BMIbaby plan 150 job cuts

The low-cost carrier, BMIbaby, has late last week announced plans to cut 158 jobs from their crew, which many believe will affect Cardiff Airport predominantly. Travel experts have said that they expect at least one plane to go from Cardiff airport, as the airline say they will reduce their fleet from 17 to 12 next year at Birmingham, Cardiff and Manchester airports. This will lower the number of flights that travel to places like Spain and force passengers to travel farther afield just for a short holiday.

The carrier has announced that the reduction in fleet could possibly lead to the redundancies of 82 cabin crew jobs, 54 pilots and 22 management and support posts. The aim of the firm is to keep BMIbaby running in this time of recession, so they have found the areas where cost cutting measures need to be made and have action plans all laid out.

Rumours have been rife in the airline industry as to what the future hold for the budget carrier, after Lufthansa completed the buyout of BMI earlier this year. Before this they invited interested parties to view the accounts of BMI with British Airways looking like the one of the most likely airlines to be able to move with any potential purchase from Lufthansa.

An air transport expert has warned that the likely pull of one plane at Cardiff could lead to a domino affect and end with passengers choosing other regional airports like Bristol. They said the airport needs to go out and actively find new business like other airports are doing across the UK.