In a recent strategic move, bmi has announced its concrete plans to further increase the frequency of many of its flight services to Saudi Arabia. Notably, bmi is the second largest carrier operating out of London Heathrow. The airline has recently confirmed that it will add extra new services from the UK hub to Jeddah, Dammam and the capital city of Riyadh.

It is interesting to note that the expansion plans of the airline follows a series of bilateral talks held between the British and Saudi governments. The outcome of the talk has resulted in the increase of weekly flights between the two countries to 35. Talking about the recent developments and the outcome of the bilateral talks between the two countries, Nigel Turner, the chief executive of bmi said that the airline has considerably increased its presence in the said region. However, the significant development followed after the cessation of BA's flights in 2005.

Nigel Turner remarked, "Bmi has amassed a considerable amount of experience and expertise since we took over services from Heathrow to the Kingdom. Our route network to the region was further enhanced last October when we commenced services from Heathrow to a wide range of destinations throughout the Middle East and beyond. Bmi now has a major presence in this part of the world with considerable experience and knowledge of serving these markets."

Recently, bmi regional has announced that the airline will add a third extra return flight to the route between Edinburgh to Copenhagen. Offering this additional service from 21st July, the airline will offer 18 return flights per week in total between these cities. Most notably, the return flights are priced from just £145 return, with the charges inclusive of all additional charges and taxes. The services can be booked online by logging into www.flybmi.com

It is interesting to note that the extra service operated daily between the two capitals will enable passengers connect to several destinations offered by the star alliance partners of bmi regional including destinations like Oslo, Tokyo, Helsinki and Stockholm. Over and above, the extra service will benefit the passengers flying from destinations like Oslo and Istanbul enabling them easily connect to Edinburgh via Copenhagen.

bmi regional has the credit of being named as the most punctual airline in the UK as observed by an official statistics published by the CAA. Notably, the airline has won this title for the third consecutive year. The airline is to employ modern Embraer jet aircraft on the new route, offering the passengers highly attractive business and economy fares in addition to complimentary in-flight refreshments and renowned service.

A recent report observes that there is a strong likelihood that bmi, the British airline is taken over next year. However, since a good number of rivals are eyeing up the portfolio of the airline's London Heathrow slots, analysts observe that the airline can make a loss in 2008.

50 percent (plus one share) owned by Sir Michael Bishop is expected to change ownership in 2009 as the result of a private agreement entered into between Bishop and the co-owner Lufthansa, which owns 30 percent minus one share.

Interestingly, Bishop certainly has the option of placing the majority of his share of the airline with Lufthansa. However, a source familiar with the situation says that the German carrier can also 'call in' the stake. If the second deal comes through, the deal will be carried out for a pre-set price agreed upon nearly a decade ago.

Confirm your bookings by the 26th of June and enjoy discounted fares.

bmi, the low-cost carrier, is offering cut priced tickets on flights to two of its most popular Caribbean links.

The carrier, the second largest airline at London Heathrow airport, is running a sale for seats for its routes from Manchester airport to Barbados and Antigua, with return tickets available at a price starting from £349 (economy class).

London Heathrow airport's second largest carrier, bmi, has started an innovative to offer travellers the advantage of checking in online for its flights.

The new paperless boarding system allows passengers to have their boarding pass sent electronically to their cell phone or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). This is a great step towards paperless boarding passes that support green travel concepts of air travel.

bmi is the first British carrier to launch the new paper-free system, which will send a two-dimensional barcode boarding pass to customers' mobile phones featuring picture messaging (MMS) features.

bmi, the low cost carrier, is carrying out tests for a new boarding pass which is sent directly to the mobile phones of customers.

bmi passengers travelling on routes from London Heathrow Airport to Manchester, Belfast and Edinburgh will be able to have the chance of experiencing the new paper-less feature, sent as a text message directly to their mobile phones and displaying a barcode which will be scanned at security and at the boarding entrance. The barcode will be valid for use only once. This is a new development and if it goes successful in its experimentation, it would be a revolutionary concept to avoid paper-based boarding passes.

