Last A330-200 flight at SWISS

[lumumba]

hi Everybody.
Rumours here in Bangui is telling us that SN is starting there flights in Jan.
I don't have more info than that.
Regards
Patrice

[tolipanebas]

SN will add more flights to Africa if they are to operate a 6th A330 there, be it by increasing frequencies on exisiting routes, detagging current triangular flights, adding new destinations to its routemap, or most likely a mixture of it all.

FWIW, BGF is currently served only once weekly by AF on A343, so this is a very thin route...
IMHO, there are more plausible routes in the wider region to explore first, like NIM and NKC, served resp. 4 and 3 times weekly by AF, the first as a stop on route to OUA, the latter as a stop on route CRY, both of which are SN destinations.

[Darjeeling]

Here is what I see for SN, hopefully for the next two years:

- BKO/COO/LFW/OUA : at least one extra frequency to cope with the business traffic. Current two weekly frequencies is just not enough to attract high yield pax.

- BZV/LBV : a thrice weekly triangular flight would be perfect and a big stone in AF's garden. LBV should definitely be transferred to SN.

- PHC/PNR : why not but you need factory fresh A319-115LR from BRU. What about a Privatair contract ?

- BEY : really needed to attract more high yield pax on the AFI market. MEA is just a big cake at the moment in BRU. The A320 would be perfect.

- PEK : might be weird BUT one of AF and EK's strength in AFI at the moment is their skill on the China-Africa market. HU codeshare just doesn't give enough capacity to SN in that purpose.

What do you think of that ?

[LJ]

- BZV/LBV : a thrice weekly triangular flight would be perfect and a big stone in AF's garden. LBV should definitely be transferred to SN.

LBV not likely as LH is already flying a 5 weekly FRA-LBV-PNR-FRA flight. BZV is possible.

- PHC/PNR : why not but you need factory fresh A319-115LR from BRU. What about a Privatair contract ?

Not the type of market where SN is destined for. Both are oil destinations, not a stronghold of SN. Moreover both PHC and PNR are already served by LH (PHC 4 weekly 333 and PNR 5 weekly Privatair 737).

- BEY : really needed to attract more high yield pax on the AFI market. MEA is just a big cake at the moment in BRU. The A320 would be perfect.

As you mentioned there is already one player on the market though MEA will be joining Skyteam. However, if KLM can't make BEY work, why can SN? Passengers from BEY already have good Star connections via FRA to Africa.

- PEK : might be weird BUT one of AF and EK's strength in AFI at the moment is their skill on the China-Africa market. HU codeshare just doesn't give enough capacity to SN in that purpose.

The Europe - PEK market seems to be saturated at the moment (just as the Europe - PVG market). However additional issues like availability landing slots at PEK (which are hard to get) will also impact SNs ability to start ops to PEK. Moreover an Africa friendly schedule will be difficult to achieve ex BRU (for a European airline) without considerable downtime in PEK (not efficient use of aircraft).

[Flanker]

Here is what I see for SN, hopefully for the next two years:

- BKO/COO/LFW/OUA : at least one extra frequency to cope with the business traffic. Current two weekly frequencies is just not enough to attract high yield pax.

- BZV/LBV : a thrice weekly triangular flight would be perfect and a big stone in AF's garden. LBV should definitely be transferred to SN.

- PHC/PNR : why not but you need factory fresh A319-115LR from BRU. What about a Privatair contract ?

- BEY : really needed to attract more high yield pax on the AFI market. MEA is just a big cake at the moment in BRU. The A320 would be perfect.

- PEK : might be weird BUT one of AF and EK's strength in AFI at the moment is their skill on the China-Africa market. HU codeshare just doesn't give enough capacity to SN in that purpose.

What do you think of that ?

