BA parent to buy BD!

You have to remember Baby has no assets so to speak of bar the name, routes and AOC, everything is leased as far as I am aware off… I believe if the Europeans hadn’t given the go ahead to the acquisition by BA the receivers would have been called in. All this uncertainty has got to be killing their load factors. They were not a bad airline and at least Baby took you somewhere close to the listed destination, something a lot of the other low cost airlines fail to do.

From today’s Telegraph

IAG could see £80m knocked off bmi price after failure to sell bmibaby and bmi Regional

International Airlines Group is expected to see a “significant” sum knocked off its £172.5m purchase of bmi after Lufthansa’s attempts to sell bmibaby and bmi Regional suffered a setback ahead of Friday’s closing date.

International Airlines Group had agreed to buy bmi for £172.5m.

German company Intro Aviation and Dublin-based charter carrier ACL, two companies previously linked to a potential bid for bmibaby, are understood to no longer be interested in acquiring the low-cost airline.

IAG, the owner of British Airways, has already negotiated a sizeable discount with Lufthansa in the event that neither division is sold before the deal completes on Friday.

Some estimates in the City place the size of the reduction at around £80m.
The discount would reflect the financial liabilities and losses that would be taken on by IAG.

A spokesman for bmi insisted the company remained in negotiations with various parties over the two operations.

He said: “Regarding bmibaby and bmi Regional, discussions with potential buyers continue.”

However, analysts are increasingly sceptical that a buyer can be found given the tough conditions in the aviation market.

Douglas McNeill, a transport analyst at Charles Stanley Securities, said: “Neither unit is a prime asset and it’s not easy to see who would be willing to stump up hard cash for them.”

Agreed Giblets, until the take overs of the 3 companies are complete they probably have very little information to offer.

Also Comet, if the company that buys any given part of the company decides not to continue with a route or specific flight I would imagine those with reservations would be rebooked elsewhere or refunded.

Just seen on Jethro’s that the two BD 330’s are for disposal end of S12, no surprise there really.

If you are flying the main BMi part, your flight will be going ahead, if regional, or baby, I’m afraid BMI simply don’t know themselves.

I booked bmi from LBA-BRU to fly in September, I am now very concerned about whether or not my flight will operate or if I will end up having to fork out (again) to book onto the LBA-AMS flight. I wish bmi would provide more information rather than just concentrating on the Diamond Club (this is all on its Facebook page, their website is neither use nor ornament if you’re trying to find out what the hell is happening with regards to flight bookings and whether or not you will actually have a flight to go on!)

There were some rumours about Virgin buying BMI regional, however, they only fly very small Embraers, which would would not pay for themselves on the LHR routes.
The only thing this would be worth doing for would be to ‘keep the slots warm’, as any airline would get grandfather rights (i.e keep them) after (I think) seven seasons.

And still nothing about the buyers of Regional and Baby.

The IAG/BD deal is to be complete by the 20th so the next 10 days should see things happening fairly quickly. Will be interesting to see.

Also wonder at the wisdom of VS going for the BA slots. If they are serious, can they really make a go of any of the routes with such a limited number of slots? If they aren’t serious, isn’t it time for SRB to stop fretting about what other airlines, airports, and bodies are doing and concentrate on his own airline which isn’t exactly the trailblazer it once was?

I, along with most other enthusiasts (looking on various forums), can’t see Virgin starting the UK routes at all.

Odds on that following the example of their bid for BMI, they will put in a lowball bid for all the slots, and complain when they don’t get them.

I can see however, them starting up flights to the likes of Cairo and Moscow..

Looks like Virgin haven’t quite given up the chase just yet…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/9193152/Virgin-eyes-BMI-slots-for-launch-of-UK-flights.html

Well, this has not pretty much been rubber stamped, however, still little or no news on BMI baby or BMI regional.

BMI are set to leave the star alliance on the 18/19th (when the deal officially completes), with the summer season set to continue as is, codes shares with Star will end, and their flights are already showing BA flight codes.
Any flights booked as code shares will be honoured (including those gained on points), and they are working on the value of frequent flier points for current exec club members.

