bmi eyes London-Baghdad flights

‘LONDON (AFP) — Airline bmi wants to launch a direct flight between London and Baghdad, but does not yet have governmental approval, it said as Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki concluded a trip to London on Friday.

The airline “has met with senior Iraqi government officials and told them that bmi is ready and willing and ideally placed to provide flights between the two countries,” the company said in a statement on its website, after a one-day conference in London aimed at drumming up investment for Iraq.

If the bmi proposal were carried out, it would mark the first regular flights between Britain and Iraq for nearly 20 years. No commercial flights have flown directly between the two countries since the first Gulf War in 1991.

At the end of March, Iraq’s national carrier Iraqi Airways made its first flight to the European Union in 19 years when an aircraft flew from Baghdad to Stockholm via Athens, the transport ministry in the Iraqi capital said.

In January, Swedish charter company Nordic Leisure carried out the first passenger flight between Iraq and Europe since 1991, but the company lost its operating licence later the same month.

German airline group Lufthansa is in the process of upping its stake in bmi to 80 percent’

I thought there’d be more demand for MAN-LAS etc. than Baghdad, but hey…