YorkieFlyer

The trouble is that for most of us BD disappeared some time ago, the last time I flew BD metal was from LHR to LBA, before that MAN to BGI, LHR to MME, MAN to CDG(booked and route axed before travel - flew EZY from LIV instead) LHR to TFN, so on and son all routes gone.... The one rotation to TIP never appealed I'd wager a small bet that most of us here are Virtual BD'ers nowadays

orbitmic

Of course low cost is competition, but competition from other airports in the city is not nearly the same as competition within the same airport. For a vast majority of Londoners (I'm not talking about people living in the South East of England) Heathrow is by far the most convenient airport to travel to/from. It is the only London airport with a tube line, the Heathrow Express takes twice less time into central London than the Gatwick Express and the Crossrail will be a fabulous airport link. No other London airport is nearly as easy to connect to/from as LHR. So yes, of course, you could say it's fine for BA to be the only major competitor on short haul since U2 and FR can operate from airports which takes twice longer to get too, but the truth of the matter is that for business travellers to/from London LHR and LCY clearly dominate the market. Tiny LCY has two major competitors - BA and AF/Cityjet. LHR currently has BA and BD, if BD disappears altogether, the best connected airport in London by far will become even more expensive to fly to and from and people who want to pay less will be condemned to wasting much time in public transport to reach significantly less convenient alternatives.

PS: @ Yorkieflyer - I agree with you, BMI got it totally wrong in my view a few years ago and the result on the cost of some routes was very significant. Only now have they reopened some interesting links in my views in addition to their domestic network which kept fares reasonable on LHR-MAN and LHR-Scotland.

jbfield

Ironically I'm the opposite of this. I've increased my BD flying in the last two years.

SVG, TXL, VIE, NCE, AMM, BEY, JER etc...etc...it's been fun.
The service, crews, the product as a whole and Diamond Club have brought me on board time and again. My sympathies to those adversely affected.

RobDBA

I can see that heathrow is better connected for public transport for possibly a majority of Londoners but by car the other airports are nearer for 3 quarters of them and traffic is debatably much better at those airports than heathrow. (And I'd state there are an awful lot located near to a thameslink staton for who public transport links are excellent to Gatwick and Luton).

Bmi was only competing directly with BA on a few routes, on all other SH routes BAs only british competition is already the low costs from other airports. Maybe prices will rise but they can't go too high as they still have heathrow competition on most routes and they can only go so high before even NW London based business travellers like me feel the trip to Luton would be worth it.

Dan1113

I've flown bmi a good number of times, mostly to get up to Aberdeen after having flown with some other Star Alliance partner to LHR. Guess that will be a bit of a thing of the past now... though with Lufthansa now flying directly to Aberdeen 3x/day I suppose for Star Alliance travelers to Scotland, they may be routed via FRA instead of LHR.

HIDDY

After bmi pulled out of the GLA-LHR route I expected LH to step in straight away with a 3 daily FRA service to keep Star Alliance fans happy. For some inexplicable reason they didn't and left it all to BA.
Many Star Alliance fans from the west of Scotland have been lost forever to BA/Oneworld.....without Diamond Club many more will undoubtedly follow.

Dan1113

Surprising given that they've even stepped in to the much smaller ABZ market despite bmi for now still being around with the LHR connections! It only launched 30 October and the promotion has been insane. A very very welcome addition, however! Huge shame about Glasgow, but maybe it is because EDI is not so far away? For flights to elsewhere in Europe, getting to EDI isn't so bad even compared to GLA...and that is the only market really that they'd be able to get with the FRA flights as obviously people to London will fly BA instead of going to EDI. (EDI is a lot closer than PIK as well!)

Dan1113

Though if bmi regional, which runs ABZ LHR, is still going to stay alive as its own airline based at ABZ, then I guess maybe *A will still be doable, if they arrange for that to be a partner airline of LH or something. Any thoughts on that?

NickB

I would not entirely agree with you. In terms of ease of connection, this really is highly dependent on where exactly you are located. From my neck of the woods in North London, although Heathrow is geographically nearest, Stansted second and Gatwick third, Gatwick is the quickest for me to get to by public transport, followed by Stansted and Heathrow third. For many people located somewhere near the Victoria line, it is likely that Gatwick will be quicker to get to than Heathrow.

Secondly, there is a substantial degree of airport substitutability/cross elasticity of demand among the population that uses FR and U2. In my view, FR and U2 represents a far, far bigger competitive pressure on BA in the UK than U2 are on AF in France, if only because they have been around here for much longer on a much wider number of routes. The competition faced by AF is really peanuts compared to this.

It is true that FR and U2 (albeit to a lesser extent regarding the latter) compete primarily on leisure traffic and less on business traffic. But that is true elsewhere as well. The situation of BA in LON would not be fundamentally different from that of AF in PAR or LH in FRA.

So, yes, there will be less competition but that is starting from a base of a much higher level of competition in LON than elsewhere in Europe.

NickB

Allocation of slots at 'coordinated airports' (i.e. congested airports where demand for slots substantially exceeds demand) is not a matter for the airport owner. BAA have no say in slot allocation. This is a job for the airport coordinator, which, for LHR, is ACL (Airport Coordination Ltd).
AFAIK, you don't have to wait a few months: an airline that does not use slots can return them to the slot pool at any time, I believe.

BristolTraveller

Amen to that. If there's one asset worth holding onto in this sad situation, it's Joanna.

cfischer

R.I.P. BMI

I hope they will honor all tickets and maybe I can still use some of my miles.

LonLH

I know the feeling.. A shame they did not have the SVG service when I was stuck there...
Was on BD 891 yesterday (and hence missed the news)... Delightful crew and service^^ all the more impressive considering what they must be going through with uncertainty about BD in the past months. Hope things work ou well for them and our helpful Company representative/ lurker.

Dan72

This could drag on for a while, as regulators sign it off, which will be a really unsettling time for staff. But for the majority of staff, I think there will be jobs and better job security at BA. BA need to use these slots and will likely prioritise longhaul flights (in time) that will need even more crew. The quality of the crew on BD was an area of strength and am sure BA will be glad of the people.

I don't expect that a career at Waterside will appeal to all at BD's HQ staff, but BA is a much bigger operation and hope that people get opportunities or a good deal to help them move on to something else.

GoldCircle

As the matter has now been officially commented upon, the discussion of the next (beard-free) phase now continues here.

GoldCircle
bmi forum Mod team