BMI cuts A330 aircraft

Lufthansa owned BMI, has announced that it will cut nine aicraft from its mainline fleet. Importantly two of its three A330 aircraft will not have their lease renewed in early 2010, effectively cutting its long haul operation. From London Heathrow several routes will be cut, including, Brussels, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Kiev and Aleppo.

Two Embraer aircraft will be returned to BMI Regional. Under the guidance of Lufthansa, BMI will concentrate on domestic, European, Middle Eastern and Asian markets. Lufthansa will be able to feed passengers through its Munich and Frankfurt bases for passengers wishing to travel West bound to the US, Central and Latin America.

The move will put a question mark against jobs at BMI, shortly after it announced several redundancies and restricturing of its low cost arm BMIbaby.