SN's 4th A330-300 has arrived at BRU!

[DannyVDB]

I would not be surpised if SN would take over the two weekly flights of Hewa-Bora and that the latter will put their code then on what becomes a daily flight ...

Regards,
Danny

[Darjeeling]

Bru.air won't launch a flight to America with this fourth A330.
As from december Africa will be reinforced. No new destinations but more frequencies and less stops (FIH for example).
I guess the fifth aircraft will fly to America if they find one. Many of you will be disapointed but in a way it makes sense for b.air.
EBB, ABJ, CKY, KGL, BJM and NSI will all get more flights a week.

[Atlantis]

Why would the members of this forum be disappointed? We know that the Africa flights are the only routes who bring some money on the bank. I think that everybody wants that they are going to increase the total number of flights to Africa.

The America flights are no problem. This month six American airliners have flights daily to BRU. Toronto is back on schedule in August by Jet Airways.

Let them search for a fifth A330. We will see what they will do with it.

[TWA]

Let them search for a fifth A330. We will see what they will do with it.

CAI and JNB/CPT (for now just a wet dream)

[BrightCedars]

With the recent announcement by Jet Airways, which becomes a de-facto strong partner for SN, what would be the use of operating accross the Atlantic? Most key hubs are now server by their rightful American owners and most important other destinations will be covered together with either AA or 9W. Except maybe to Montreal - if it can be done in cooperation with either EY, 9W, or both. But with the competition of Air Transat well in place and the possible arrival of Air Canada in the game, there won't be much of the cake left to make money anyway.

Africa is the battlefield where they still have a chance to keep a substantial share. More flights will help lure business passengers and support the European network, more destinations too. I think JNB would be too risky for a highly competitive market. Now yes, CAI sounds like a good option for the A319 which can make more money in one return trip than 2 return trips elsewhere closer, and could even do it at night!

[tolipanebas]

Indeed, SN has confirmed a few days ago to its staff the 4th A330 will NOT be deployed to Montreal as was originally intended, but will rather enhance the Africa schedule...

I have to say that at first I was a bit disappointed, because apart from the fact I'd love to see SN cross the atlantic and especially fly to Montreal, I also though the idea to have an easily cancellable afternoon flight to Montreal as a backup in case there were technical problems with one of the 3 planes serving africa was a pretty good plan, but after having seen the new schedule I think SN has made the best strategic decision possibly by fully deploying the 4th plane on africa.

Let's look into the new schedule in detail:

West Africa:
DKR 6 weekly flights (plus 1)
CRY 2 weekly
FNA 2 weelky
BJL 2 weekly
ROB 4 weekly (plus 1)
ABJ 4 weekly (plus 2)

Doubling the frequencies to ABJ, which was underserved with only 2 weekly flights is very very good news...

Central Africa:
FIH 5 weekly (3 out of 5 will be non stop, compared to none today!)
DLA 3 weekly
NSI 2 weekly (plus 1)
LAD 1 weekly

Making FIH non stop on 3 out of 5 flights is the best idea SN has had in years, since the stop in either DLA or NSI is ridiculous as a Belgian airline, when the competitors were doing it non stop!

East Africa:
NBO 5 weekly
EBB 4 weekly (plus 1)
KGL 3 weekly (plus 1)
BJM 2 weekly (plus 1)

Good to see EBB is not going to be cut back despite KL/AF entering the market, but rather increased! Also good to notice that the brandnew destination BJM will see the offered capacity doubled so soon after its launch!

BTW- The flight schedule leaves the 4th A330 unused on 4 days per week, nicely spread out over the entire week (one on, one off), so either this is to allow for it to be deployed on technical salvation missions in case another plane brakes down in Africa.... or there are supposedly 2 new destinations in the pipe line.

[sn26567]

The flight schedule leaves the 4th A330 unused on 4 days per week, nicely spread out over the entire week (one on, one off), so either this is to allow for it to be deployed on technical salvation missions in case another plane brakes down in Africa.... or there are supposedly 2 new destinations in the pipe line.

