Does Des Lynam fly bmi? (bmi British Midland in general)

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Product:	bmi British Midland in general
Date:	25/06/00 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Check-in at Paddington, excellent service

Disadvantages: Not the cheapest airline on some of the routes

British Midland are undergoing yet another revamp, with a change of colour scheme and in fact, a total rebranding. The airline is now officially "bmi british Midland", so from now on in the review I'll call them bmi to save my fingers lol! You might have seen their funny TV advertisements where a woman is encouraged to think of Des Lynam....hmm. (??!!)
bmi have an excellent network out of their main bases at Heathrow and East Midlands airport. They fly to numerous cities throughout Europe including Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Nice, Milan and Frankfurt. This year bmi launched new transatlantic flights from Manchester to Washington and Chicago. They've invested in new aircraft for this, Airbus A330's which are comfortable and spacious enough for long flights. (2 aisles and about 300 passengers)
bmi are part of the Star Alliance group so you can arrange flights with partner airlines such as Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Lufthansa, United and Varig. Members of the bmi frequent flyer programme can also gain points if they fly with any of these airlines.
I've flown with bmi between Dublin and London for a fare of £80 before taxes. It was good value at the time but I think Ryanair could beat that price now.

bmi generally fly to the major airports of cities on the network. These airports are usually a little bit closer to the city or very well served by public transport at least. I'm more tempted to fly with them to or from London because of how easily accessible Heathrow is to central London. Between buses, tube and the Heathrow Express it takes between 15 minutes and an hour to get to the terminals. So for access to the city and good service, it's possibly worth paying a little extra.
To book my ticket I used the airlines own reservations line. I found it really good. They were helpful and friendly and pointed out all the possible special offers to choose from.
You can also book tickets online on their web
site and obviously through a travel agent.
Check out www.flybmi.com

The cabin crew were very friendly and professional. They offered a newspaper as everyone boarded the aircraft. When you check in you are assigned a seat and the aircraft was spotlessly clean and very comfortable for the short hop between London and Dublin.
The safety demo before the flight is very well presented. If the aircraft has screens, they actually show a safety video instead and personally I thought it was more easier to follow than when cabin crew do it. The video goes through the safety advice more slowly so it is clear and concise.
On the flight I was on they had inflight service which, believe it or not for airline food, was delicious. A decent sandwich with a cup of tea. They also have a free magazine called "Voyager" available on board, not important but a nice touch for longer flights maybe.

But what makes British Midland stand out most for me, is the check-in facility at Paddington Station in Central London. All passengers on the airline can check in luggage and get boarding cards at the railway station, no long queues at Heathrow's Terminal 1 to endure! (However, you must check in at least 2 hours in advance if you use this service so they can get your bag to the airport on time!) It's excellent because you can go to Paddington, send the bags to the airport and get your boarding card. You're free to spend the day as you like around London. There are also other airlines who offer this service though I'm unsure of their individual policies as to who can use it. At least bmi allow economy aswell as business class passengers to use it.

If I need to fly I prefer to pay less even if the quality of service is reduced a bit. The name Ryanair pops into my mind here, I wonder why ;) Overall though I'd highly recommend bmi. I'd definetely fly with them again if I found a reasonably low fare with them or felt like s
plashing out a bit more.

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