Well, we’re down to the final week of the hopefully will close the Lufthansa saga of owning British Midland Airways – or BMI as the rest of us know it as.
The sale is down to the European Regulators either a yay… or nay. The EU Anti-Trust regulators have extended the provisional deadline for a decision on the acquisition from 16th March to 30th March
Both Lufthansa and IAG would like approval before this date as both their balance sheets are working to this.
Virgin Atlantic Airways, which also tried to buy bmi, has asked antitrust officials to block the deal, arguing it would harm competition at Heathrow.
For IAG – it’s a waiting game.
If the sale of BMI is confirmed by the end of March it has been confirmed that BMI will become part of British Airways as fast as possible.
Willie Walsh of IAG Group says:
“If we get approval, we will integrate bmi as fast as possible into British Airways,” he said, adding that integration could take between nine and 12 months.”
Additional nuggets of information are:
- bmi pilots will have to be trained for BA’s standard operating procedures
- bmi’s fleet will be repainted in BA colours.
For some of BMI’s fleet, it will be a case of being painted back in British Airways colours after BMI brought BMED (British Mediterranean Airways) – who operated franchise services for BA.
It’s amazing how this industry goes around in circles.
Even though I’m on a trip this week, GhettoIFE will monitor the situation as we come to possibly is the final week of BMI being a Star Alliance carrier and a member of the Lufthansa group…
… unless the Virgin spanner is big enough to really jam things up at the EU. Then, there could be real trouble ahead….
Just a point that bmi took over bmed not GB, but yes the aircraft taken on were BA livery then redecorated to bmi and if all goes through back to BA!
Of course. I was thinking GB Airways and not BMED (which is what BMI slowly turned into, with BMI’s exEU routes). Post updated.