Information on BMI
BMI, (the company's trademark, formerly operated as British Midland) is a scheduled airline based in Donington Hall, close to East Midlands Airport, United Kingdom. The airline flies to destinations in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia whilst its operational bases are Manchester Airport and London Heathrow Airport where it holds 12% of all take off and landing slots and operates over 2,000 flights a week. In January 2007, BMI bought British Mediterranean Airways which has enabled it to serve a wider range of mid-haul destinations.
In 1999, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), a shareholder in British Midland since 1987, sold some of its stake to Lufthansa on the condition that British Midland joined the Star Alliance. BMI joined in 2000 and launched a new corporate identity in 2001. This involved the rebranding of the airline as BMI British midland (though BMI officially does not mean anything, it would imply 'British Midland International' or 'British MIdland'). The new identity features a brighter blue, the replacement of the grey with white and a fading Union Jack flag on the tail with "bmi" on it. In 2003, "British Midland" was dropped from the name and the airline is now referred to simply as BMI, although the legal name of the company remains British Midland Airways Limited. The new identity coincided with the launch of transatlantic services in 2001 to Washington, DC and Chicago from Manchester Airport using wide-body Airbus A330 aircraft. Services from Manchester to Las Vegas followed soon after.
In 2002, BMI set up a low-cost subsidiary Bmibaby using Boeing 737s which were displaced after BMI's fleet renewal programme favoured an all-Airbus fleet. Bmibaby now flies routes between secondary airports around Europe, and does not operate from Heathrow.
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