The carrier is hopeful that the new service will help reducing the amount of time travellers spend at the airport, as it allows those who have no baggage to avoid check-in and have the boarding pass directly without spending too much of time at check-in lines.

Confirm your flight booking by the 1st of June and enjoy up to 20 per cent discount on business class seats. 

bmi, the second largest carrier at London Heathrow, is offering discounted business class tickets on a number of its international routes this summer. This is a great chance for business travellers to avail the discount while travelling with bmi to various destinations.

The carrier is offering up to 20 per cent off on a number of destinations across the Europe, UK, Middle East, central Asia and Africa, during the months of May and June.

bmi, the low-cost carrier, is introducing a brand new service between Cardiff and Barcelona from the 24th of May. This is in addition to other airlines that have started many flights to Spain from different airports of UK.

In the beginning, the budget carrier will serve the route with two times a week service: on Tuesdays and Saturdays, so passengers can take their flight.

Later, from 18th June, the frequency of flights will be increased to three times per week with the carrier serving the route on Wednesdays.

Confirm your bookings by the 21st of April and enjoy discounted flights to a number of destinations.

bmi, the low-cost airline offering discounted flights all throughout the year, has extended the time of its offer on cut priced seats on both one-way and return journeys to many destinations.

Flights will take off from London Heathrow to various destinations including Glasgow, Cairo, Moscow and Ankara.

Effective on bookings made before April 7th, bmi has announced special rates on a number of long and short haul routes departing from several UK airports. Discounts are offered on return flights with departures from London Heathrow, Aberdeen and Jersey. The list of destinations covered under this offer includes Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Antigua.

The conditions governing these offers are as follows. Booked ujnder this offer, the fares are non-refundable. If passengers wish to exchange the tickets booked to some other destinations in the UK and Western Europe, they will have to incur a charge of £80. On the other hand, if the travelers want to exchange their tickets to the USA, then they will incur a charge of £50. Tickets under this scheme are subject to availability and include all fares and taxes.

For journeys from Aberdeen to Antigua, charges are from £420. The scheme is valid on travels between 1st May and 30th June, in addition to 1st September, 5th December, 1st January 2009 and 28th February 2009. For journeys from Aberdeen to Barbados, charges start from £420, with journeys available between 1st May and 30th June in addition to 1st September, 5th December, 1st January 2009 and 28th February 2009.

Recently, Bmi has decided to lease two aircrafts to enhance the frequency and capacity of a good number of its services departing from London Heathrow. The introduction of these aircrafts in the fleet of the airline is expected to benefit the passengers in several ways.

With the airline leasing two Boeing 757-200s, from 1st May, the airline will be offering a brand new direct service to the Kazakhstan city of Almaty. This move will remarkably reduce the present journey time to this location by two hours.

With effect from the same date, the airline will also operate direct services to the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown, with the services in the route increasing to four departures a week. Over and above, the journey time is also reduced by one hour.

Effective on the bookings made by the 1st of April, bmi has announced several attractive discounts on a range of destinations in the UK and the mainland Europe. The fares under this scheme include return journeys, taxes and other charges. However, the conditions require that the bookings be made at least seven days before departure, but not earlier than four months before the date of the journey. This is a very good option provided by bmi if you are looking to travel to any of the following routes.

Under the discount scheme, the prices from Edinburgh to Manchester start from £75, while the charges from Glasgow to Manchester begin at £75. Between East Midlands and Brussels, the charges start from £99, while between Edinburgh and Brussels, the prices start at £99. From Leeds Bradford to Brussels, the prices start from £99 and Edinburgh to Zurich at £119. From Leeds Bradford to Copenhagen, the price begins from £119 and from Manchester to Lyon; the prices are starting from £119.

The discount also requires that all trips must include a Saturday night stay. So, while planning your holidays or trips in this discount, you should take care of this aspect of your stay to any of these destinations.

