Come now, the bmi name is only about 3 years old, and the British Midland name is only thirty odd years old (it was, after all, ‘Derby Airways’ previously).
As to what bmi would have to say about 744’s… well, the original story was that Virgin was going to buy bmi, so I don’t think bmi would have much say in the matter of being all Airbus or not…
Anyway, Dartie, Bermuda II is a rather outdated agreement legislating transatlantic (at least, to the US) traffic rights from LHR. Basically, to prevent the routes becoming oversaturated, only four companies (two from each nation… this in itself is a modification of the original, but more on that in a second) are allowed to sell tickets for flights from LHR to the United States (they are BA, VS, AA and UA). Originally, Bermuda II only allowed three companies to operate transatlantic (at the time they were BOAC [British Overseas Airways Corporation, who merged with the original BEA to form BA] (subsequently BA), Pan Am and TWA). When Pan Am went belly up, United bought their slots at LHR, but the UK government insisted that to allow UA to take over PA’s place in Bermuda II, it be ammended to allow Virgin transatlantic rights from LHR (previously, they’d only operated from Gatwick). TWA later sold their traffic rights to American, as they were short on cash.
That’s why Delta, Continental, US Airways, Northwest etc fly to Gatwick, and not to LHR (Bermuda II only regulating LHR, and no other UK airport).
Air India operate flights from LHR to JFK, amongst others, but tickets on this flight are only avaliable to passengers using LHR as a stopover on the Delhi-New York Air India route. Cathay Pacific have also now been allowed to fly from LHR to the States (again, connecting CX pax only), as Hong Kong granted VS stopover rights on their proposed Kangaroo route.
Bermuda II obviously stops bmi flying transatlantically from LHR, which is why their ORD and IAD flights are from Manchester.
phew, it’s simple, really…
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