Bmused let me tell you having flown a few time in recent months that the airline is better than it has ever been. Crew are great and planes are comftable. When you flew from Scotland you flew on a 737,the A320s now have leather interiors and the the older ones are being retro fitted. If you want a meal go to a restaurnat that isnt part of air travel anymore. If you dont like it tough. The new EI is better at least on the short haul routes the long haul product still needs some sorting out.

Aer Lingus is far from tacky but I cant change your opinion. As Ryanair and Easyjet get bigger BA are going to find themselves in even bigger trouble and WW knows that so hes just getting the airline ready for the future. I doubt he is going to gut business class on all routes.

If Alitalia do go bust I would expect a new airline to be formed like Swiss or SN Brussels. Weather they would keep the MD-80s is another question.

Im very dissapointed. Youve posted pics from MAN every day this week and I havnt seen a single Swiss. LOL

bmi star any airline who has regional aircraft would love those routes because they are very profitable. Not because of high loads or yields far from it but the Irish goverment wants them routes to be operating so they pay the airline to cover the costs of operating the routes.

The initial plan was to axe this route on the 8th of May. It has proved very succesful and due to a staff dispute they have been forced to leave it.

I honestly cannont see bmi getting these routes. Aer Arann have built up a great reputation in the Irish market.
The goverment will pay about €3 million to the winner and they will operate the routes but be warned they are far from high in demand. A recent newspaper article claimed the goverment were paying €300+ to Aer Arann for every passenger travelling on the DUB-NOC route simply becasue loads were dreadful.
My personal opinion is that Aer Arann should operate these route because they are an Irish airline and it would be a shame to have a British airline operating them. We shall see what happens.
I also think a KIR-LHR service would flop because Ryanair are operating from KIR to STN pretty succesfully and I dont think they would sit back and watch bmi start a London route and bmi wouldnt have the same level of connections from KIR as they would from DUB.

Ye I belive bmi operated 707 years and years ago Ive seen a pic of one of them in JFK then again it was BMA not BMI