A lot of rumor has been going around, and alas, it appears to be true with British Midland International axing the Glasgow to London Route
Confirmation comes from the Glasgow Evening Times
The route leaves British Airways to run the Glasgow to London route, with BMI pulling out saying it is quitting to focus on more-profitable long haul services.
A spokeswoman said:
“Unfortunately, due to the suspension of the route a number of employees at Glasgow will be at risk of redundancy.
“The company has today commenced a 30-day formal consultation process with employees and the relevant unions to try and reduce the number of redundancies as much as possible and will offer a large number of redeployment options within bmi.”
This decimates the timetable from five return flights a day to nil, with service terminating on March 27th. BMI cite the costs of landing fees at Heathrow are too high for Domestic passengers which increases from April 1, from £13 to £20.
The route whilst loss making in the first place, now make the route unsustainable.
BMI Complain:
“They are now the same charges a passenger would pay on an international flight to an EU destination, despite the fact domestic passengers do not use the same facilities as international passengers, such as customs and immigration channels.”
There have been talks in the background trying to prevent the axe falling, but these seem to have failed.
This has been discussed quietly and not so quietly in forums and the press, but it isn’t surprising in the “new” BMI. If a route isn’t making money, cut it. In addition, BMI has made itself no favours with its Revenue Department seemly charge odd numbers for flights that seem to have come out of a lotto machine.
Indeed, the changes are already loaded into the BMI booking tool:
And so ends a piece of history – what British Midland Airways fought for against BA in the 1980’s ends after 30 years or so, creaking open the first open skies agreements.
The big question is what domestic operation is next to cut?