BA will have to give up 14 slots (this includes the two already leased to Transaero) to new entrants on a few of the BMI routes which will become a monopoly ( Nice, Cairo, Riyadh, Moscow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen), but will keep if there are no new entrants.

I suspect a couple of the aircraft will be painted pretty soon (namely any sporting ‘star Alliance’ livery).

but there is, however, an announcement imminent about something we know nothing about

Intriguing, could it be Flybe taking over BA’s shorthaul routes at LGW? That’s been rumoured for some time and I understand BA are currently deciding whether or not to replace the 737 fleet with a decision imminent.

I’d be very surprised if we’d bought BMIb, it just doesn’t fit in with our business model. The only thing I can see (personally speaking) that we’d want from it is for them to “disappear”. That’s alot of money to spend for a not so short term gain. There’s certainly not been any rumours floating around on Galley FM, but there is, however, an announcement imminent about something we know nothing about (but it can’t be the purchase of baby, I’ll eat my keyboard if it is).

Supposedly a UK operator

Agree Jet2 would be a great combination, though have already denied the rumours (and are increasing their presence at EMA). Other rumours include Eddie Stobbart. Flybe? Would be a bit of a step up from their current fleet size but they are increasing their European presence.

Indeed Bmused55, the agreement that IAG reached with Lufthansa was for them to buy the mainline division only, and that they (LH) had to sell BMI Regional and Bmibaby separately before the completion of the main sale, and if this was not achieved, the total sale price payable by IAG would have been reduced.

Could it be possible that FR might consider buying them at all?

They already serve and/or have bases at BHX, BRS, STN, EMA and they already fly the same aircraft type (737, ok granted WW use -300 & -500 series, and not -800 as FR do!).

Out of all of the LCC’s in the UK/Ireland, they are really the only other airline that would make a more sensible choice to think about buying WW, that is if the statement from LS is genuine!?

BMI Baby was not part of the IAG purchase anyway.

Looks like IAG won’t be getting bmi Baby along with the main airline as a buyer has been found.

Although the buyer is under wraps for now LS have already issued a statement that it isn’t them. Interestingly BE and EZY have issued statements saying that they can’t confirm either way whether or not they are the buyer.

Any theories?

Still no further info on bmi Regional either. All very secretive on the bmi subsidiaries takeovers.

back in 2007 on our Antigua trip i was mightie releaved to see that our BMI flight was first to arrive, as Friday afternoons were busy there then
as within half hour a fully laden Firch choice 767 would arrive and also the scheduled Virgin 747
those passport girls in Antigua only had one speed (slow)
luckily for us we were through and in the minibus to the hotel in 40 mins
some of the Virgin lot took 2 hours to get through in the heat

A quick look back through the archives led me to this link to PPRUNE

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=245986

Shows it quite nicely

Rgds Cking

there was one incident where a main undercarriage strut was cracked and it took quite some time to get a replacement, this was put down to hard landings at Antigua and Barbados it was about 2006 i think.

It was the casting for the attachment point for the main undercarriage in the wing that was cracked, not the gear.
To replace it they had to jack and trestle the aircraft very accurately, remove the gear, the engines and the pylons and then remove the casting. Re fitting of the new castings would require special jigs and very accurate drilling, reaming and fitting of some close tolerence, oversize fasteners.
There was a picture of the said crack on PPRUNE at the time. I went and had a look at the aircraft and the crack was plainly visible from the ground. When ever I inspect the gear on a 330 I always look a little bit harder in that area now!
The story goes that an engineer was greasing the U/C pivot bearing when he noticed grease exuding from the crack!

Rgds Cking

the BMI A330s were quite hard worked on on Caribbean, Vegas and Chicago routes from Manchester originally, the closure of the Man long hual routes in 2009 was a great loss to our part of the country and the crews who flew the routes too!
i did a Man to Antigua return flight and the service was second to none
there was one incident where a main undercarriage strut was cracked and it took quite some time to get a replacement, this was put down to hard landings at Antigua and Barbados it was about 2006 i think.