The story
The airline was established as the low-cost subsidiary of British Midland International on 24 January 2002, during a wave of low-cost carriers being launched by full-service airlines, such as Go by British Airways in 1998, and Buzz by KLM in 1999. and began operations on 23 March 2002 with a flight between East Midlands and Málaga.
Continued expansion for the airline led to it opening further bases at Cardiff in October 2002, Manchester in May 2003, Durham Tees Valley in October 2003, Birmingham in January 2005. and Belfast City Airport in March 2012. Insufficient passenger numbers led to the closure of the Durham Tees Valley base in 2006, followed by both Cardiff and Manchester in 2011 to make way for expansion in the Midlands and the new base at Belfast City.
On 1 March 2007, the airline announced an initiative for business travellers with an "only choose what you need" approach, allowing passengers to choose from a range of services such as ticket flexibility, executive lounge access and on-line check in, and only pay for the services they used. The company also announced that Diamond Club miles could now be earned on bmibaby flights.
By 2007, bmibaby had nine Boeing 737 aircraft based at East Midlands Airport, making it its biggest base. In December 2008, the airline announced that it would suspend five routes from the airport as a result of a reduction in the number of customers booking city-breaks.
Further cuts were announced in November 2009 when it was announced that the fleet would be reduced from 17 to 12 aircraft in 2010, with up to 158 jobs at risk of redundancy. The airline said the action was necessary to stem record losses and that it would focus on growth routes best fit for the business.
In April 2011, bmibaby announced it would close its bases at Cardiff and Manchester Airports in October 2011 to increase services at Birmingham and East Midlands Airports as well as opening a new base at Belfast City Airport, moving from Belfast International Airport where the airline was based for several years.
In May 2011, bmibaby launched what it called the first European airline loyalty programme tied into a location-based social network. Passengers had the option of using the Gowalla smartphone application at bmibaby check-in desks to collect points.
On 22 December 2011, the International Airlines Group (IAG) announced it had agreed a contract with Lufthansa to buy British Midland International. The contract allowed for Lufthansa to sell bmi Regional and bmibaby separately before the completion of the main sale, although the price payable by IAG would be reduced if the airlines were not sold. On 2 February 2012, bmi announced it had signed a "non-binding and non-exclusive" agreement with a "UK-based company", with plans to complete the sale by the summer of 2012. The sale was not completed by the time IAG purchased bmi, and so bmibaby and bmi Regional became part of the group. IAG said it would continue the attempts to sell both airlines.
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On 3 May 2012 IAG announced that it had not found a buyer for bmibaby and that it was proposing to shut down the company by 9 September 2012. Flights to some destinations such as Belfast, Amsterdam, Paris and Geneva ended on 11 June 2012. All remaining services ended by 9 September 2012. The final flight to operate was flight WW5330 from Malaga to East Midlands. Over 800 jobs were lost by the closure, including 400 at the head office in Castle Donington.
From Wikipedia’s article on Bmibaby, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3