British Midland Airways Ltd. - trading at various times throughout its history as British Midland, and bmi British Midland International - was an airline in the United Kingdom with its head office in Donington Hall in Castle Donington, close to East Midlands Airport, England. The airline flew to destinations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North America and Central Asia from its main hub at London Heathrow Airport, where at its peak it held about 13% of all slots and operated over 2,000 flights a week. BMI was a member of Star Alliance from 1 July 2000 until 20 April 2012.
British Midland Airways/bmi British Midland International was acquired from Lufthansa by International Airlines Group (IAG) on 20 April 2012, and was integrated into British Airways (BA) by 27 October 2012. Subsidiaries Bmibaby and BMI Regional were also purchased, although IAG did not wish to retain either. BMI Regional was sold to Sector Aviation Holdings in May 2012 and operated under the flybmi brand until it went into administration on 16 February 2019, whereas Bmibaby closed down in September 2012.
British Midland Airways Limited held a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Type A Operating Licence, permitting it to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats.
History
Origins The airline dates back to 1938, when Captain Roy Harben established Air Schools Limited as a school for training pilots of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. Harben had been approached by the Derby Corporation to run a new aerodrome under construction near Burnaston, which was planned to eventually become an airport. Sir Kingsley Wood, the Secretary of State for Air, officially opened the aerodrome as Derby Municipal Airport on 17 June 1939. Military flying training continued at the airport throughout the war.
Air Schools Limited formed a parent company, Derby Aviation Ltd., in 1946 (fully registered on 16 February 1949), and Harben died the following year of a heart attack. His wife remained the controlling shareholder of the business and asked E. W. Phillips, who had been involved in running the flying school with Captain Harben, to become the new managing director. The new parent company also incorporated Wolverhampton Aviation, based at Pendeford, which offered ad hoc charter and freight flights with de Havilland Dragon Rapides, as well as aircraft maintenance and brokerage.
Airline-type operations started in early 1949 with occasional charter flights with DH.89 de Havilland Dragon Rapide and Miles M.60 Marathon. In 1953, Derby Aviation ceased flying training, following the award of a licence to operate scheduled flights from Burnaston and Wolverhampton to Jersey. Flights in each direction were required to land at Elmdon Airport in Birmingham to allow passengers to clear customs. The first flight was made on 18 July 1953, using a DH.89. The following year, Wolverhampton Aviation was merged into Derby Aviation, and, in 1955, the company purchased its first Douglas DC-3, a converted former military transport.
International services to Ostend commenced in 1956, and flights carrying holidaymakers from the UK to mainland Europe began as well. Three M.60s flew a strange route - via Kidlington-Oxford-Hurn-Bournemouth - to Channel Islands, and from Derby to the Isle of Man and northward to Glasgow. The company was also contracted by Rolls-Royce to transport aero engines to customers all over the world. On 12 March 1959, Derby Aviation formed Derby Airways Ltd. as its airline business and introduced a new livery incorporating the new airline's name. Domestic scheduled flights within the United Kingdom began the same year. Five Canadair C-4s were bought second-hand between 1961 and 1962, with cabin acccommodation for 78 passenger and were used on scheduled services, ITs and ad-hoc charters.
British Midland Airways
1960s and 70s On 1 October 1964, after buying the Manchester Airport-based scheduled and charter airline Mercury Airlines assets, the company changed its name to British Midland Airways (BMA) and moved operations from Burnaston to the recently opened East Midlands Airport, close to Castle Donington. The corporate colours of blue and white were adopted at that time, along with the first turboprop aircraft, a Handley Page Dart Herald."Midlands on the map", The Aeroplane and Commercial Aviation news, 4 February 1965, page 11
Minster Assets, a London-based investment and banking group, acquired the airline in 1968, and in 1969 promoted former Mercury ground handling manager Michael Bishop to become the company's general manager. From this point, Bishop drove the company forward, with domestic and European expansion continuing apace. As a first step, in November 1969, BMA took over Autair's Heathrow–Teesside route, which marked the airline's Heathrow debut. From January till July 1969 British Midland-Invicta Cargo brand was used for freight operations jointly operated with Invicta Airways.
In 1970, BMA entered the jet age with the introduction of three new BAC One-Eleven 500s, followed by an ex-Pan Am Boeing 707-321 in 1971. The former had been intended to be primarily used on European inclusive tour (IT) charters while the latter was to be mainly used on transatlantic "affinity group" charters.B. Lewis, "British Midland Airways", Air Pictorial, March 1970, pages 89-91 Also in 1970, BMA became the first British airline independent from government-owned corporations to employ UK-based, non-White cabin crew.
