BMI has added 17 medium and long-haul destinations from Heathrow – including daily services to Cairo, Amman and Beirut – from the end of October.
The expansion – the biggest in the airline’s history – marks BMI’s absorption of former British Airways franchise carrier BMED, bought in February, and means more than half its routes from Heathrow will be medium-haul or longer. Ten years ago the carrier flewsolely short haul.
BMI will also begin installing lie-flat beds on services to the US, Caribbean, Riyadh and Jeddah from mid-September, and enhance its premium economy cabin on US and Caribbean flights by extending the leg room to 49 inches.
Chief executive Nigel Turner confirmed there would be a delay in launching US services from Heathrow despite BMI having lobbied 10 years for the open-skies agreement that comes into force next March.
Turner said: “We want to see how the US pans out before we make our decision.”
The other new routes, launched in the winter schedule on October 28, are to Addis Abba, Aleppo (Syria), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Ankara, Baku, Bishkek (Kyrgystan), Dakar, Damascus, Ekaterinburg (Russia), Freetown (Sierra Leone), Khartoum, Tbilisi, Tehran, Yerevan (Armenia).