is the
Low-cost Airline subsidiary of
Bmi . It flies to destinations in
Europe from its main bases at
Nottingham East Midlands Airport ,
Manchester International Airport ,
Cardiff Airport ,
Durham Tees Valley Airport and
Birmingham International .
Unlike its parent bmi, bmibaby is not a member of the
Star Alliance . In most cases, low-fare subsidiaries of carriers are part of their respective alliances, most notably
Ted by
United (Star Alliance) and
Song by
Delta (SkyTeam).
The airline was established on 17 January
2002 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.
From June
2005 , the airline has begun offering seats on regular bmi flights to European destinations, effectively serving many other airports throughout Europe including
London Heathrow .
Aircraft are named with 'baby' in the title, such as ''rock a bye baby'' and ''baby blue skies''.
bmibaby fly to the following destinations (at March 2006):
;Domestic
Belfast ,
Birmingham ,
Cardiff ,
Durham Tees Valley ,
Glasgow ,
Edinburgh ,
Jersey ,
London Gatwick ,
London Heathrow ,
Manchester ,
Newquay ,
Nottingham East Midlands and
Prestwick .
;International
Alicante ,
Amsterdam ,
Bordeaux ,
Cork ,
Dublin ,
Faro ,
Geneva ,
Knock ,
Málaga ,
Murcia ,
Nice ,
Palma De Mallorca ,
Paris ,
Prague and
Perpignan .
This list does not include destinations served by bmi, to which bmibaby seats may be allocated. See
Bmi Destinations for more information on these services.
The bmibaby fleet consists of the following aircraft at January 2006:
- It is thought that bmibaby are looking to replace their ageing fleet of Boeing 737s with newer Airbus A319s in the medium to long term.
- Following Air Wales' effective collapse, bmibaby will not be able to operate the Cardiff-Paris CDG service throughout the summer season, or Belfast International on a double rotation. The CDG slots are being reallocated to provide extra flights on bmi regional from Leeds/Bradford in the summer. However, it is understood that come the winter, bmibaby will base a fourth aircraft at Cardiff to operate the Paris & Belfast services on a double rotation, and also will introduce Nice and another French route (probably Toulouse). Thus Paris frequencies from Leeds/Bradford will return to twice daily.
