Lufthansa takes BMI off the table

In an interesting move, Lufthansa has withdrawn BMI from sale, stating it is no longer in talks with buyers after an acceptable sale price was not achieved, with plans to concentrate instead on turning around the loss-making carrier. Apparently Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, bmi's new boss, is thought to have the ability to turn the airline around. Lufthansa's CFO said Austrian will be profitable in 2011 and Brussels will be profitable in 2010.

Therefore only bmi remains a drain on the group. We expect to see a lot of changes at bmi. The Germans will apply a full court press on bmi to raise its efficiencies and performance to comply with group numbers. The UK airline has a lot of potential, not the least of which is its handy slot allocation at Heathrow. It seems the idea of getting bmi sorted out is a good one because any buyer discounted its offer knowing there were all sorts of changes that needed to be made. And, frankly, Lufthansa has shown that it needs no teacher in turning around under performing airlines.

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