BMED Operates daily ghost flight

Published: 14/03/07

In order to keep its precious landing and take-off slots at Heathrow Airport, British Mediterranean, the airline recently taken over by bmi has been operating an empty plane on a daily service between the capital and Cardiff International airport.

British Mediterranean has been forced to cut back on services to a number of their overseas destinations in recent months as the airline struggled to find inward investment, but rules about the airport use at Heathrow mean that airlines have to use a fixed percentage of their slots over a six month period or lose them.

A number of airlines are known to be eying the slots BMED have been using, and these are typically valued at around 10 million pounds each. There is a constant shortage of landing and take off slots available at London Heathrow, and it is thought that one of the main reasons for bmi purchasing British Mediterranean was to get more slots in order to launch new flights to New York and other profitable destinations rather than continuing with loss making flights to Tehran as BMED have done.

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