Happy to see that common sense is still around.
BKO, COO, LFW, OUA can definitely use more frequencies if SN wants to be a serious contender on these routes.
PHC and PNR are also good contenders, no matter what LH is doing. What is LH doing there in the first place?
A BZV, LBV A333 triangle, what are they waiting for? Again, who cares what LH is doing.
BEY, maybe less interesting to fly to BRU to then fly to Africa but huge Belgium to Lebanon diamond O&D and VFR. SN is so passive that they let a small airline like MEA come in. Incompetence at its best.
PEK, a difficult choice to make since connecting traffic alone doesn't justify this route. This route should have been started before HU had the chance to do it. If SN still wants a hand on the China-Africa market, it needs HKG.

[LJ]

PHC and PNR are also good contenders, no matter what LH is doing. What is LH doing there in the first place?

Oil, oil and more oil. I reckon you know that Pointe-Noire is the oil capital of the Republic of Congo? As such it cannot be missed in the network of LH. Only if they know for certain it won't hurt their PNR service, SN will be allowed to have a go at PNR. For the same reason LH flies to Malabo now and not LX (which used to fly to Malabo a few years ago). If the destinations is very profitable, expect LH to provide the connection and not a LH subsidiary (BTW wasn't Pointe-Noire also a former Swiss destination?). LH Group didn't buy into SN in order to let it compete with their main airline [LH].

[tolipanebas]

BKO, COO, LFW, OUA can definitely use more frequencies if SN wants to be a serious contender on these routes.

Some of them can be expected.

PHC and PNR are also good contenders, no matter what LH is doing.

SN indeed doesn't have the needed feed from oil destinations to serve PNR, so they are in no position to successfully operate there: let LH do that with much better success.

A BZV, LBV A333 triangle, what are they waiting for? Again, who cares what LH is doing?

LBV is a route which has been said to be fully transferrable once SN is fully owned by LH: LH certainly woudn't mind letting go of it as I've heard it's a real nightmare for them to opeate there: somehow they can't come to terms with the chaotic handling and procedures of the country and just reckon, we're just talking Gabon here, not even near the levels of the RDC or much of Central Africa!

Finally I'd like to point out that when looking at new destinations in AFI, we should not mistake between competitors: it's not LH which SN needs to fight, but AF: in this context we should avoid too many overlaps with LH and LX (unless specific demands warrant such) but have a very close look at cracking AF monopolies to places like NIM or BZV...

[Flanker]

Only if they know for certain it won't hurt their PNR service, SN will be allowed to have a go at PNR. For the same reason LH flies to Malabo now and not LX (which used to fly to Malabo a few years ago). If the destinations is very profitable, expect LH to provide the connection and not a LH subsidiary (BTW wasn't Pointe-Noire also a former Swiss destination?).

Interesting. I wouldn't doubt for a moment that you're right.
LH started PHC and PNR after they bought their stake into SN.

LH taking over a profitable African LX route to operate it itself out of FRA.

What does this tell us?

Finally I'd like to point out that when looking at new destinations in AFI, we should not mistake between competitors: it's not LH which SN needs to fight, but AF: in this context we should avoid too many overlaps with LH and LX (unless specific demands warrant such) but have a very close look at cracking AF monopolies to places like NIM or BZV...

Of course AF is the competition. Nevertheless, it does put some perspective into LH's commitment to use SN as its Africa-focused subsidiary. SN is already operating a few oil routes in Africa. If the commitment was real, wouldn't the better option be to give SN the tools to connect the oil markets so that SN could become the real Africa specialist and a feared competitor for AF/KL?
It would seem much easier than to run a dual BRU/FRA African hub system at the inconvenience of the passenger?

[tolipanebas]

LH taking over a profitable African LX route to operate it itself out of FRA. What does this tell us?

That within one and the same company, routes are served from the hub which is best suited for it?
This happens at all airlines, you know? FWIW, LX has taken over LH routes too, so it's not just one-way.

SN is already operating a few oil routes in Africa. If the commitment of LH was real, wouldn't the better option be to give SN the tools to connect the oil markets so that SN could become the real Africa specialist and a feared competitor for AF/KL?