Following his appointment as managing director in 1972, Bishop withdrew the One-Elevens from service, two of which were swapped for three Handley Page Dart Heralds while the third was subsequently leased to Court Line. As the early-model, high-time second-hand 707s commanded a low resale value, the airline decided to keep these aircraft and lease them out to other airlines on a wet lease basis, beginning in November 1972 with a £3.3 million, two-year contract to operate Sudan Airways' Blue Nile service between Khartoum and London. The decision to pull out of both the IT and "affinity group" markets was taken to reverse heavy losses BMA had incurred on these charter operations due to its lack of scale and lack of vertical integration with a tour operator, which put it at a commercial disadvantage vis-à-vis the competition, as well as uneconomical charter rates as a result of overcapacity. This resulted in BMA concentrating on regional, short-haul scheduled services and ad hoc charters using turboprops such as the Herald and Viscount as these were more economical than contemporary jets on short, thin routes. The success of the airline's wet lease operation resulted in an increase in the number of Boeing 707s allocated to this activity, including the addition of several later model 707-320B and -320C aircraft from 1976. All of these were leased to other operators, with none operating for BMA on scheduled or charter services until 1981.
On 1 November 1974, BMA began operating between London Gatwick and Belfast, where it replaced the service previously operated by British Caledonian. London–Belfast was BMA's first UK domestic trunk route and the first all-year round route it served in indirect competition with British Airways (BA). BMA's Gatwick debut also made it the only airline at the time to operate scheduled services from all five contemporary London airports – Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Southend and Stansted.
In January 1975, an agreement was reached for BMA to provide two Vickers Viscounts in Cyprus Airways livery to link Athens with Cyprus. A former WWII airfield at Larnaca was selected to serve the south of the island, following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. The first flights departed Larnaca on 10 February 1975. On 4 April 1975, the Daily Mail chartered a BMA Boeing 707 to assist the Project Vietnam Orphans and The Ockenden Venture charities in evacuating 150 orphaned children from Saigon during the Vietnam War.
On 1 September 1976, jets began gradually replacing the turboprop fleet on most of BMA's domestic and European services, when the airline's first Douglas DC-9 (a second-hand -15 leased from the manufacturer) replaced Viscounts on the Heathrow–Tesside route.
In 1978, Minster Assets sought to sell the company. With the help of a Californian entrepreneur, Robert F. Beauchamp, Bishop raised £2.5 million to lead the management buy-out, and was appointed chairman as a result, afterwards stating "I had to borrow the money from an American citizen. Most venture capitalists want a return of 40% to make up for all their other failures and they want an exit strategy." That year, British Midland and British Airways agreed to swap some of their routes, resulting in BMA relinquishing its routes from Birmingham to Brussels and Frankfurt, and BAW handing over its routes from Liverpool to London Heathrow, Belfast, Dublin, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Glasgow. Annual passenger numbers topped 1 million for the first time in 1979.
1980s and 90s
In 1981, the CAA turned down BMA's application to fly between Heathrow, Glasgow and Edinburgh, but the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry upheld the airline's appeal against the CAA's ruling. The decision to overturn the CAA's ruling enabled the airline to commence its first domestic trunk route from the UK's premier airport on 25 October 1982, when it launched six daily return flights between Heathrow and Glasgow operated with DC-9s. Although these flights were not as frequent as the competing hourly BA shuttle, BMA offered keener fares and a full in-flight service (compared with the no frills shuttle). Following BMA's success on the Heathrow–Glasgow route, the airline began flying between Heathrow and Edinburgh (1983) and Heathrow and Belfast (1984). With the introduction of these services, BMA and BA were now in direct competition on the UK's three busiest domestic trunk routes. BMA's competitive pressure on BA resulted in the latter replacing its no frills shuttle service with an upgraded Super Shuttle that included a full breakfast, hot drinks and a free bar service on both Heathrow–Glasgow and Heathrow–Edinburgh from September 1983. (BA subsequently extended Super Shuttle to Heathrow–Belfast as well following the launch of BMA's competing service in 1984, in turn resulting in BMA abandoning Gatwick–Belfast which was taken over by Dan-Air.)
Also in 1982, BMA, together with British & Commonwealth (the owners of AirUK at the time), formed Manx Airlines, and the following year it purchased a 75% stake in Glasgow-based regional airline Loganair from The Royal Bank of Scotland. In October 1984, the Boeing 707 fleet was withdrawn, having been used extensively on lease operations for other airlines across the world.Arthur Reed, "British Midland emerging", Air Transport World, December 1982, pages 48-49
In 1985, a new aircraft livery featuring a dark blue upper half and tail, with a light grey lower half separated by a thin, white stripe, was introduced. At this time, BMA was branded simply British Midland, and a new logo featuring a stylised red BM crowned with a white diamond shape appeared on aircraft tailfins. This livery subsequently featured a darker blue upper half and tail, with a deep grey lower half separated by two thin stripes, very dark blue at the top and red at the bottom. However, the logo on the aircraft's fins remained unchanged.I.D. Thacker, "British Midland Airways", Aviation News, 1–14 November 1985, pages 570-582