Air France and BMI to expand cargo services

AIR FRANCE and BMI turned up the heat on Aer Lingus yesterday when they said they were ready to exploit the gap left behind when the national flag-carrier closes down most of its short-haul cargo operations.

BMI, the former British Midland, said it would expand its cargo services from Ireland to Britain in light of Aer Lingus's plans. The company has already established a base at Knock through its BMI Baby subsidiary and will accept cargo on its Dublin-East Midlands and Dublin-Manchester routes from September 1. BMI Baby also provides a service between Cork and London's Gatwick airport.

"Exporters should not panic about the closure of the Aer Lingus cargo services on certain routes," said Ian McCool, managing director of BMI Baby's Irish agent, International Airline Marketing (IAM). "We will provide an equivalent service to Aer Lingus that guarantees exporters will enable cargo to reach destination in the minimum amount of time possible." IAM also offers road transport services from Ireland to major British airports.

Air France also moved to reassure exporters by saying services from Dublin to London, Milan, Rome, Paris and America would remain intact. It said it would continue to co-operate with Italian airline Alitalia and US carrier Delta, which are members of the same Skyteam alliance, on routes out of Ireland.

Yesterday's announcements came after the Irish Exporters' Association (IEA) called on the Government to block Aer Lingus's move earlier this week. IEA chief executive John Whelan said the move would have "serious and damaging effects on Ireland's future economic growth" and would threaten the survival of businesses by increasing their export costs.

The decision is understood to have upset government ministers because of its potential effect on multinationals such as Dell and HP, which are based in Ireland but export large quantities of their output to Britain and the continent from here. Aer Lingus said the business was no longer economic to run.