BMI Baby have expanded very quickly but appear to have gone too far ahead of themselves. They are struggling to introduce new routes & increased frequencies at their existing bases due to a lack of available aircraft. This will get worse with the introduction of the new BHX base, because the new aircraft next summer will only be enough to cater for expansion at BHX and possibly 1 or 2 routes at EMA. They have been advertising loads across the country (especially in South Wales where billboards advertising CWL routes go as far north as Brecon which is 35miles north of CWL) and have been brushing off comments that they’ll pull out of CWL next year by saying that passenger numbers have increased month on month for the past 6 months at least. New passenger figures published last week by TBI show that low cost traffic at CWL was 9.6% down from 1April-30June 04 & it was only just greater than lc traffic this time last year! We already know that some routes from EMA are struggling and the BMI group in general is still out of profit. Matters are made worse by the fact that bmibaby call themselves the low cost division yet some BMI routes are cheaper than the baby routes, so the whole thing is a sham! I think the whole group needs to sort themselves out, baby should get loads more aircraft, loads more routes from their existing bases as opposed to take routes from bases to allow new routes at new bases and if BMI have cheap fares then baby should make theirs cheaper again and stop confusing the hell out of everyone!
By: Spence_CWL - 26th July 2004 at 17:33
BABY CAN MAKE CWL WORK! CWL has worked and this is the first time passenger figures are down and there down for 1 reason;this is the first financial quarter that bmibaby hasn’t launched any new routes in. When they launch new routes obviously theres going to be more passengers, but this quarter they havn’t launched any new routes and have actually cut routes-Milan- and cut frequencies-Prestwick- which is why there down. It’s going to be even worse this quarter because their cutting Toulouse & Jersey and replacing them with Geneva to allow aircraft for increased frequencies from MAN & EMA. The day Jet2 announces its coming into CWL will be the best news the airports had in a long time. Hopefully they will and bmibaby might expand to compete.
By: Grey Area - 26th July 2004 at 16:49
Hmmm… a friend of a friend, eh?
Must be right, then!
By: LBARULES - 26th July 2004 at 16:34
If Baby can’t make CWL work, why would Jet2 want to set up there?
By: Spence_CWL - 26th July 2004 at 16:14
baby & Jet2 to CWL
I’m not saying the service is bad, I’m just saying they need to think things through before they go off expanding at every oppertunity and then finding they havn’t enough resources and have to sacrifice routes at one base to subsidise another. I’m on about baby as opposed to BMI. Of course theres loads of cheap 737s around, thats why I don’t get why they don’t buy some! Oh, and someone I know is friends with a marketing director of Jet2 who has strongly hinted the possibilty of Jet2 announcing a move into Cardiff in September, fingers crossed! 😉
By: Bmused55 - 26th July 2004 at 15:52
Plenty 737’s sitting around for good prices.
By: Pembo330 - 26th July 2004 at 15:48
I’m not so sure unstable is the right word.
That said, many of the comments you have made are not new to this and many other aviation forums.
I personally like BMI and think they’re a great airline. I’ve had great service when I’ve flown with them; they’ve provided great service to my local airport and have been innovative in providing transatlantic routes from Manchester; a rareity for a U.K. scheduled airline. For me, the vast majority of feedback is positive.
I’ve heard many negatives about baby and have seen from the MME arrivals board that baby aren’t the most punctual of airlines. That is the only negative thing I can think of really.
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July 26, 2004 at 1:26 pm