BMI - another one bites the dust

You can almost hear Freddie humming along to this one - hot on the heels of BMI's ditching their Leeds-Bradford to Heathrow and Durham Tees Valley to Heathrow comes the news that they're also dropping their Inverness to Heathrow route.

Despite protestations from local Lib-Dem MP Danny Alexander ("disgraceful") it seems there's a perfectly good reason for their abandoning the service - no one was using it. According to Peter Spencer, BMI managing director, "there has been insufficient demand to operate a viable profitable operation on this route".

Apparently the combination of rising fuel costs and landing charges at Heathrow is causing these under-used routes to drop like flies. Could this be the first sign of the invisible hand clamping down on the 'cheap' flights bubble?