A quarter of the staff at bmibaby have been told they are to lose their jobs, only two days after Lufthansa, its parent, put a new boss in charge of the loss-making airline.

The company said that 158 of its 633 employees would go after a 90-day consultation period. The job losses will include 54 pilots and 82 cabin crew based at Birmingham, Manchester and Cardiff. There will also be 22 management redundancies.

The airline will consolidate its operations into East Midlands airport and will expand the number of routes it operates from there. This will lead to 25 new jobs at the airport and staff at its other bases will be consulted on whether they want to move.

Bmibaby’s reduced presence at Birmingham, Manchester and Cardiff will result in its aircraft fleet shrinking from 17 to 12.

Lufthansa took control of bmi, formerly British Midland, this year and appointed Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, the former head of Jet Airways, of India, two days ago to turn it around. He took over from Nigel Turner, the previous chief executive.

Bmi lost £100 million last year and its losses this year could be twice that amount. Lufthansa had been considering a number of options for bmi, including a sale.

British Airways and Virgin Atlantic both expressed interest but Lufthansa has dropped the sale after the bids fell short of its expectations. The German flag carrier is no longer in negotiations to sell its loss-making subsidiary. It wants to restructure the airline before a possible sale next year. One of the restructuring priorities has been bmibaby, founded in 2002 to offer low-cost flights from regional airports.

Brian Boyd, Unite national officer for aviation, said: “This announcement casts further doubt over the whole bmi group, as its new owners, Lufthansa, search for cost savings. Unite members are once again caught at the sharp end of business restructuring. We will [try] to ensure that compulsory redundancy is avoided.”

Bmi’s regional operations are expected to be next in line for restructuring, with Flybe thought to be interested in buying some of its assets. The main bmi fleet could also be streamlined, with rival airlines hoping that some of the carrier’s lucrative Heathrow slots could be put up for sale.

Bmi owns 11 per cent of the landing slots at Heathrow, the world’s busiest international airport.

Crawford Rix, managing director of bmibaby, said: “The aviation industry is facing its toughest time ever — it is experiencing record losses and remedial action has to be taken.

“Bmibaby is no exception to this. We have to focus our efforts and activities on routes and services that we believe are the best fit for our business. We believe that having identified and by concentrating on the core business areas and reinforcing our efforts, we can ensure that bmibaby continues to provide its customers with the best possible competitive fares as well as an attractive range of business and leisure products.”

• Unite will seek an injunction from the High Court today to prevent British Airways imposing working practice changes on its 14,000 cabin crew. The union said that it had launched the action to “prevent BA from imposing, without agreement, widespread contractual changes upon the cabin crew”.

Unite is also balloting its members on industrial action, which could lead to strikes from December 21.

The changes BA wants to impose include reducing the number of crew members on most long-haul flights by one.

Times Recommends

• Minister in talks with Saudis to protect creditors
• Premier Inn hits back in £29-a-room row
• Bankers hit back at 'populist' bonus supertax