Thank you for downloading this program. In this edition of the bottom line, Evan Davis and guest swap thoughts on doing business in super competitive sectors.

Hello and welcome to the program. Now, it's hard enough to sell a product in a competitive market, but it's doubly hard in a market where there are just too many other people trying to sell as well, where it's overcrowded,

where one or more businesses surely has to die. I'm going to ask my guests about that today.

And with James Bond about to return to the big screen, we'll also talk about celebrity endorsement

and product placement. But before delving into any of that, let's meet my

three guests. And first up is Willie Wash, Chief Executive of IAG, International Airlines Group.

It is, of course, the parent company of British Airways, Iberia, and now BMI. And, Willie,

how is the integration with BMI? You've just taken them over. How's that going?

It's going very well. It's gone much better than I thought, to be honest with you. We made clear early on that we were going to integrate BMI into British Airways rather than retain it as a separate brand within the group.

Because our main interest when acquiring BMI was the

slots that BMI had at London Heathrow. So that integration has actually progressed very well.

Painting the planes? Painting the planes. You'll probably see the last BMI liveryed aircraft

towards the end of this month, end of this year maybe, but after

that the BMI brand will no longer exist. We're pleased to have been able to acquire BMI.

We believe it was the most sensible thing for everybody, to be honest with you.

Well, it took out a big competitor, didn't it, on the short route, which is not ideal from everyone else's point.

that was dead. Let's be honest. BMI was going to disappear. It was effectively bankrupt and had we not stepped in to buy it. BMI would not exist today.

Everyone was going to expect me to ask you questions about Heathrow Airport because it actually seems to be the only thing anyone talks to you about these days, which is do we, don't we build more runway capacity there? I'm not going to ask you about that, by the way. It's being investigated now. We just wait and see what the inquiry says. Yeah, I've come back in a few years. Yeah, we can talk about it then. I do want to ask you, because we were just chatting before we came on air about the rules and regulations that the airlines have to go through, the CAA rules. What about the mobile phone rule? Because that one's pretty annoying. It doesn't really interfere

with the equipment, does it? It's very frustrating. I would like to see that restriction removed.

I don't like the idea of people using mobile phones on board the aircraft when we're flying

because most of our customers tell us that they don't want to have somebody sitting beside them talking on their mobile phone.

But, you know, there was some research done which show that mobile phones can interfere in very, very rare circumstances.

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