I know the IAG take over of BD includes Baby if LH can’t find another buyer…

As for Regional, I’ve not heard anything else new, but I thought that the takeover of BD mainline by BA at the currently agreed price was on the condition that LH sold the Baby division, and that a significant price reduction would be in order if a buyer could not be found?

And, if BA/IAG is forced to take on the Baby division, would they perhaps look to hive it off to BE, seeing as IAG owns a 15% stake of them, as they are more suited to take on the Baby division rather than BA itself…either that or BE could look to make a bid for itself?

I bought an iPad2 for myself just before Christmas, and my annual subscription to Airliner World expired after the January edition, so I am now just waiting for the February edition to be released so that I can get it electronically rather than by paper, as the magazines I have just sit on a shelf and rarely ever get looked at again, whereas with an electronic copy I am more than likely to look at them more.

That’s very generous of Key to refund your current subscription…as it works out cheaper to subscribe electronically than all of the other subscription methods.

You can then buy an electronic subscription as an “in-app purchase”, once you have downloaded the app itself from the App Store.

It’ll be sad to see BMI go, if it is indeed absorbed into BA 🙁

Joe

I totally agree Joe…however, I very much suspect that it will be absorbed into BA, simply because it would cause a conflict of interest for IAG to own and operate the two airlines as seperate entities, especially as they are members of two different alliances (BA = oneworld, BD = Star), and the cost of operating them seperately would also be much higher too.

By absorbing BD into BA, they [IAG] will simply change everything over to BA and will then make use of BD’s exisiting slots in order to launch some new routes and also increase capacity on other routes, thus increasing BA’s already dominant monopoly at LHR, and reducing choice for consumers.

And this news could not come at a worse time for the staff at BD…IAG/WW choose to manipulatively ruin their Christmas/New Year, as they now face the choice of either being forced to join their staunchest rival or possibly being laid off altogether…a fantastic start to 2012 for them!

I was going to say that I hoped that Virgin’s bid for them would have won, however, it appears that VS were not willing to make a better offer.

And I was also going to say that I hoped that the Competition Comission intervenes and rejects the sale, however, as an aviation analyst has just pointed out whilst being interviewed on Sky News, it will more than likely approve it because its “the lesser of the two evils”, the second evil being that LH will simply choose to shut BD down altogether, so “it might as well let the accquisition go ahead!”.

I am already evaluating my options as to where I could possibly fly to within the next three months as I need to be able to use my 20,000+ reward miles that I have so far accurred on BD, as it will also be more than likely that BD’s frequent flyer program (Diamond Club) will be merged into BA’s Executive Club…and seeing as I despise BA with a passion, I need/want to be able to use my rewards before they are transferred over to that ugly beast!

All in all, a very sad day for BD and the industry as a whole.:(

Royal Brunei’s flight from LHR does a technical stop in Dubai in order to take on fuel.

I work in T4 where they fly from, but haven’t heard much about them, so can’t tell you about what to expect.