Home > BMI > 2005 > Review

Taken January 2005 from Glasgow, Scotland (Abbotsichn) - GLA to London, England (Heathrow Airport) - LHR

I had flown down to London a few times recently with BA and decided to give bmi a try this time. The self-service check-in was a bit more complicated that BA's, but it meant beating the check-in queue.

Both flights were delayed, outbound by 1hr and inbound by 1/2hr, but this was due to congestion at Heathrow and wasn't really bmi's fault. Flights were on an A320 and A321 respectively which were very clean and well maintained. The safety demo was a video on drop-down screens. I felt sorry for the cabin crew though who seemed really bored standing there throughout the whole video just to point out our nearest exits!

The flight down to Heathrow was actually quite stressful as it was late and overbooked. They appealed for volunteers to go on a later flight with a £50 cash reward or £100 in bmi vouchers. Most of us were catching connecting flights or had meetings so I'm surprised they did get volunteers. They never announced that they had all their volunteers so boarding was quite funny cos they called only 7 rows and 3/4 of the people ran towards the gate, obviously thinking the last few wouldn't be allowed on!

Missing our slot then meant the plane had to sit at the gate for 10-15mins even though it was ready to leave, and also meant circling Heathrow. Circling is not fun for nervous flyers or people who get travel sick... trust me.

The product offered by bmi seemed slightly inferior to BA. BA offer a meal, bmi offer a sandwich. BA offer a snack, bmi offer a biscuit. BA offer Smirnoff Blue Label, bmi offer Smirnoff Red Label!

I would say, however that the level of service was very high. The crew gave the cabin a quick tidy themselves instead of getting the cleaners in when we were leaving Heathrow in order to shorten the delay. The captain apologised to us that the cleanliness of the cabin was not up to their usual standard. On boarding, the purser offered to put my coat in the cloakroom and, on leaving, he fetched it again for me without me having to ask or tell him which one it was. To me, that was a real touch of class.

All the bmi staff were, without exception, very friendly and helpful. I was impressed overall, but if I was flying to Heathrow again, I would probably just choose BA or bmi based on cost or flight times. I wouldn't go out of my way to choose one over the other.