New competition will deliver wide ranging benefits
Heathrow's second largest airline, bmi, has gained approval to serve the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev with five return flights a week. The introduction of bmi services on the route will bring much needed new competition and deliver a wide range of benefits to both business and leisure travellers alike.
bmi has gained approval to commence the services following a scarce capacity hearing by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which awarded bmi the five extra services a week that were available following a recent agreement by the UK and Ukraine governments to allow more capacity. British Airways failed in its application for the five extra frequencies.
Nigel Turner, chief executive officer of the bmi group, said: "I am delighted that following the revision of the air services agreement between the two governments, the CAA has awarded the extra flights to bmi. Bringing in new competition from bmi rather than allocating the capacity to the incumbent carrier will clearly produce more benefit to consumers, bring prices down and provide an improved product offering to both business and leisure passengers.
"A new competitive service from bmi will not only be a boon for point-to-point travellers between Heathrow and Kiev, but will also provide a wide range of connecting services at Heathrow onto bmi domestic services as well as flights of Star Alliance partner airlines.
"Now that we have clarification on our access to this route we can now focus in more detail about the introduction of services and will be making a further announcement in due course about our plans to serve this market."
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