Thanks for this detailed news. Even so the African network is only a small part of what it was in Sabena times. A lot of African Sabena destinations are not flown anymore. Instead of increasing frequencies I would have opted ofr new destinations.

[Robin_Bamps]

Even so the African network is only a small part of what it was in Sabena times. A lot of African Sabena destinations are not flown anymore. Instead of increasing frequencies I would have opted ofr new destinations.

I thought it would be interesting to make a small comparison between Brussels Airlines's current Africa destinations and the Africa destinations of Sabena in the end (summer schedule 2001):

Abidjan: 4x weekly
Bamako: 3x weekly
Banjul: 5x weekly
Conakry: 3x weekly
Cotonou: 4x weekly
Dakar: 6x weekly
Entebbe: 4x weekly
Kigali: 2x weekly
Kinshasa: 5x weekly
Lagos: 3x weekly
Lomé: 3x weekly
Luanda: 1x weekly
Monrovia: 2x weekly
Nairobi: 6x weekly
Ouagadougou: 3x weekly
Yaoundé: 1x weekly

Destinations in bold are the ones not flown by Brussels Airlines anymore.

New by Brussels Airlines compared to Sabena's 2001 Summer schedule are Freetown and Bujumbura.

Regards, Robin Bamps.

[lumumba]

I think it's a good plan to keep one plane free 4 day's a week.
Maybe there will be no cancelation'ssssss any more.
Regards
Patrice

[tolipanebas]

I thought it would be interesting to make a small comparison between Brussels Airlines's current Africa destinations and the Africa destinations of Sabena in the end (summer schedule 2001):

Abidjan: 4x weekly
Bamako: 3x weekly
Banjul: 5x weekly
Conakry: 3x weekly
Cotonou: 4x weekly
Dakar: 6x weekly
Entebbe: 4x weekly
Kigali: 2x weekly
Kinshasa: 5x weekly
Lagos: 3x weekly
Lomé: 3x weekly
Luanda: 1x weekly
Monrovia: 2x weekly
Nairobi: 6x weekly
Ouagadougou: 3x weekly
Yaoundé: 1x weekly

Destinations in bold are the ones not flown by Brussels Airlines anymore.

New by Brussels Airlines compared to Sabena's 2001 Summer schedule are Freetown and Bujumbura.

Regards, Robin Bamps.

Definitely interesting, Robin.

It shows that SN's African network as from DEC 07 will be very close to that of Sabena just before the bankruptcy, with only 3 destinations less. Bamako and Ougagadougou were the 2 only loss making destinations in Africa for Sabana BTW and were sheduled to be closed down in 2002 should Sabena have survived anyway, so that one can say that the SN schedule pretty much looks like what the Sabena schedule would likely have looked like today, given the changed political situations in eg Burundi.

Personally, I'd just would like to see Cotonou and Lomé come back to the schedule as I think this would be a good move and as said, it can be done with the 4th Airbus....

[BrightCedars]

Indeed, Cotonou and Lomé seem to make sense. Lagos wouldn't given the more competitive market. Now keeping an aircraft at bay 4 days a week is not sustainable. I guess this is to cater for the checks of the fleet before deploying all means fully and adding destinations/increasing frequencies.

By the way, isn't NBO getting less flights than before? It is also a more competitive destination.

[tolipanebas]

Indeed, Cotonou and Lomé seem to make sense. Lagos wouldn't given the more competitive market. Now keeping an aircraft at bay 4 days a week is not sustainable. I guess this is to cater for the checks of the fleet before deploying all means fully and adding destinations/increasing frequencies.

By the way, isn't NBO getting less flights than before? It is also a more competitive destination.

Lagos indeed would not make much sense, since there is already a good number of direct flights there and it sees (almost) daily service by the mayor European Airlines, so that a 2 or 3 weekly SN flight would have a hard time winning over pax, much to the expense of poor yields.

