British Midland International

BMI Logo

bmi Airbus A320

bmi Airbus A321 in an old, but still frequently seen, colour scheme

bmi, formerly known as British Midland, is the second largest airline in the United Kingdom. It is based at East Midlands Airport, flying to many destinations across Europe and North America. bmi holds 14% of all Heathrow take off and landing slots and is part of the Star Alliance grouping of the world's largest airlines.

The airline flies a variety of domestic and international routes from the following UK airports: London Heathrow Airport, London City Airport, Manchester International Airport, Birmingham International Airport, Glasgow International Airport, Edinburgh Airport, East Midlands Airport, Belfast City Airport, Norwich Airport, Newcastle Airport, Durham Tees Valley Airport, Stornoway Airport, Aberdeen Airport and Leeds-Bradford Airport.

The main international routes are from Heathrow to various European destinations in France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Belgium.

From Manchester Airport, the airline offers transatlantic flights to Chicago and Washington, DC.

bmi has fought to gain transatlantic flights from Heathrow. Currently only British Airways, Air India,Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, United Airlines, Kuwait Airways , and Air Canada are permitted to offer such routes.

In January 1989, the Kegworth Air Disaster occurred, killing 47 on the aircraft.

In 2002, bmi set up its own low-cost subsidiary known as bmibaby, which uses the redundant Boeing 737s which were displaced after bmi's fleet renewal programme which favours an all-Airbus fleet. bmibaby flies a network of routes between secondary airports around Europe. More recently bmi has been subject to takeover rumours from Virgin Atlantic.