Originally Posted by
oliver2002
LHR is not a hub for any *A longhaul carrier, its a pure O&D market. Slots are way to expensive for that. T2 is only around since 2012, before that the *A partners were spread all around the field in T1, T3 and T4.
Bmi was a cash draining black hole. The sale of BD's assets to BA was an end to a desastrous attempt by LH & SAS to get a foothold in the UK.
LHR may not be a hub for any one *A carrier but it has a huge volume of transfer traffic and is certainly not just an O&D place. BA carry more transfer traffic than O&D because they market their network, *A can do exactly the same. Until 2012 LHR was a mess with all airlines except BA spread about all over the place though latterly LH and most *A carriers were in T1 including much of the long haul except SQ & TG who remained in T3.
BD was badly managed by LH and had better resources been put in it would have been a huge asset, instead the resources were put into OS which remains a cash draining black hole. LHR would always have been a better bet than VIE. The reality was that LH has too many basket cases around. In the days of British Midland - i.e. before BMI when it had a distinct service offering it was a highly profitable carrier and was very well run. Even in slot terms BD was far more valuable than OS and I suspect that if the clock could be set back things might be different.
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