It is party time for Bmi regional for being labelled as the most punctual airline in the UK for the first nine months of 2007. According to the data released by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), 91 per cent of the airline's flights took off within 15 minutes of their scheduled departure time between January and September the previous year.

The award won by the airline would certainly help it to rope in more passengers, as in today's scenario, the time and schedule makes a lot of difference. A lots of big named airlines fails to keep a good track of their schedule and passengers of such airlines face a lot of problems. This is where such awards comes into fore and plan a major role in the reputation of the airlines.

The flights which were delayed by bmi regional functions out of local hubs comprising Aberdeen Airport, Edinburgh, Glasgow Airport and Leeds/Bradford, averaged six minutes. Overall in 2005 and 2006 Bmi regional was delegated as the most punctual airline. It is clear that passengers would love bmi regional airlines' services, which allow them to make their travel on time and at the planned schedule.

Coming into effect on 7th Monday 2008, bmi, the second largest airline of Heathrow is introducing a new set of cabin baggage rules. This move follows the removal of certain restrictions by the Department for Transport at several UK airports.

The new guidelines allow the passengers of premium economy and business class to carry two pieces of cabin baggage. However, the economy cabin travellers can take only one piece. The rules prescribe that the individual pieces of luggage should not be larger than 55 x 40 x 23cm. In addition, the passengers must be able to put the bags in the overhead lockers by themselves without any aid. Rules governing the carrying of liquids remain the same.

Besides this, passengers can carry a personal item with them like a handbag, briefcase, purse or a baby change bag. Laptops carried in a slim bag or briefcase will be treated as a personal item. However, if it is packed in a larger computer bag, then it will be considered as a separate cabin baggage. The decision to accept personal items solely belongs to the discretion of bmi.

As per the announcement made on 3rd January 2008, bmi, the second largest airline of London Heathrow is doubling its services between London Heathrow and Moscow Domodedovo with effect from 30 March 2008. This is certainly a good news for passengers.

This move marks the first venture of the airline into the mid haul market. This significant milestone has been made possible because of the overwhelming success of the daily services to Moscow launched in October 2006. 

In addition to the above, the new timetable also finds an additional service operated in the late evening connecting Heathrow and Manchester. The number of services on the whole rises up to eight flights a day besides a daily service connecting Heathrow and Durham Tees Valley three times a day.

Low-cost carrier, bmi is selling discounted tickets in its biggest ever sale for flights to European destinations, within the UK and more. Passengers can have a look at the offered destinations and book their seat by the 13th of January and enjoy the discount prices.

The airline is offering its discounted flights from a total of 11 UK airports. Some of the options available in the sale are:

From Edinburgh to: Tehran at a price starting from just £440, Tel Aviv at a price starting from just £280 and Chicago at a price starting from just £300.

Budget carrier, bmi has announced that in the month of March, it will stop operating its daily service between Inverness and Heathrow, as part of a route network shake-up.

Other changes include: increase in the number of bmi's flights between Heathrow and Moscow Domodedovo to double, make improvements in the schedule for the thrice-daily service between Heathrow and Durham Tees Valley and increase the number of bmi's service between Manchester and Heathrow.

The decision of the airline to stop operating its flights from Inverness to London on the 29th of March has been taken as a result of poor sales and the hike in Air Passenger Duty, and the carrier says that it did not hope that there will be any improvement in its passenger numbers on this route.

In a significant move, Bmi has decided to fly its services from Heathrow to Tel Aviv with effect from next year. The airline has confirmed that it will introduce a non-stop service on a daily basis between Heathrow and Tel Aviv on March 13th 2008.

Operating Airbus A320 on the route, there will be two classes available with a capacity of 20 seats in business and 108 seats in the economy class.

According to the airline, the route had been conceived to enable connections to several regional airports scattered throughout the UK, including Manchester, Leeds Bradford, Dublin and Durham Tees Valley.

In a recent move, bmi has started flying directly from Manchester to Barbados with three services a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Brian Quinn, the bmi airport manager at Manchester remarked, "We are expecting a very high number of passengers travelling to Barbados with bmi over the next few months as this is a peak travel period for the Caribbean island."

