German flag carrier, Lufthansa, will no longer push to sell recent acquisition bmi and instead will concentrate on trying to turn around the loss-making airline. This became apparent when the company confirmed it was no longer in talks with buyers.

Industry experts estimate Lufthansa would need to sell the airline for about £500 million to recover its investment, and also cover bmi's losses this year. They felt potential buyers were nowhere near offering this amount.

bmi lost £100 million last year on a turnover of more than £1 billion and losses are expected to be about double that this year.

With the change in tack, freshly installed CEO, Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, former head of Indian private carrier, Jet Airways, has now been set the task of restructuring the airline. , Prock-Schauer took over as CEO of bmi from 1 November.

Prock-Schauer replaces Nigel Turner, who becomes deputy chairman.

Lufthansa was in discussions with both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic about a possible sale soon after acquiring Sir Michael Bishop's 50 per cent stake, plus one share, for about £220 million in the airline to give it full control of bmi.