Ok that's not difficult to guess: 20 leased micro-haul aircraft to return the aging Avro's gradually from 2009-2010, and that's about it, maybe extra cheap A333's (until now they have been collecting the garbage of the others,i.e., B.air has the second eldest A330 fleet of the universe).A couple of months ago I started a topic about the new fleet announcement of Brussels Airlines by next summer. So, don't worry, they know what they are doing.
You are talking on parallel wavelengths. Who said "only to"? Don't bend my words.a little insane to introduce expensive aircraft only to please your staff
Plus, what is more expensive to operate: the Avro or the A319? There's no big difference in CASM. The A319 is more efficient in fuel and maintenance.
Do you think they are gonna announce a 50 million euro profit for this year?The reason why you only see 'little results' is most probably because you lack the necessary info.
Guess what? I don't think so.
It shouldn 't be that difficult after all, 1 million € per plane per year of profit or less than 3000€ per plane per day. The reason why they can't get there are the leasing that costs them a hell lot of money.
I can tell you what it costs to lease an Avro-class aircraft:
A new Avro costed around 35million € new. The lease is for 20 years (those aircraft are in service since 1989~)
During these years they need to accumulate those 35 millions they have costed plus their yearly gain, let's say 100% of the lease value for a long-term leasing.(which is cheap)
That makes it 70 million € spread on 20 years, or over 3.5 million € per year plus no resell value (because the lessor is getting the planes back).
That alone costs 10000€ per day per aircraft. Add to that, the Avro is a bird that likes to drink alot and needs quite some maintenance resulting in quite bad CASM for its passenger-class.
Practically, if all the aircraft were theirs, they would have around 100 million € less expenses per year...
That's a reason why the Avro network is not profitable.
Ok in the beginning you need to lease to start. But after some years you got to buy to expand. I think this is the only airline with a 50+ acft fleet that has more than 90% of its fleet composed of leased aircraft.
I can also start an airline tomorrow with 100 leased aircraft and earn no profits nor losses for 6 years. But that's working alot for nothing, and no one would even think about taking over my hard job by buying my airline with no assets nor long-term business plans other than to fly to places where other people don't fly to (ie unsafe places), which is obviously profitable because of the risk involved.
Cheers