British Midland International
former British airline; absorbed into British Airways
British Midland Airways Ltd. - trading at various times throughout its history as British Midland, and bmi British Midland International - was an airline in the United Kingdom with its head office in Donington Hall in Castle Donington, close to East Midlands Airport, England. The airline flew to destinations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North America and Central Asia from its main hub at London Heathrow Airport, where at its peak it held about 13% of all slots and operated over 2,000 flights a week. BMI was a member of Star Alliance from 1 July 2000 until 20 April 2012.
British Midland Airways/bmi British Midland International was acquired from Lufthansa by International Airlines Group (IAG) on 20 April 2012, and was integrated into British Airways (BA) by 27 October 2012. Subsidiaries Bmibaby and BMI Regional were also purchased, although IAG did not wish to retain either. BMI Regional was sold to Sector Aviation Holdings in May 2012 and operated under the flybmi brand until it went into administration on 16 February 2019, whereas Bmibaby closed down in September 2012.
British Midland Airways Limited held a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Type A Operating Licence, permitting it to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats.
History
Origins
The airline dates back to 1938, when Captain Roy Harben established Air Schools Limited as a school for training pilots of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. Harben had been approached by the Derby Corporation to run a new aerodrome under construction near Burnaston, which was planned to eventually become an airport.
“British Midland International” enters the record as former British airline; absorbed into British Airways. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what British, Midland and International can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q157205. VIAF identifies the subject as 128093156. The Library of Congress control number is nb2005007057. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2000, 2012, 2019 and 1938.
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This entry incorporates text from “British Midland International” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.