bmi British Midland

If you stood at London Heathrow in the 1990s and 2000s, you couldn’t miss one airline: bmi British Midland. After British Airways, it was long the second-largest airline at Europe’s most important airport, a Star Alliance member and, for many spotters, the blue counterweight to the BA fleet. Its story doesn’t begin in London, though, but at a small airfield in Derby – and ends in 2012 with a sale that was almost entirely about takeoff and landing rights. This page shows you how to classify bmi sightings from your archive correctly.

bmi British Midland at a glance

bmi British Midland was a British network airline whose roots go back to 1938 and which merged into British Airways in 2012. It was headquartered at Donington Hall, a manor house in Castle Donington, just a few kilometers from East Midlands Airport. The most important hub, however, was London Heathrow, with East Midlands and Manchester added.

The network concentrated on domestic flights within Britain, connections to Western Europe and, in the last years, increasingly destinations in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. For a time bmi even flew long-haul from Manchester to the US. From 2000 to 2012 the airline was a member of Star Alliance and thus a partner of Lufthansa – which in the end also became its owner.

From flying school to Heathrow airline: the history

At the beginning there was no airline, but a flying school. In 1938, Captain Roy Harben founded Air Schools Ltd. in Derby, which trained pilots for the Royal Air Force reserve. After the war it became Derby Aviation, which offered charter flights from 1949 and began scheduled flights to Jersey in 1953. In 1959 the flying business became independent as Derby Airways.

On October 1, 1964, the airline renamed itself British Midland Airways and moved to the new East Midlands Airport, which became home for almost five decades. In 1969, Michael Bishop joined the management. He led a management buyout in 1978 and shaped the airline for decades as chairman. Under him, British Midland grew into a serious competitor to British Airways on domestic UK routes from Heathrow.

From 1987, Scandinavian SAS held a stake, and in 1999 it passed part of it on to Lufthansa. On July 1, 2000, British Midland joined Star Alliance, and in February 2001 the new brand identity followed: British Midland became bmi, with a lowercase logo and a new livery. In 2002, the low-cost subsidiary bmibaby launched with Boeing 737s out of East Midlands, while bmi regional took over regional flights with small Embraer jets.

Heathrow, slots and the end in 2012

The real value of bmi lay not in the aircraft but in the slots at Heathrow – that is, the rights to take off and land at certain times. At its peak, the airline held around 13 percent of all Heathrow slots. How this system works and why slots are worth so much at congested airports is explained in the article Airport slots.

Economically, things went less well. The domestic routes suffered from rail and low-cost competition, and bmi posted losses for years. In 2009, Lufthansa took full control of the airline; the shares of Michael Bishop and SAS went to the German group. That didn’t bring a turnaround: losses latterly stood at over £100 million a year, and routes such as Heathrow–Glasgow were cut.

In autumn 2011, the Lufthansa Group announced the sale. The International Airlines Group, parent company of British Airways and Iberia, won the bid. In December 2011, both sides agreed on a purchase price of around £172.5 million; Virgin Atlantic had also bid. The European Commission approved the purchase in March 2012 with conditions: IAG had to give up part of the Heathrow slots, and most of them went to Virgin Atlantic.

Date	Event
July 1, 2000	Joins Star Alliance
2009	Lufthansa takes full control
December 22, 2011	Purchase agreement with IAG
March 30, 2012	Approval by the European Commission with slot conditions
April 20, 2012	Takeover by IAG, exit from Star Alliance
September 2012	bmibaby ceases operations
October 27, 2012	Last flight with a BD flight number lands at Heathrow

After the takeover, things moved quickly. bmi left Star Alliance because IAG and British Airways belong to oneworld. Routes and staff were gradually integrated into British Airways, and most Airbus jets got the BA livery. On October 27, 2012, the last flight under a BD flight number landed at Heathrow. bmibaby had already been shut down in September, and IAG had sold bmi regional to new owners – it kept flying as the only piece of the old family until 2019.

The fleet: from the Viscount to the Airbus

In over 60 years of operations, British Midland used a remarkable range of types. For classifying old photos, a rough timeline is helpful:

Type	Role	Period (approx.)	Spotter note
Douglas DC-3	Early workhorse	Derby years	Piston engines, tailwheel
Vickers Viscount	Turboprop for domestic and Europe	1967–1988	Four propeller engines, oval windows
BAC One-Eleven	First jet	1970–1974	Two engines at the rear, T-tail
Douglas DC-9	Jet backbone of the 1980s	from 1976	Rear engines and T-tail, similar to the One-Eleven
Boeing 737-300, -400 and -500	Short and medium-haul	approx. 1987–2003	Flat engine cowling at the bottom
Fokker 70 and Fokker 100	Smaller jets	1994–2005	Rear engines, slender fuselage
BAe ATP	Turboprop	1988–1993	Six-blade propellers
Airbus A319, A320 and A321	Backbone of the last years	until 2012	Same look, difference in length
Airbus A330-200	Long-haul and Middle East	from 2001	Twinjet widebody

