V-Flyer

Surprising how no one has posted this. Well BMI and Lufthansa have finally signed the deal as I read my copy of the Evening Standard this evening. 223 Million for control

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard- ... article.do

Will VS still be seeking some sort of tie up and is this the end to the BMI tail as Lufthansa expands......

Alex

Oh can you imagine the Daily Mail headlines if British Midland (for the article they wouldn't call them bmi) was rebranded as Lufthansa! I want that to happen just to read all the comments on the Mail website!

You have a point [y] , but has Lufthansa actually promised to keep the BMI name? The Daily Mail forum would be funny to read if/and when that does start to happen.

Alex[:?]

Strange thing is, if it was still British Midland I would miss the name. I hate the name bmi and at the time, their MD said something along the lines of the i stands for anything you like, which seemed to be a case of the branding leading the airline instead of reflecting it. And for what it's worth changing from British Midland to bmi + bmi baby was when they started to lose their way.

My reaction is that this isn't a bad thing.

Solid, stable management, with a long-term strategy and vision, is what BD needs right now, as opposed to what I can only describe as the confused dithering between strategies which seemed to characterise BD for the last 10 years or so.

I hope this means that BD's resultant identity crisis (is it a mainline, a network, a regional carrier, or low-cost) is a chapter which is over too.

Taking over Brussels Airlines, BD, and OS, LH are now in the position of a very strong pan-European operator.

The LH model seems to work well. They get good economies of scale, and hopefully these will be applied to BD in the fullness of time.

Given the recent noises coming out of BA recently, LH must view their purchase as a positive strategic move.

While they do have experience in low-cost operations with Germanwings, I have to wonder what will happen to Baby? Merge back in to BMI mainline/regional, merge into Germanwings operations, or sell?

Mike

Mike, I agree.

The precedent with Swiss seems to suggest they will actually retain the brand. Interestingly, I prefer Swiss to LH for Euro flying, in that case LH seems to have been willing to let them develop the product as an alternative (though they sell it through their site), and it's worked out nicely IMO. Like you mentioned, they need to rationalize the route strategy, and will find themselves with a potentially great product with lots of slots out of the busiest airport. Can't be too bad ...

I for one would be really pleased to see a VS Lufthansa tie up!

As a regular Lufthansa user working for a German company it would be great!!

Interesting to note that ES piece states BD is the second largest holder of LHR slots and LH is the third largest.

As a Diamond Club member with a lot of miles I know I have to get spending them before DC becomes M&M.

quote:Originally posted by daywalker
As a Diamond Club member with a lot of miles I know I have to get spending them before DC becomes M&M.


Well if they follow the NWA/Delta tie up you should have quite a while before the programs become one. Who knows though [:?]

Alex

quote:Originally posted by platinumleo
quote:Originally posted by daywalker
As a Diamond Club member with a lot of miles I know I have to get spending them before DC becomes M&M.


Well if they follow the NWA/Delta tie up you should have quite a while before the programs become one. Who knows though [:?]

Alex

I think the Swiss tie up LH have is a better example of how that works with M&M [y] Not that I know the details in full though [:0][:p]

quote:Originally posted by mike-smashing
My reaction is that this isn't a bad thing.

Solid, stable management, with a long-term strategy and vision, is what BD needs right now, as opposed to what I can only describe as the confused dithering between strategies which seemed to characterise BD for the last 10 years or so.

I hope this means that BD's resultant identity crisis (is it a mainline, a network, a regional carrier, or low-cost) is a chapter which is over too.

Taking over Brussels Airlines, BD, and OS, LH are now in the position of a very strong pan-European operator.

The LH model seems to work well. They get good economies of scale, and hopefully these will be applied to BD in the fullness of time.

Given the recent noises coming out of BA recently, LH must view their purchase as a positive strategic move.

While they do have experience in low-cost operations with Germanwings, I have to wonder what will happen to Baby? Merge back in to BMI mainline/regional, merge into Germanwings operations, or sell?

Mike


I think this all depends on any pressure from Swiss / Belgian governments to retain their 'national' airline brand (given they couldn't or couldn't afford to that with Swissair*/Sabena); perhaps politically, having 'your' airline rebranded Lufthansa is too much to swallow, but lets have LH take over the thing, but retain a semblance of a national airline. There's probably a more articulate way to say this.

bmi as a brand is useless, I'd venture worthless, but given a certain longhaul airline's continued interest in doing a deal with BD/LH, maybe another brandname would be stronger?




*out of all the airline failures in the last decade, this still shocked me most.

Further to my comments about DC possibly becoming M&M I see that LH have annound that the SN programme will become M&M and they've given around 4.5 months notice. The one good thing is that if you are in the top tier of SN you get Senator status for two years with LH which is something to think about for the future with DC.

Thankfully I've been on a miles burning spree so am not as exposed and I have time to get the rest burned up before anything is announced.