in burn, burn burn mode now. If you’re hoping for a 1:1 transfer of BMI to Avios, I’d expect to be disappointed.
  
• Don’t buy any more miles unless you need them for a redemption
• Look out for options for Star Gold in the future. I’d even advise open up an Aegean Airways account and credit any Star Alliance flights to them.  Also keep an eye out for status matches AFTER the take over
• Expect some beanies when IAG/BA takes over, but not that many.

Thankfully, we’re not in a Anslett or Varig situation – and if BMI is brought, then hopefully things should transfer over and all will be well.

Yes, I know it’s unlikely too.

GhettoIFE.com will continue watching and keeping a close eye on the takeover, as I suspect there is going to be a few more bounces before this is all done and dusted.

It’s Sunday again, and to celebrate the oncoming rescue of BMI Baby, it’s a BMI Baby Boeing 737-300 sitting at George Best Belfast City Airport in the late evening.

More airplane art of course next week!

There’s been am Elephant in the Room in the sale of British Midland Airways to Interational Consolidated Airlines Group, and it’s been BMI Baby.

The Low Cost Carrier (operating a fleet of 737-300/500 aircraft, based out of various UK airports) has been a questionmark in the sale of the sale – with IAG getting a discount from Lufthansa if they failed to sell the unit off.

According to Bloomberg,  Intro Aviation GmbH is the company who are looking at the books of BMI Baby to see if they can turn the airline around  or approrpiatly restructured. And they’ve had experiance of turning around airlines – in the past they turned around Deutsche BA (before selling it to Air Berlin) and LTU (who they also sold to… Air Berlin).

Whilst Intro Aviation has come out with it, BMI states there are several intrested parties and BMI are idenfiying a preferred buyer.

Meanwhile the sale of the BMI Regional arm is all but complete, subject to preconditions left.

This will leave IAG the bits of BMI they want – the slots and the remains of the mainline airline.

BMI Baby has a tough time of it, being formed from the cast-offs of the BMI Fleet when BMI switched from Boeing to Airbus, and adding older jets as needed. The route map is very leisure orientated (with a few core business routes). Alas, BMI Baby by itself does make tough work of it life by a shifting route network and heavy competition from Ryanair, EasyJet and even Jet2.

However, I’ll say this: If the sale goes through – and people keep their jobs, then it’s a foundation to hopefully rebuilt the airline into something better.

As we are all aware (or if you’ve been living under a rock), British Midland Ltd – comprising of British Midland International, BMI Baby and BMI Regional is on the block to be sold by Lufthansa to International Consolidated Airlines Group (owners of British Airways and Iberia) with Virgin Atlantic making grumbling noises in the background.

Well a post on the FlyerTalk BMI Sold thread has surfaced from Wolfgang Prock-Schaucer (CEO of British Midland Ltd) to rally the troops.

For prosperity – the post is below:

We understand that the future of the company is a concern for all of you. Now that we have filed our annual accounts for 2010 with Companies House, I wanted to provide you with more details about this and also an update on the proposed sale of British Midland Ltd to IAG.

1. Filing of our accounts 2010

The accounts were filed on a going concern basis and the directors have provided a ‘going concern’ statement. This statement confirms that we are satisfied based on a review of all circumstances and a prudent assessment of the financial position of the company, that the company can continue in business for the foreseeable future. The auditors have approved the director’s report.

2. The proposed sale of British Midland Ltd to IAG

Following my previous message to you regarding the signing of the purchase agreement (SPA) for 100% of the shares of British Midland Ltd to IAG, the completion of the transaction is expected by quarter one 2012 and is subject in particular to achieving competition clearances. During this pre-completion phase, bmi has certain obligations. We need to carry on our business in the normal course, consistent with past practice. This means for example that we have the resources available to operate the planned summer 2012 schedule, that we carry on with our sales and marketing activities in the ordinary course and ensure that we continue operating the slots associated with bmi.

For anything that is not of a routine or normal course, we need to comply with an approval process. This refers for example to capital investment, entering into contracts above a certain threshold, changes in industrial agreements and in financial and corporate policies.

These are only a few examples and not the full list. The senior management team have been given the full information and a process has been set up with the legal teams to ensure compliance. Please consult your manager if any decisions need to be taken outside the normal course of business.

For the time until completion of the transaction, we will continue to treat BA / IAG as a competitor of ours.

3. bmi Regional and bmibaby

We are actively pursuing the option to sell bmi Regional and bmibaby before completion.

With bmi Regional we have concluded an agreement with a UK based investor group which is subject to certain pre-conditions which are to be fulfilled.

With respect to bmibaby there are several interested parties and we are in the process of identifying the preferred buyer and aim to conclude a purchase agreement as soon as possible.

4. Conclusion

Taking into account the current economic climate and the difficult market position, the sale of bmi to IAG is the most sustainable solution for our company. It is crucial that we fulfil all our pre-completion obligations, have all the resources available to operate our planned schedule, and continue with our safe and customer focused operation.

We understand that you have many questions and concerns. Please be assured that we are giving you as much information as we can and we will continue to keep you updated.

With best regards,
Wolfgang Prock-Schauer

What do we learn from this?

• BMI is still a going concern according to all the paperwork so far – for IAG this is important so they can extract the value from it
• It seems it’s business as usual for now until the takeover is complete, with BMI vs BA for a bit.
• The transaction is heading to a End of Q1 completion
• We know BMI Regional has been sold already
• BMI Baby. Well – I’d be happy if it was sold and brought by someone. Hopefully someone will for the sake of the hard working crew in the airline. Alas, the fact that no-one has public come out so far says a fair bit.

