[VintageKrug]

Interesting. I had always assumed it meant international as it came along just as they moved into longhaul (though I suppose as “the airline for Europe” they had flown internationally for a long time prior to becoming bmi.

Here is the wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMI_(airline)

[PaulJennings]

I remember some advanced conceptual marketing from British Midland at the time of the rebranding which went on about the i being able to stand for lots of things (international, interactive, i the individual) and so on.

I remember QED from maths lessons, although we often wrote ‘W5’ instead (‘Which Was What Was Wanted’). And I remember from English lessons that we were taught to capitalise the initial letter of proper nouns and all the letters in acronyms – thus giving Easyjet and BMI.

[Travellator]

Spose you will want to put a U in qantas next to be phoenetically correct ?

[VintageKrug]

Makes no sense to put a u in Qantas as it too is an acronym.

I would however probably remove the erroneous e in “phonetically” posted above 😉

[NTarrant]

Indeed Queensland And Northern Territories Aerial Service!

[Travellator]

Whoops VK. Getting too excited bout my visit to Concord room in March ! Great way to prepare for a F trip to HKG !

[VintageKrug]

Tease 😉

Concorde “e” for entente, excellence (though we all knew it was for England!).

Good old Viscount Stansgate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxy9KcZ0iWk

[Travellator]

Being from N Ireland E for England was deliberately dropped – tee hee !

[YorkshireTraveller]

the “i” in bmi is definitely for international, I remember when they brought it in

[Freedom1]

Cheam your still following the thread despite saying it wasnt ‘threadworthy’ .. ?? (couldnt resist)

Once again, in case you or anyone else missed it, the i does not stand for anything.
With the risk of starting a whole new wave of comments and raging debate, ‘officially’ none of the letters stand for anything, simply British Midland airlines trades as bmi – bmi does not stand for anything!

[VintageKrug]

Indeed if you click the wiki page to which I linked in an earlier post, you will see that the i is indeed specifically not intended to represent anything, contrary to my original understanding of this.

Thanks for your continued interest CheamTraveller 😉 !

[VintageKrug]

CheamTraveller will be fascinated to learn that bmi has itself rebranded following the withdrawal of business class on most of its routes.

While it used to have the strapline “better for business” it now uses “British Midland International” on its print ads, so the i for the first time now officially stands for “international”.

The website, unsurprisingly, still touts the “Better for Business” branding.

[Author]

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