bmi, London Heathrow's second largest airline, has unveiled plans for a redesign programme for www.flybmi.com.

The first stage in the programme went live on Tuesday, 9 September, 2008, with the launch of the new home page, designed by Prospect. The rest of the site will evolve over the coming weeks and will be complete in time for the launch of the airline's winter timetable on 26th October. Prospect will be working closely with bmi's in house e-commerce team to deliver the updated online brand experience.

The new home page is set against a stunning skyline of London provided by photo-sharing website flickr - a partnership which is an industry first. The cityscapes have been chosen to evoke the sensation of looking out of an airliner window. The images will be refreshed every few weeks and will feature favourite bmi destinations. To ensure everyone can enjoy the images, the home page will self-adjust to fit any screen size. Plans are also underway to update the images to reflect the time of day and the seasons, along with a global online competition to find the best skyline images for use on the bmi site.

The website designs reflect bmi's new mantra "better for business" in both visual appeal and ease of use. Prospect has reworked the online bmi brand to closely integrate with new advertising creative by M&C Saatchi. The simple navigation structure enables customers to quickly find the information most important to them. The booking, managing and check-in functions define a new paradigm for interaction on airline sites. A crucial factor to achieving this is to keep the pages uncluttered with "self-cleaning" menus, developed to save on screen space. The experience is bold and spirited, emphasising bmi's business value for its customers.

Speaking on the website redesign programme, bmi's marketing director Katherine Gershon said, "A major part of our redesign programme was to look at the navigation and make it clear and intuitive so our customers could access the information they wanted in the fewest possible clicks. We also wanted to harness the capabilities of web 2.0 and engage with online communities. The partnership with flickr does just that and we are really excited by the social networking possibilities of this relationship."

Anja Klüver, Creative Director at Prospect said, "We have thoroughly enjoyed working with bmi's marketing and e-commerce teams. They set the bar high - we closed our eyes and just sailed right over it. We are looking forward to the challenge of exceeding bmi's and the industry's expectations, especially when it comes to the site's web 2.0 capabilities."