BMI increases carryings after "weathering the storm"

The BMI group of airlines has seen an “encouraging” rise in passengers in the first quarter of 2004. The group’s carriers flew more than 2.3 million passengers in the first three months of the year, a 21% rise over the same period last year. The largest percentage growth came at no frills offshoot bmibaby which saw a 23% rise to 249,410 passengers. BMI’s mainline, regional and long haul services saw a 19% increase to 595,484. Chief executive Austin Reid claimed the figures were “indicative of the return to more positive market conditions”. He added: “This time last year we had started to see the early shoots of recover post-9/11 when we had the double hit of the Iraq conflict and the outbreak of SARS, which resulted in a significant drop in the amount of transfer traffic at our main Heathrow base. This happened against a backdrop of arguably the most fiercely competitive period in air travel. “However, we weathered the storm and by continuing our segmentation strategy, delivering different types of operation targeted at clear market segments, we are seeing significant increases in passenger volumes.” Last month the group reported a reduced loss of £9.8 million for 2003, against a deficit of £19.6 million the previous year. Report by Phil Davies