With the airline introducing brand new flat beds in the business and premium economy classes, the passengers flying in its carriers to enjoy a winter sunshine break in the route can also hope for a travel of great comfort.The flat beds introduced in the business class are 26 inches wide with a seat pitch of 78-80 inches. The seats in the premium economy seats are 21 inches wide with a pitch of 49 inches. The chairs can recline up to 50 degrees.

In the coming year flights among East Midlands Airport and Cologne in Germany are planned to be commenced by bmi. It will cover the space left by the withdrawal of easyJet from the route. Six direct services in a week will be provided by the airline's regional flights arm starting on February 11. So, you can plan your travel on this route accordingly and book a ticket with bmi.

Penny Coates, managing director of East Midlands Airport, comments: 'We are delighted that bmi regional has chosen to start their Cologne route from East Midlands next February. It is an important destination for the business traveller and I am sure that it will also be a very popular destination for the leisure travellers too'.

Being the member of Star Alliance, bmi regional will provides connections to its passengers at Cologne to other German cities, comprising Hamburg, through fellow alliance member Lufthansa. Cologne the oldest city of Germany hosts annual carnivals as well as Europe's largest comedy festival and a large Christmas market.

Low cost airline, Bmi has revealed its plans to start operating services between the UK and US in the year 2009 and not as soon as the Open Skies agreement comes into effect in March next year, according to Bloomberg. This is surely a welcome news for passengers using services of BMI inside Europe, and now they can plan to travel up to US with BMI.

Under the agreement between the UK and US the low-cost carrier, which is Britain's third biggest airline, has the chance to start services from London Heathrow to the US in April next year. The flight schedule will be finalized once the agreement is signed.

Referring a need to assess levels of both demand and competition, the chief executive of the airline, Mr. Nigel Turner, revealed to an industry conference in London that the airline would delay the introduction of any routes from UK to US until 2009,.

Book a flight and get and avail the 'perfect for a last-minute weekend getaway' offer from the low cost airline, bmi. The airline is offering a large number of regional return fares for its passengers. The offer ends  1st April, 2008.

Fly from Edinburgh to Manchester at a price starting from £75; from Glasgow to Manchester at a price starting from £75; from Manchester to Edinburgh at a price starting from £75; from Manchester to Glasgow at a price starting from £75; and from East Midlands to Brussels at a price starting from £99.

You can also book a flight from Edinburgh to Brussels at a price starting from £99, from Leeds Bradford to Brussels at a price starting from £99, from Edinburgh to Zurich at a price starting from £119, from Leeds Bradford to Copenhagen at a price starting from £119, and from Manchester to Lyon at a price starting from £119.

Starting from today till Nov. 28, bmi is providing a fare sale to the UK for as low as $324 roundtrip, for the journey from Jan. 1 till March 31, 2008.

Roundtrip sale fares in economy, premium economy and business class from bmi gateways of Chicago and Las Vegas and its code-share cities to Manchester, England is as: To London and the Scottish cities of Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh, the supplement fare only on Chicago or Las Vegas beginning tickets is $38 roundtrip for all fare classes and $154 to Belfast, Exeter and Norwich.

These fares being non-refundable are to be bought in advance in seven days with a minimum three day stay or Saturday overnight. Variations are permitted after take-off for a $150 fee plus any difference in the fare level. Children's fares are available at a minimum rate. The fares exclude taxes and fees starting at $193. Tickets must be bought within 72 hours of making a reservation. Visit http://www.flybmi.com for further information.

London Heathrow's second largest carrier, bmi, is going to start operating its services to Dammam in Saudi Arabia in early 2008. 

bmi chief executive, Nigel Turner, revealed the airline's plans to introduce the services at a media event in Egypt to celebrate the launch of daily direct services to Cairo from Heathrow. The news comes after the airline started its operations on 17 new routes.