Cotonou and Lomé though would make very good sense and as you say, I don't think the plan is to keep the 4th A330 at bay 4/7, so according to me, SN is still to announce (likely) 2 or even 3 new destinations which would then be served 2 to 3 weekly, so who knows Cotonou and Lomé might soon be back on the route map.

I am particularly happy to see SN taking on the fight with KL/AF in EBB, where they INCREASE the frequency, despite this destination being opened by KL/AF recently, even if it means dropping one of the 6 NBO flights. The ramp is NBO is crowded with European scheduled and charter airlines on every single day of the week, and recently some UK airlines have announced to be willing to serve NBO too, so yields to NBO are likely not very good either. NBO basically serves as fuel stop for the flights to the land locked countries in East Africa so to more flights SN sends to EBB (where fuel is not even half as expensive as in Kigali, Bujumbura), the less flights will go to NBO in my view...

[sn26567]

Personally, I'd just would like to see Cotonou and Lomé come back to the schedule as I think this would be a good move and as said, it can be done with the 4th Airbus....

Me too, and with the fifth Airbus, a 340, to remind the last Sabena flight SN690.

[lumumba]

Hi everybody.
I also think that you have to put more seats because the transit possibilities are growing so you need more space.(ex:FIH-Beijing etc..)
I noticed the last time I came back from FIH(first of may) that they where Asian people(from Douala) on the plane maybe 8 or 10 that was not the case before.
Regards
Patrice

[YYZ727]

SN's african destinations in 1989 (summer)
Abidjan 2x
Algiers 3x
Bamako 2x
Bujumbura 4x
Cairo 2x
Casablanca 3x
Conakry 4x
Cotonou 2x
Dakar 3x
(Dar es Salaam 2x, code share, via ZRH)
Douala 1x
Entebbe 3x
Johanesburg 2x
Kigali 5x
Kinshasa 4x
Lagos 3x
Libreville 1x
Lome 2x
Luanda 2x
Monrovia 2x
Nairobi 3x
Niamey 2x
Tanger 2x
Tunis 3x

24 african destinations... Those where the days... (Iremember an ad from the mid-80's where SN boasted an unsurpassed 27 destinations in Africa. Kano still was in the mix back then, and i think they also flew to Kilimanjaro N.P.....)

[beaucaire]

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/ge ... n/3451846/

[sn-remember]

I thought it would be interesting to make a small comparison between Brussels Airlines's current Africa destinations and the Africa destinations of Sabena in the end (summer schedule 2001):

Abidjan: 4x weekly
Bamako: 3x weekly
Banjul: 5x weekly
Conakry: 3x weekly
Cotonou: 4x weekly
Dakar: 6x weekly
Entebbe: 4x weekly
Kigali: 2x weekly
Kinshasa: 5x weekly
Lagos: 3x weekly
Lomé: 3x weekly
Luanda: 1x weekly
Monrovia: 2x weekly
Nairobi: 6x weekly
Ouagadougou: 3x weekly
Yaoundé: 1x weekly

Destinations in bold are the ones not flown by Brussels Airlines anymore.

New by Brussels Airlines compared to Sabena's 2001 Summer schedule are Freetown and Bujumbura.

Regards, Robin Bamps.

Definitely interesting, Robin.

It shows that SN's African network as from DEC 07 will be very close to that of Sabena just before the bankruptcy, with only 3 destinations less. Bamako and Ougagadougou were the 2 only loss making destinations in Africa for Sabana BTW and were sheduled to be closed down in 2002 should Sabena have survived anyway, so that one can say that the SN schedule pretty much looks like what the Sabena schedule would likely have looked like today, given the changed political situations in eg Burundi.

Personally, I'd just would like to see Cotonou and Lomé come back to the schedule as I think this would be a good move and as said, it can be done with the 4th Airbus....

Hum ...
To have an accurate comparison Robin, it would be interesting to have the routing in addition to the frequences.
I hope that flight routings such as bru-nbo-kgl-ebb-bru are unexisting in the present sn timetable... The rule of 1 stop MAXIMUM should be an absolute requirement.

