I found this on Ananova:

Virgin Atlantic has held takeover talks with bmi British Midland.

A Virgin Atlantic spokeswoman confirmed the airline had been discussing a range of “co-operation” issues with bmi, including the possibility of a tie-up.

She said nothing had yet stemmed from the talks, which also covered sharing of facilities, code sharing and joint lobbying on matters of common interest.

A statement added: “There have been no definitive conclusions reached on the potential commercial opportunities, nor any other form of more permanent tie-up between the two companies, such as the acquisition of bmi by Virgin.”

BMI British Midland is controlled by founder and chairman Sir Michael Bishop, with Lufthansa and Scandinavian airline SAS holding the remaining 49% stake.

It is thought Virgin is keen to get hold of bmi’s short-haul routes into Heathrow, which would then act as a feeder into its long-haul empire.

Virgin added: “bmi and Virgin have for some time been exploring possible areas for greater co-operation in expanding their respective businesses, including code sharing expansion, potential sharing of facilities and joint lobbying on matters of common interest.

Bmi, which operates a fleet of 41 aircraft and employs almost 5,000 people, made a loss of £19.6 million last year after profits of £12.4m in 2001.

It is a member of the Star Alliance code sharing agreement involving 15 other airlines and which is effectively a competitor to Virgin. United Airlines and Lufthansa are among the other Star members.

Usually you have to have flying experience to do a modular, but you don’t need any to do an integrated. At Oxford everyone has to do an airline standard selection process that has been constructed by bmi and a few others to get on to the intergrated course. They don’t give offers in relation to anything like uni or school grades for the integrated course, everybody, and that means everybody has to do the selection process of which only about 1 in 5 get through.

So I take it from Gaurav’s posts that he will be doing the modular course. Sadly I’m going to be on the APP (Airline Preparation Program) which is the integrated course so I won’t be training with him 🙁

Vigin Atlantic are the biggest operator at Terminal 3 with either American or United (I can’t remember which) as the second biggest. BA only operate Miami services from Terminal 3, all of the rest of their long haul operations and flights to Greece, Paris and Amsterdam operate from Terminal 4 and the remainder of BA’s flights use T1. Some of BA’s long haul services are being moved from T4 to T1 later this year.

You are indeed! Congratulations! Oxford is the best and they only pick the best ;-), it’s also my home airport. Have you done the selection process yet?

See you on the course! When are you starting?

Thanks for your help and support, I really appreciate it. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll see you up there 😛

wysiwyg, thanks for the warning, I do take it seriously and I thank you for your concern and help in keeping my expections down, obviously I don’t want to get carried away.

However the information I have been provided with is from the airlines themselves. I spent the first few months of this year going to the airlines and I got a mixed response, however Ryanair explained to me that they are currently recruiting in excess of five hundred pilots a year, of which Oxford Graduates make a large number of.

I’ve chosen my school on the merits that the airlines gave me. Monarch we’re very helpful, as were BA, as I said Ryanair were great, Thomas Cook were kind but revealed that they were unable to offer anything, easyJet paid great interest and actually said that I would be an ideal first officer due to my flexiblity and young age..admittedly several others were pretty negative, Channel Express in particular.

Once again thanks for your advice, I really do appreciate it, however from my research and meetings with the airlines and senior pilots at BA I have got a very different angle on the situation.

I guess we’ll see, but whatever happens, I’m not giving up, sadly the truth is so many training school train their pilots for nothing behond training school and so many are not employable. However Oxford is not such a school and I’m speaking from experience of other pilots that have helped me chose the school and some of which have gone there.

Where did you train?