The airline will operate three times per week flights on its new Dammam route. The company will use a wide-bodied Airbus A330 aircraft to operate its new service.

From the following Wednesday, 19 return flights between Inverness and Heathrow will be cancelled, confirmed bmi. The cancellations will continue until February 6.

The airline said it was following the same path adopted by a number of carriers to adjust the schedule in to lower demand over the winter season. bmi's cancellations will also have an impact on its services between Heathrow and Venice, Palma and Lyon.

Inverness Chamber of Commerce said that the alterations were a matter of worry and had hit at a very short notice.

Most notably, after introducing a long-haul service between the Manchester airport of Britain and Barbados, BMI AIRLINES has experienced a significant growth during the past three years.

17 new lines have been added by the airline to destinations including Las Vegas and Chicago in addition to many others. In addition, by way of enhancing passenger comfort, the airline has also improved its business class cabin with flatbed reclining seats.

Addressing a media show-and tell-session last week at Grantley Adams International Airport, Athos Ho-Kong-King, BMI's director of sales in the Caribbean showed off the cabin extras onboard the aircraft.

Heathrow's second biggest airline, is introducing a new daily non-stop flight to London from Cairo on 4th November, 2007 whereby the carrier will be presenting its excellent services to Egyptian passengers including its diamond club drive.

Nigel Turner, CEO of bmi, said, "We are enthusiastic about starting our operations in Egypt and we look forward to building many partnerships along the way. bmi has already started by reaching an agreement with Egyptair allowing our valued customers the opportunity to use their frequent flyer cards on either airline".

bmi CEO added, "Commitment and quality are at the heart of bmi's core values and we are keen to implement them in this new exciting market".

With the introduction of flat beds in the business, bmi has seen a significant enhancement to its long-haul product offering. The flat beds treasure an acceptable 26" seat width - 6" more than British Airways, United and Saudi, and a wonderful 78" – 80" seat pitch.

While flying in the business onboard bmi's A330 Airbus, passengers will be offered comfort and style with the chocolate brown and beige leather seats with duck egg blue cotton beddings and pillows. This is a major comfortable change in the cabin arrangement of the business class offered by the airlines, and you can expect a real pleasurable journey while travelling with bmi.

Perfect for business travellers, bmi's new flat beds also feature notebook power point, telephone and dataports.

Bmi has taken on an vast upgrade programme to change its premium economy cabin with a market premier seat. The new seat has a unique shape and seating capacity that would be more fitting for the passengers.

The new premium economy seats treasure a luxurious 49" seat pitch, 21" seat width and a 50 degree recline, with electronic leg rest and lumbar block.

Ideal for business as well as leisure travellers, the premium economy provides facilities such as telephone, notebook power point and data ports in addition to a personal 9" arm stow screen.

To commence from 28th October, bmi has published the details of the new schedule pertaining to its services to Jordan. The second largest British airline among those operating out of Heathrow, London has announced that on Tuesday 29 October 2007, the regular non-stop flights will leave from Amman to Heathrow, London at 11:05 am, while the services that depart from Heathrow terminal one to Amman are scheduled on Tuesdays at 9:00 am.

While expressing his excitement on the new services, Saad Jaber, local bmi representative observed, "bmi is extremely enthusiastic about what it can bring to the Jordanian market. bmi will now offer a daily flights to London. This not only allows the bmi customer to explore London and the UK for business or pleasure but also allows them to avail of the many other destinations that bmi connects to in Europe and the US. We will also continue to focus on maintaining our superior punctuality record at Heathrow where Civil Aviation Authority figures clearly show we outperform all other British airlines at the airport." 

Quite interestingly, coinciding with the launch of services in the new route, bmi is also introducing certain significant enhancements to most of its inflight products. Some of these features include advanced food and drinks services on all long-haul and mid-haul routes, kids packs, new amenity kits, and lot of inflight entertainment with a collection of more than 22 films comprising the latest blockbuster movies.