Just out of my memory (but I can easiliy check) Sabena operated in summer 2001 at least 5 daily rotations (slightly more I think) to Africa not counting the daily jnb flight (so 6+ daily departures)
That makes a lot more volume than what present sn does (3+ daily departures) no ?
And it was 6 years ago ! (since then the market has considerably developped as you know)

But most agree here (fortunately) that sn urgently need to develop their african core network more agressively meaning :

- new destinations (indeed LOM and COT)

- why shy away from competition on LOS or ACC ? To me it's a must (see next point)

- daily flights are marketted more successfully and therefore should be the rule (of course a 2-desti flight would be better for a daily connection for instance daily bru-los-lom or bru-acc-abj... when not possible then daily on pivot-desti with 2nd leg split for instance bru-dkr-rob 4wkly, bru-dkr-fna 3wkly...or just bru-dkr-cry/bjl daily.
This just to illustrate.

- the only non-stop daily flight I see as viable is bru-fih

- EAfrica must be developped with the target of daily flights there too.
(bru-ebb-kgl, bru-nbo-bjm/? for instance)

- Currently I don't see SAfrica or NAtlantic as a high priority, the former because too distant , the latter because poorer yields.
However in a 2nd stage of development both markets should be seriously considered because part of the carriers' natural expansion sphere.

- SN must aim at 6 daily rotations MINIMUM to ensure a more solid positon on their african core market.
They have no time to loose (they lost so much time already) since competitors will continue to pick up and grow on this market.

- To succeed they need to find feeder partners a.o. in China and US and adapt the flight schedules with those feeder flights.
For instance why not try a late evening departure to some WAfrica destis where it is shown that the chinese feeding counts more than the US feeding. Indeed late evening departuires to NEast Asia are the best in terms of schedules.
(ideally an additional AA morning departure from NYK that could feed the same WAfrican flights as well, returning to NYK the same late evening).

These are just some suggestions about the prospects of our national carrier.
Not worth much cocoricoos up to now unfortunately ...
But let's keep our spirits high...
You are in good hands with ...snba ;o)

Now there was some comparison with tp or ay.
Indeed both succeed in enforcing themselves on their core market.
tp with 8 daily flights to Brazil alone and ay adding routes to the whole of eastAsia spanning from Japan to Singapore.
tp is fed from the rest of Europe and profits from the STAR alliance feeding.
ay is fed also from the rest of Europe and has very good feeding opportunites from the US and profits from the 1W alliance.
And both carriers consider it important to maintain a presence on the NAtlantic too (although not their core market)

To illustrate their financial means and business prospects, let me just say that tp has orders for 10 A350 + 5 options, and ay has orders for 11 A350 + 4 options + orders for 9 A330/A340 that will eventually replace the MD11 fleet.
And here I limit myself only to the long haul a/c on order !


BTW just back from Warsaw with snba.
The AVRO was full (87 passengers more or less) and I was happy to have a window seat.
Came back with a LOT B737. Also full and more comfortable. Plus a decent meal.
My point is that ALL LCCs to my knowledge utilize the B737 or the A320 family. They need volume to compensate for lower fares.
Moreover the ngn a/c are a lot more economical not to mention the confort.

Sorry to be a bit long this time
Greets
Christophe

[thofman2]

Does anybody have information about the next SN A330 the fifth long haul ?

[blackbox]

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/ge ... n/3451846/

Interesting. I hope they'll go Boeing, although I think it will be Airbus. Because we must be 'good Europeans'

[teach]

Interesting. I hope they'll go Boeing, although I think it will be Airbus. Because we must be 'good Europeans'

Wow. The order hasn't even been placed yet, and we're already getting the first venom-laden post suggesting any Airbus order would be political. Ever thought about the possibility that, if SN selects Airbus, it just *might* be because that's the best deal for them? Gotta love your attitude...