BMI is a funny old beast of an airline. It launches into brand new markets guns ablazing, only to pull out less than a year later, or it kills routes at random.
It’s preferred method of doing this is to:
- Let Revenue management take over setting wild prices
- Realising no one want to travel because prices are to wild
- Cancelling the route citing load and yield factors
History behind this? Well let us name some routes recently that have fallen by the wayside….
- MAN-ORD
- MAN-LAS
- MAN-ANU/BGI
- LHR-KBP
- LHR-TLV
- LHR-AMS
- LHR-BRU
It seems that BMI are now hell bent on closing the Dublin link as well with today’s announcement of the closure of the Dublin base, and the cut of one rotation a day as an aircraft is needed elsewhere (and considering the fleet cuts that going on too..)
This puts BMI at a disadvantage to Aer Lingus who could at will deploy the heavy guns to Heathrow with minimal notice, play with prices to their hearts content, whilst reducing Hub to spoke traffic to near enough nothing. Combined with Revenue Managements lack of clear thought that is visible to anyone – and the seeds of the LHR-DUB link going appear to be well founded.
I can honestly say I am VERY disappointed with BMI’s lack of foresight and lack of will to compete on this route. The LON-DUB Route used to be one of the heaviest corridors of traffic to compete on, and BMI is ONCE AGAIN giving away its traffic.
More worryingly for BMI, Aer Lingus is starting to be a bit resurgent. It has been making pacts with other airlines, and from a very dim viewpoint is considering alliances again (Aer Lingus used to be part of OneWorld before it withdrew – although it co-operates with OneWorld airlines, it’s not adverse to working with United and shoving UA flight codes on all EI flights to LHR). That – combined with Lufthansa attitude to shove everyone through either FRA or ZRH means only one thing for BMI – More Trouble.
For me personally, I can say I haven’t stepped on a BMI plane for the past year or so. Why? All the routes I used have now been whittled away to nothing, with BMI either giving up, redeploying or withdrawing from markets I use. And it’s sad. I’d LOVE To support BMI, its network and its staff.
But this is nigh on impossible. BMI is turning into BMED in many respects (the airline BMI brought for it’s middle eastern routes), with a fancy UK feeder service. In other words, I can’t think of *one* BMI route I use – or want to use.
Lets hope this is temporary with the withdrawal of the fifth rotation and that traffic can improve. Although with Revenue Management at the tiller… it could be time for me to find a new “home” airline….
Ref: RTE