With effect from the later part of this month, passengers will find a new return flight added up to the current bmi route map between Manchester and Edinburgh. This is a welcome news for passengers using the flights of bmi to travel to Manchester from Scotland, as they can hire the same services for their return flights also. It naturally eases up the process a bit for travel planning.

According to the report published by the Travel Mole website, the additional flights will start flying from 28th October of this year.

Based on the present plan, there will be eight flights on each weekday flying in either direction making a total number of 88 flights on this route per week. The passengers can check the official site of the airlines and confirm the timings of the flights and can plan their visits and travels according to the availability.

Bmi has come out with its plans to introduce flights to Addis Ababa as of 28th October, according to reports. Bmi is adding more routes to various destinations of the world, and this would be one of them.

Addis Ababa is one of the 17 new destinations that British Midland Airways is going to start serving. Other new destinations include Yerevan, Armenia; Tehran, Iran; Tbilisi, Georgia; Khartoum, Sudan; Ekaterinburg, Russia; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Damascus, Syria; Dakar, Senegal; Cairo, Egypt (4 November); Bishkek, Kyrgystan; Beirut, Lebanon; Baku, Azerbaijan; Ankara, Turkey; Amman, Jordan; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Aleppo, Syria. Overall, it is great expansion plan by the air-carrier.

Euronews reported, "The new routes, starting 28 October 2007, will operate from Heathrow's Terminal 1 with an improved timetable for business travellers and with a new enhanced in-flight product. The move marks the completion of the integration of BA destinations that were operated by BMED under a franchise agreement. BMED was purchased by bmi in February 2007".

On Tuesday, British carrier bmi revealed that the airline is planning to start a daily non-stop flight from Heathrow London to Tel Aviv next spring.

bmi's announcement comes three months after a low-fares British carrier Thomsonfly announced that it would introduce three flights per week from Luton airport to Israel in November starting at a price of 80 pounds one-way and 140 pounds round-trip including all fees and taxes.

In a statement bmi said that its plans to launch flights to Tel Aviv are derived from a successful end of discussions between the governments of Israeli and British on granting permission to another UK and Israeli airline to operate between Heathrow and Ben-Gurion International Airport.

Bmi, the British airline, has pushed back its launching flights to North America and is "looking east" instead, to participate in the rapidly growing economies of the Middle East and Central Asia.

The carrier plans to fly 17 new destinations from Heathrow that includes Tehran, Almaty, in Kazakhstan, and Baku, in Azerbaijan.

Chairman bmi, Sir Michael Bishop took a shrewd decision to manoeuvre the link between "old" economies in Europe and America and "new" Asia.

With the start of sales to 17 new destinations, Heathrow's second-largest airline, bmi, today announced the biggest-ever expansion of its route channel.

Starting from October 28, 2007, the newly announced routes will operate from Heathrow's Terminal 1.

The step underlines the accomplishment of the consolidation of BA destinations operated by BMED under a franchise understanding. bmi purchased BMED in the month of February this year.

The results are out figures from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) indicates that bmi and bmi regional were the UK's most punctual airlines during the first quarter of 2007.   At its main hub of London Heathrow bmi on time performance stood at 80 per cent of flights on time during the period and delays averaged only 10 minutes.  

Bmibaby, the low cost arm of bmi finished second with 79 per cent of flights on time and average delays of 12 minutes.  All in all in the UK bmi regional maintained its position as number one for on-time performance with 92 per cent of flights on time and average delays of six minutes.   The airlines was third overall with  80 per cent of flights on time and average delays of just under ten minutes.

CAA punctuality statistics are compiled and analysed by flightontime.info on a quarterly and annual basis. Nigel Turner, chief executive officer of the bmi group said, punctuality is of paramont importance to our passengers, particularly those traveling from business purposes.   It will instill confidence among travelers.  We have responded by making it a mainstay of our customer proposition through the current 'bmitime' promotion as well as it being one of the foundations of our standard operating procedures.   Punctuality lies at the core of our ongoing success and it is extremely rewarding to see such impressive results being achieved and maintained.