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'bmibaby' is a British low-cost airline and a subsidiary of British Midland PLC. It flies to destinations in Europe from its main bases at East Midlands, Manchester, Cardiff, and Birmingham International. bmibaby is a member of the bmi Diamond Club, however they are not a member of the Star Alliance so other Star airlines' passengers cannot earn points on bmibaby flights.
bmibaby Ltd holds a United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority Type A Operating Licence, and is permitted to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats.^[1]

Contents

History

Destinations

Fleet

References

External links

History

The airline was established on 24 January 2002 ^[2] and started operations on 22 March 2002 with a flight between East Midlands and Málaga.
bmibaby is able to differentiate itself in the marketplace through advertising, low fares, customer service and its website. The site allows passengers to make or change their booking online, view previous bookings and to allocate their seats before checking in, albeit at an extra charge.
In late autumn 2006, the airline announced a significant expansion programme at Birmingham International airport increasing the number of Boeing 737 aircraft based at the airport from 5 to 8 and the introduction of 8 new routes. In February 2007, the airline announced further growth plans at Birmingham International airport with an additional Boeing 737 aircraft based at the airport, taking the total to 9 and the total amount of routes served to 21, making it the airline's biggest base.
On 1 March 2007, the airline announced an initiative for business travellers with an 'only choose what you need' approach. Business travellers using the airline now had the option to choose from a range of services such as ticket flexibility, executive lounge access and on-line check in, and only pay for the services they used. The company also announced that bmi's frequent flyers could now gain Diamond Club miles, however, other Star Alliance airlines' frequent flyers cannot.^[3]
Unlike its sister airline, bmibaby are unable to add the points at the airport, this has to be done at time of booking.

Destinations

bmibaby serves these destinations as of June 2007:
Domestic services -
Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, East Midlands Airport, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Jersey, Manchester, Newquay.

International services -
Alicante, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bordeaux, Cork, Faro, Ibiza, Geneva, Knock, Lisbon, Malaga, Marseille, Murcia, Nice, Palma, Paris CDG, Perpignan, Prague, Rome

★ Birmingham (Aberdeen, Alicante, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belfast, Bordeaux, Cork, Edinburgh, Faro, Geneva, Glasgow, Ireland West Knock, Jersey, Lisbon, Malaga, Marseille - Provence, Murcia, Nice, Palma, Prague, Rome - Fiumicino)

★ Cardiff (Alicante, Amsterdam, Belfast, Edinburgh, Faro, Geneva, Glasgow, Ibiza, Jersey, Malaga, Murcia, Palma, Prague)

★ East Midlands (Alicante, Amsterdam, Belfast, Edinburgh, Faro, Geneva, Glasgow, Ibiza, Jersey, Malaga, Palma, Paris (CDG), Prague)

★ Manchester (Alicante, Belfast, Bordeaux, Cork, Edinburgh, Geneva, Glasgow, Ireland West Knock, Jersey, Malaga, Newquay, Palma, Perpignan, Prague)
Until autumn 2006, bmibaby operated routes from Durham/Tees Valley airport. Following the companies termination of these routes, some have been taken over by FlyGlobespan.

Fleet

The bmibaby fleet consists of the following aircraft at March 2007^[4] :

Aircraft	#	Seats
Boeing 737-300	15	148[5]
Boeing 737-500	6	131

★ The airline will take delivery of 3 B737-300 in the next few months to start to replace the B737-500s, 2 of these will come from AirOne and 1 from Varig!

★ The airline is also considering replacing its 6 Boeing 737-500s in order to buy 8 Boeing 737-300s
The summer 2007 schedules require 19 aircraft in daily use, the other two being spare for maintenance etc. The aircraft are based at Birmingham (8), East Midlands (5), Manchester (4) and Cardif (3). A previous small base at Teesside airport is no longer used.
The bmibaby fleet average age is 12.8 years.^[6] Aircraft are named with 'baby' in the title, such as ''rock a bye baby'' and ''baby blue skies''. On 25th August 2006 BMI Baby was confirmed as the sponsor of the Elite Ice Hockey League in the UK. One plane is now named ''ice ice baby''. ^[7] To celebrate bmibaby's second base opening, at Cardiff International Airport in 2003, a competition held in local schools resulted in one Cardiff-Based aircraft as "Baby Dragon Fly"

References

1. Operating Licence
2. UK Companies House Company #03259921
3. http://www.uk-airport-news.info/birmingham-airport-news-250507.htm
4. Directory: World Airlines
5. Bmibaby's company facts
6. easyJet's Fleet Age Details
7. Sponsors of Elite Ice Hockey League

External links

★ Official website

★ Fleet

★ Fleet Age

★ Picture of a Boeing 737