UNPROFITABLE ROUTES, surplus aircraft and around 600 jobs are to be axed at bmi, with the threat of more redundancies to come. The job losses will affect "all areas of the business", although talks aimed at minimising the redundancies are continuing with staff and unions.
Flights from Heathrow to Brussels, Tel Aviv, Kiev and Aleppo will be suspended this month, and Heathrow-Amsterdam services will be shelved at the end of March. Seasonal operations from Heathrow to Palma and Venice will not be reinstated this summer. In terms of fleet, both mainline and regional divisions will be hit, with nine of bmi mainline's 39 aircraft going, mostly through non-renewal of leases.
Two Embraers will be returned to bmi regional, which will then have three surplus aircraft for sale. Taken over by the Deutsche Lufthansa group in July last year, bmi is adamant that it will focus on "maintaining within bmi mainline and bmi regional a core network of services in the UK and Ireland, Europe, the CIS, the Middle East and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia".
Transatlantic operations remain in doubt - bmi says that it will only "continue to serve mid-haul markets with two long-range aircraft and its fl eet of A321s".