bmi, the second biggest carrier operating at the Heathrow airport, is doing away with a major part of its domestic network for the United Kingdom, as well as cutting some of its capacity for continental Europe due to an increase in losses. The airline is announcing that they are to cut 2 mainline operations between Leeds Bradford and Heathrow and Durham Tees Valley and Heathrow, which totals 7 departures every day. These cuts are in addition to the carrier’s announcement earlier about closing its twice a day service between Jersey and Heathrow.

bmi will also cut back the number of everyday services between Dublin and Heathrow, offering only 6 flights instead of 7, as well as between Amsterdam and Heathrow, offering only 4 flights instead of 7. On the flights from Heathrow to Brussels and Aberdeen, the carrier will cut capacity with the use of small regional jets instead of using the larger Airbus plane.

Lufthansa, who is to complete an 80% majority takeover of bmi next month, is putting heavy pressure on the airline to prevent losses. The carrier has been hit from a sharp decline in both leisure and business passengers, and is being made to take the action of eliminating routes that are losing money and cutting capacity. About 12% or 4 of bmi’s mainline short-haul A320 fleet of 32 aircrafts is being removed. Two of the planes will be leased to Lufthansa and are to be used on the airline’s new routes from Milan Malpensa and Berlin to Heathrow.

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