BMI British Midland is scrapping business class on 16 short haul routes out of Heathrow from August 1.
The UK domestic services from Heathrow to Belfast, Edinburgh and Glasgow and the Heathrow-Brussels route will be the only ones offering premium class in the future.
The airlines is also introducing paid for catering and e-enabled ground services.
Nigel Turner, BMI's ceo said the changes would save the loss-making carrier £30m a year.
BMI, the second largest airline at Heathrow after BA, has like most carriers seen a drop in business class usage over the past three years.
In its place, BMI is introducing three types of fares, “tiny, standard and premium.” The “tiny” fares will be the same as the airline's low cost sister carrier bmibaby, start at £25 one-way and be sold online.
The standard and premium fares will be available for passengers wanting different levels of service and flexibility.
The changes were made after a six-month survey of 10,000 travellers by BMI.
Mr Turner said: “More than half our passengers travel on business – but most of them do so in the rear of the aircraft. They or their companies choose to travel in economy.”
He said passengers could now choose what they want to pay for.
SNCF and DB sign deal
France and Germany has signed a commercial agreement to set up a new company to run high speed train services between Paris and Frankfurt and Stuttgart.
Under the deal, the French SNCF and the German rail company Deutsche Bahn, will start the new services by 2007. The companies said it would take two hours off the journey time between the two countries with Frankfurt and Stuttgart both less than four hours from the French capital. A million and a half passengers are expected to use the routes each year.
Louis Gallois, president of the SNCF, said the agreement gave a new dimension to the European high speed network while his DB counterpart Hartmut Mehdorn said it was the beginning of a new era for high speed travel.
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