bmibaby Expands from Midland Bases

UK low-cost carrier bmibaby will introduce flights to seven new destinations next summer after revealing its planned network expansion from its Birmingham and East Midlands bases. As reported earlier this year, the low-cost carrier, a subsidiary of bmi British Midland International, is to cease its operations from Cardiff and Manchester airports this winter and will instead focus on developing its operations from Birmingham and East Midlands. The airline says that “in the current economic climate it is essential” for the carrier to focus on airports where it “already has a strong market presence and where there are strong growth opportunities” for the business.

The arrival of additional based aircraft at Birmingham and East Midlands will enable network expansion at both locations. At Birmingham, new services to Barcelona, Lisbon and Rome Fiumicino will be added, while Prague will be extended from a winter-only operation to a year-round destination. At East Midlands, new links will be opened to Corfu, Gibraltar, Murcia and Naples, while Cologne will also be served during the summer for the first time.

As can be seen in the above table, there is virtually no direct competition on these routes from the two Midlands’ airports. The only exception is to Murcia, where Ryanair already offers eight weekly flights from East Midlands. Both bmibaby and Ryanair also serve the Spanish destination from Birmingham, with Ryanair holding a 28 per cent share of the estimated 81,000 O&D passenger traffic and bmibaby 14 per cent. Ryanair’s lower cost structure means that it is much more competitive on price, but bmibaby will be happy with its stronger yield, which means that despite carrying around half the passengers of its rival, it has generated a similar level of revenue.

The most interesting new route is the planned three times weekly link between East Midlands and Gibraltar, the first direct scheduled link to the British overseas territory from the Midlands. British Airways currently has flights from London Heathrow, easyJet from Liverpool and London Luton and Monarch Airlines from London Luton and Manchester. More than a quarter of the residents on the densely populated territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean, are of British ethnicity and there is a strong demand for leisure and VFR traffic.

“The new routes are part of our expansion strategy for the Midlands,” said Julian Carr, Managing Director, bmibaby. “By offering exciting destinations we want to inspire our customers to make the most of our low fares and experience new destinations from their local airport.”

“We recently announced that will be basing two additional aircraft in the Midlands from the end of our summer 2011 flying programme and will now operate a total of 45 routes from the Midlands [31 from East Midlands and 14 from Birmingham]. We are committed to further growth in this region,” he added.

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