bmi carries 7.8m passengers in 2002

The UK’s second largest full-service scheduled airline bmi and its low-cost subsidiary bmibaby have reported carrying 7.8 million passengers in 2002.

This figure represents a rise of 11% on the previous year on passengers carried, which in turn has fed through into a four-point rise in the load factor - up to 64%.

Domestic services, in particular, benefited dramatically with routes where there is strong competition from low cost carriers performing exceptionally well.

Services between London Heathrow and Belfast saw an increase of 45% over the previous year, while routes from Manchester to Scotland performed well – Manchester-Glasgow grew by 33% and Aberdeen by 31%. The number of passengers travelling between Heathrow and Milan increased by 55%.

Much of the growth, said bmi, came in the second half of 2002, as travellers returned to the air following the tragic events of 11 September 2001.

Austin Reid, bmi’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “The growth in passenger numbers during the latter half of 2002 owes much to the returning confidence of air travellers following the tragedy in the USA. However, bold initiatives such as our new fare strategy, popular seat sales and promotions, and the huge success of bmibaby, have played a major part in boosting the group’s passenger growth.

“We made strong gains during 2002 and, despite continued challenging market conditions, we remain confident that we are and will continue to be a major competitive force in the UK aviation industry. We are determined to provide much needed competition to a wide range of markets.”

The introduction of a low cost-style one-way fare structure in June last year effectively scrapped minimum stay requirements such as the restrictive ‘Saturday night stopover’.

Transatlantic services from Manchester to Chicago, launched in summer 2001, made gains during 2002, with the load factor rising by 16% to 73%. This made bmi the largest carrier of passengers on direct services from Manchester to Chicago.

Commencing operations in March 2002, low-cost carrier bmibaby experienced considerable success in its first nine months. From an initial nine services from East Midlands Airport at the time of launch, operations have expanded to Cardiff International Airport, 31 routes are now operated and bmi said that further opportunities for growth are being actively sought.

There has also been significant growth on bmi’s routes between East Midlands Airport and Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast, and popular leisure routes such as East Midlands to Malaga and Barcelona.

(SP)