In the late 1990s, bmi decided on Airbus and gradually replaced the Boeing and Fokker fleet with the A320 family from Airbus. In the last years the fleet consisted of just under 30 aircraft: eleven A319s, seven A320s and seven A321s, plus three A330-200s. The narrowbody jets moved to British Airways and got its livery, while the three A330s went back to the lessors.

bmi used the A330-200 from 2001 for long-haul from Manchester, initially to Washington Dulles and Chicago. At the end of 2008, bmi gave up long-haul from Manchester, and the A330s moved to Heathrow. From there the widebodies flew to the Middle East, among other places.

If you’re unsure about the length, the guide Telling the A318, A319, A320 and A321 apart helps. For matching the type through the registration, the article on British G- registrations explains how to use the British register.

How to recognize bmi

Two livery generations matter most for classifying old photos:

• Until 2001 – British Midland: Dark blue-gray livery with “British Midland” titles. The airline liked to play with the diamond motif: on the tail was a red “BM” under a white diamond, aircraft carried the names of famous diamonds, and the frequent flyer program launched in 1987 was called “Diamond Club.”
• From 2001 – bmi: Fuselage in royal blue and white, the lowercase “bmi” logo and, on the tail, a Union Flag fading toward the back.

Alliance cues come on top: as a Star Alliance member, bmi displayed the alliance logo, as was usual for member airlines. You’ll find more in the article on Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam liveries.

The Kegworth accident in 1989

British Midland’s history also includes its best-known accident, which happened right on its doorstep in the East Midlands. On January 8, 1989, flight BD092 was en route from Heathrow to Belfast with an almost new Boeing 737-400 (G-OBME). A fan blade broke in the left engine. The crew suspected the damage was in the right engine and shut it down. On approach to East Midlands, the damaged left engine then failed too. The aircraft crashed shortly before the runway onto the embankment of the M1 motorway near Kegworth. 47 of the 126 people on board lost their lives.

The investigation report contained numerous safety recommendations. Among other things, new engines were afterward tested under more realistic flight conditions, and research on passenger brace positions fed into new requirements. British Midland had already suffered a serious accident in 1967: when a Canadair Argonaut crashed in Stockport, 72 people died.

bmi in Germany

For German spotters, bmi was present mainly as a Star Alliance partner. The airline at times connected Heathrow and other British airports with German cities such as Hamburg, Hanover, Berlin and Frankfurt. Between Germany and Britain there was a close codeshare with Lufthansa, so an LH flight number could well belong to a bmi Airbus. The network changed frequently over the years – there were hardly any fixed routes across the whole period.

Traces today: where you can still follow bmi

British Midland hasn’t disappeared entirely. At the East Midlands Aeropark you stand right at the airport where the airline was at home for almost 50 years. In Heathrow too, much recalls bmi: the slots so fiercely fought over in 2012 are now used mainly by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. If you stand at Hatton Cross or on Myrtle Avenue, you see exactly this traffic. The guide Plane spotting at Heathrow gives tips for a visit.

Documenting old sightings properly

Photos of bmi aircraft are now historical documents. To keep them usable, clean records are worthwhile – especially because many jets kept flying at British Airways after 2012.

How to structure a logbook for the long term is shown in the guide Documenting sightings. The background on the three big alliances is provided by the overview Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam.

Common mix-ups

• Equating bmi with bmi regional – the regional subsidiary with Embraer jets kept flying independently after 2012 until 2019.
• Confusing bmi with bmibaby – bmibaby was the low-cost offshoot with Boeing 737s and a livery of its own.
• Thinking BD is a British Airways code – BD was British Midland’s code, British Airways flies with BA.
• Logging photos from autumn 2012 as pure bmi flights – after the takeover, bmi aircraft were already flying for British Airways.
• Confusing the A319 and A321 – fuselage length and door arrangement show the difference.
• Confusing British Midland with British Caledonian – British Caledonian was an independent airline from Gatwick that merged into British Airways as early as 1988.

Conclusion

For decades, bmi British Midland was British Airways’ most important competitor at Heathrow: founded as a flying school in Derby, grown up in the East Midlands and finally a Star Alliance member with a modern Airbus fleet. In the end it wasn’t the aircraft but the slots that decided its fate – IAG bought the airline in 2012 and integrated it into British Airways. Anyone with photos from this era owns a piece of British aviation history that becomes truly valuable with registration, date and place.