bmi launches second daily flight to Moscow

bmi, London Heathrow’s second largest airline, has confirmed it is to double the number of services between Heathrow and Moscow Domodedovo from 26 October 2008.

The additional service builds on the success of current daily flights to the Russian capital which launched in October 2006 and marked bmi’s first venture into the mid haul market.

The new service sees a widening of the commercial agreement between bmi and Russian Federation carrier Transaero, which will also increase its daily services between Moscow and London, offering travellers a total of four flights a day in each direction - more frequency on the route than any other airline partnership.

The deal allows bmi to offer onward connections in the Russian Federation on the services of Transaero from Moscow Domodedovo, whilst Transaero is able to offer connecting flights at Heathrow onto the extensive short, mid and long haul networks of bmi.

Peter Spencer, bmi managing director, said: “We have been looking at launching additional services between Heathrow and Moscow for some time, so are delighted that our ambitions are now being realised. Since launching the route nearly two years ago we have experienced encouraging growth and we feel that by introducing an extra return flight we can provide an even more attractive schedule, thus widening its appeal to both point to point and connecting traffic.

“By working closely with Transaero we are able to offer customers the best range of services in the market. With new improved timings we now have an even wider range of convenient connections at both Heathrow and Domodedovo to most major destinations.”

Olga Pleshakova, Transaero general director, said: “Transaero Airlines has been operating direct Moscow-London services for the past ten years. We are extremely pleased to have been operating this service in cooperation with bmi from October 2006. The introduction of two additional return flights under the cooperation agreement, one of which is to be operated by bmi, and another by us, is our joint offering to meet the increasing number of passengers that prefer our joint services.”

The bmi service is operated on a two-class Airbus A320, which offers a business seat with a 50 inch pitch - 16 inches more than BA - and a width of 21 inches. A complimentary food and bar service is offered to both business and economy passengers.