It’s a rallying call to keep going. And for the sake of the staff who are there slogging their guts out – I wish them the best.

BMI Baby seems to be modifying itself. Or it’s paid a visit to the Strategy Boutique to get some new ideas with the changes of fares operated by the airline.

Instead of the old two types of package, they’re confusing matters with 3 types – FlyPlus, FamilyFly and Fly.

FlyPlus is BMI Baby’s go at a business product. This adds to your booking:

• No flight change fees
• One piece of hand luggage, plus a laptop
•  Executive Lounges
• Airport or Online Check-in
• Seat assignment (chosn at booking)
• No card fees

Watch the fares though. They can creep up quickly on FlyPlus.

FamilyFly says what it is on the tin. Aimed at family’s it offers different features to FlyPlus

• 22kg hold baggage
• No credit or debit card fees
• Families board first
• Seat assignment
• Airport check-in

For groups of familys, the abilty to sit togther and board early is very useful indeed. As always, do your reasearch to see if it’s actually worth it…

Fly finally (of course) is the traditional BMI Baby Low Cost with every single extra chargeable. But I’m sure you guessed that.

For those of you througely confused, BMI Baby knocked togtehter this wonderful table:

http://www.bmibaby.com/bmibaby/news/2011.aspx#article34

Now most of my dear readers know I’m pretty anti-Low Cost Carrier, mainly as I don’t like to be treated like a sheep. But I’ve flown on BMI Baby a couple of times, and they aren’t that bad compared to the options.

Hopefully BMI Baby might make some money out of all of this and help the BMI Group going for a few days more….

It’s Friday, so it’s time to wrap up this week in Civil Aviation and ponder what people were thinking this week:

US Immigration Considers $10 on ESTA service.

I’m not going to repeat this here – head to my Soapbox entry.

EK Send a A380 to BHX

I wasn’t going to cover this.. but hey. Here it is – an Emirates Airbus A380  landing safely at BHX (does that mean BHX now becomes a diversion airport for A380′s in the UK? Interesting thought..,..)

Photo Credit  – BHX Flight Guide – photo blog with more photos at http://bhxflightguide.blogspot.com/2009/09/ek-380.html.  Happy 70th BHX.




Well done to the ground team for organsing this, and to Emirates for having a go at deploying this. 
 

Asia Air 09

Some quick highlights an news in a sentence sort of thing:

Air France: Considering new aircraft for the short haul, but want larger, quicker offloading and much lower running costs – and Open Roter might be nice.  and how do you want the moon delivered?
Airbus: A380′s for LCC’s - In a move to destroy any glamour in flying, Airbus are pitching the A380 as a Low Cost carriers dream of connecting Asian cities. This could work with some routes – but 840 people crammed aboard a tin can isn’t my exact idea of fun (ala Air Austal)…
Bombardier -  Buy our CSeries… please?  Taking aim at Embear and Airbus, the CSeries is hoping to make a competitive splash in China when it launches.

BMI Baby steps in at EMA

As Easyjet throws in the EMA towel, BMI Baby are moving in anohter 3 737′s for extra duty at their base at EMA with links to Barcelona, Cork, Malta, Venice, Dubrovnik, Sardinia, Corsica and .. umm… Newquay.

What will Mother Lufthansa say? We’ll see…

Jet Airways Staff “Fall sick”

Jet Airways staff have “fallen sick” in a labor dispute for two pilots joining a new Union, with a total of 186 flights cancelled – the bulk dometic, but  32 international services cancelled to. A follow-on sick day costed another 31 flights cancelled.

Talks are continuing.

Frontier to send Flip and Hector Back to Mexico!

Yup. Now Frontier is out of Bankruptcy, they’re making a bid for Mexico again with A319′s servicing Cancun with a daily return flight.

Hopefully this will be the first of a lot of good news for Frontier.

LOT has almost hat their LOT with Boeings 787.

Oh dear. With the continuing delays to the 787, LOT is getting annoyed with Boeing, and has opened up a few options – deploy 777′s, a major overhaul of the 767 fleet, or talk to Airbus.

Whilst Boeing may crow about how many of these aircraft have been ordered – there is a monumental messup in design and rollout of this aircraft – something that other airlines will get more annoyed at.  It’ll only take a big name to pull out to watch the cards fall on this game.

More roundup next week.

Welcome to GhettoIFE.com!

I’m your host – Kevin – and I’ll be here to guide you through the maze of modern travel, and hopefully add some insightful comment and humour.

With GhettoIFE getting on for 2 years old, I’ve had a bit of a design refresh, and tidied up, so for older viewers who make it here – yes, it’s the same content will all the usual sarcasm as always.

As well as random posts on the days events, my trip reports and a few other bits, there will be a few “regular” slots including:

• The News – Commercial aviation news in a bite size ripped to bits segments.
• Trip Reports – When I actually go swanning off to explore the world.
• The Soapbox – Where I get to rant and moan about things – Signed Annoyed of Birmingham.
• Airplane p0rn – Yes it’s my photography lovefest of air planes All clean for work. Published every Sunday.
• How to save money … so far on telephone calls and how to get money on flights back via cashback
  
• And analysis on IFE and what’s happening in the world of IFE

GhettoIFE.com is updated once or twice a day depending on what’s going on in the world when I’m at my base, and a lot less frequently when I’m away travelling.

All the posts have a slightly twisted and humours bent, and of course comments are open. Please feel free to drop your thoughts in.

I don’t Twitter, nor do Facebook – so it’s traditional email through the comment boxes or direct at blog@ghettoife.com

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