Fighting on

SIR Michael Bishop, boss of bmi British Midland, has hit 60. But he is not prepared to slip into old age without a fight.

Fitness has become his new passion. His aim is simple - to make sure he can enjoy life as much as he did in his fifties. Hence Bishop's new regime of regular physical activity to keep his body in good shape.

'Yes, I have a personal trainer and we work out at the Savoy hotel in London, where I live in the week,' he says. 'But I've just returned from holiday and I don't think my trainer is very pleased with me at the moment.' Nevertheless, Bishop is looking trim and fit after losing about two stone since getting the exercise habit.

But his famous ability to remain cool is being tested to its limits - bmi British Midland has just suffered a major setback in its two-and-a-half-year battle to win permission to fly direct from Heathrow to New York.

The long-running negotiations between the US and Britain to grant rights for new transatlantic flights have broken down.

Setbacks are nothing new for Bishop, whose 25% stake in the airline is worth about £180m. His life has been characterised by conflicts, upsets - and usually by victories. As a teenager, he defied his family by choosing Mill Hill School in north-west London, rather than Shrewsbury because he preferred to remain with his friends.

Then he turned down a request to run his father's engineering firm in Manchester for a more glamorous life working for an airline.

Talking in his small London office a stone's throw from the Savoy, Bishop characterises his working life as a series of three-year battles against entrenched interests such as governments, the former BOAC, its successor, British Airways, and now a combination of BA and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic. 'I have won two great battles for liberalisation and I am now on my third,' he says. 'I have not yet won it, but things look as if they are going my way.'

When Bishop started at British Midland in the early Sixties, it served only domestic routes from the Midlands. Heathrow, the nation's number one airport, was sewn up by BOAC. 'It took me three years to persuade Margaret Thatcher to open up the domestic market and allow us to fly from Heathrow to Glasgow and Belfast. I managed to get one take-off and landing slot to Teesside. Now we have 96.'

After winning the battle for open skies over Britain - essentially opening Heathrow to domestic airlines - Bishop's next fight was to break into Europe. This battle was won in 1986.

His latest struggle is to be allowed to break into the cosy deal that gives BA and Virgin the right to monopolise the route from Heathrow to the US. The American authorities last week turned down the Government's latest proposal, which would have given bmi British Midland the access it needs. 'But I am only two-and-a-half years into this thing,' he says. 'I am confident that in the end we will get permission.'

It would be a foolish person to bet against Bishop succeeding. The godfather of liberalisation, who now controls Britain's second largest scheduled carrier, intends to carry on working flat out for bmi British Midland.

'We will get an agreement, but whether it is negotiated by the Government or by Europe I don't know.'

He is so focused on expanding the airline that he has jettisoned all his other business interests to concentrate on it. 'When other executives become more senior, they take on more outside directorships and interests. I have come to the conclusion that I should narrow my interests to concentrate on the one thing I really enjoy - and that is bmi British Midland.'

As good as his word, Bishop has sold his own airline, British Regional Airlines, and his other private airline interests and given up his job as deputy chairman of Channel 4.

Clearly, he is not motivated by money - 'it is not my God'. He owns the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company after bailing it out with £1.5m of his own money. And he has decided to leave his considerable fortune to a charitable foundation, opening up the intriguing prospect of bmi British Midland being run by charity trustees.

Never has the sort of focus that Bishop brings been more needed by the business, which has faced the challenges of tough new rivals in the shape of the no-frills airlines and the aftermath of 11 September.

As for 11 September, Bishop acted swiftly. The day after the attacks, eight aircraft were taken out of the fleet and 600 jobs were cut. But he is confident that the business will recover on the lines he predicted days after the tragedy.

'I said it would take 18 months to two years to recover and I am being proved right. In April, we began to see an increase in passenger numbers and by next year I expect double-digit growth.'

The challenge of the no-frills airlines has been taken head on. He has founded his own budget airline, improbably named bmibaby. It started this year with three aircraft. By next year bmibaby's fleet will be expanded to 12 and make a significant contribution to the company's revenues.

But one senses that Bishop's heart is not totally in his new baby. 'Bmi British Midland will always be a 70% scheduled full service airline,' he says. 'The no-frills airlines are growing very fast. To an extent, because they operate only in Europe, they have been shielded from the effects of 11 September, but I predict they will soon be running up against higher costs.'