Many of you will be aware of press reports mentioning that Lufthansa is considering a possible sale of bmi. You will also recall that during our previous meetings regarding the Lufthansa half year results, I spoke about the financial situation of our company. I emphasised that decisive actions are needed to address the financial challenges of our company.

The reasons behind these considerations and the current financial situation are due to the following factors:

The Middle East and Africa are important markets for bmi and we have been affected more than others by the political unrest in these regions
Increased fuel prices
The economic situation in the UK

These have all affected our business and therefore for reasons such as this Lufthansa and the bmi management team have to look at various options in order to best face these developments.

These options include the implementation of a more focused bmi business plan. As I have previously mentioned, we have now taken a fresh look at our business, including questioning how we do our business, in order to find better, more efficient and cost effective solutions to deliver a great service to our customers. The focused business plan details areas such as the markets we serve and sales and marketing initiatives. We have also detailed fundamental changes to internal processes, systems and the way we work. We want to reshape bmi so that it will be in a stronger position to deliver improved results.

One of the options being considered by our shareholder is a partial or total sale of bmi. This could be a prolonged process as it will include approaching different parties, due diligence exercises and regulatory requirements.

At this stage it is important to say that all the different options need to be explored and assessed and that no decision has been taken.

It is therefore our utmost responsibility to deliver improved results for bmi and because of this we will start to prepare the bmi focused business plan. We have the opportunity to strengthen bmi and demonstrate the value of our business to our shareholder.

Going forward we need to maintain the high level of service our customers have come to expect from bmi. We will continue to develop our route network, plus we will invest in key investment projects such as reconfiguring our aircraft and our IT infrastructure.

I can assure you that the management team and I are fully committed to navigating bmi through this challenging time. I will shortly be arranging staff meetings and I look forward to meeting with you. I count on your continued support.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Prock-Schauer