But PNR is not LAD.
To successfully serve a purely oil-driven and relatively thin route like PNR SN would have to add quite a significant number of specific feederroutes to make it work, which are already mostly served from FRA.
It's not the best use of the group's resources to have SN operate the group's one and only flight to PNR just because that happens to be located in Africa when SN would have to set up a bunch of feederroutes (some of which on long haul) for it, while at the same time LH already serves many of those routes already (Houston for instance) OR can more easily fill any newly-added feeders (Aberdeen for instance) thanks to their huge intercontinental network.

It would seem much easier than to run a dual BRU/FRA African hub system much at the inconvenience of the paying passenger?

It might look neater to have SN operate all AFI flights of the LH group indeed, but its not going to happen for the reason stated above: some particular destinations in AFI require specific links to destinations which aren't served by SN and can't possibly be served profitably by them given their limited global network, yet those specific destinations are served by LH from FRA and/or LX from ZRH. It makes sense to serve such destinations from FRA/ZRH, as it only means investing in those destinations alone, rather than a whole feeding network at the same time, just as it makes sense to operate other routes from BRU...
You may however expect a bit of a reshuffle on AFI between the different LH group airlines in a not too distant future....

[Flanker]

It might look neater to have SN operate all AFI flights of the LH group indeed, but its not going to happen for the reason stated above: some particular destinations in AFI require specific links to destinations which aren't served by SN and can't possibly be served profitably by them given their limited global network, yet those specific destinations are served by LH from FRA and/or LX from ZRH. It makes sense to serve such destinations from FRA/ZRH, as it only means investing in those destinations alone, rather than a whole feeding network at the same time, just as it makes sense to operate other routes from BRU...
You may however expect a bit of a reshuffle on AFI between the different LH group airlines in a not too distant future....

Pardon me for crying out loud: checkmate.
The only major African O&D market SN has is the DRC, more particularly Kinshasa.
All the rest has no historical ties, only brings sporadic O&D and is heavily reliant on feeding from France, the U.S. and other European cities.

This isn't about how neat it would be to bring Africa under the one roof of SN. It's about how much LH wants to commit to make SN a self-sustainable airline with its own global network.
There aren't 3000 oil routes.
If LH wants SN to be its Africa specialist, then instead of starting routes by themselves out of FRA, it would have been justified to pick major oil movements and give SN a dozen A330's to operate where both oil traffic and O&D justifies it.

From a LH point of view, it seems much easier to transfer all the African SN routes to FRA. In this view, the only reshuffling I can see happening in the future is that most African routes will be transferred to FRA.

I truly hope SN gets everything you're fantasizing and dreaming about Tolipanebas. Its own African network with a few glamourous routes to the U.S., a few to Asia. 30 A320's, 15 CS100's.
But until now, over 3 years after LH acquired a 45% participation, apart from a few cheap stickers on the ticketing counter billboards, sending 2 A330-200's that no one else wanted, forcing SN into an alliance that barely brings any positive value to SN compared to previous codeshare agreements; and forcing an inferior seating product, Lufthansa hasn't shown any commitment and we don't know what the future holds even if that commitment comes. Reliance on LH has cornered SN into a position where SN's balance sheet is under more pressure than ever before, while fuel is expensive and the economic climate is uncertain.

Until we have any announcement from LH and until they unveil any plans to turn-around SN, you don't want to be the clown that entertains the crowds while the ship is sinking.

We've got to be objective and there's too much uncertainty to start talking about the oh so bright future under the new master.

[tolipanebas]

The only major African O&D market SN has is the DRC, more particularly Kinshasa.
All the rest has no historical ties, only brings sporadic O&D and is heavily reliant on feeding from France, the U.S. and other European cities.

Does FRA or MUC have a huge African O&D market?
The relative weakness will just move with the flights, you know.

If LH wants SN to be its Africa specialist, then instead of starting routes by themselves out of FRA, it would have been justified to pick major oil movements and give SN a dozen A330's to operate where both oil traffic and O&D justifies it.

So now SN needs a dozen of A330s?
1 dozen of A330s, 2 dozen of A320s, 3 dozen of Q400s...
You keep discovering new markets and new opportunities here every week it seems and each and every time you immediately want to go after them at full blast and without any regards to costs! LH is not Etihad: it needs to make financial sense to go after a market first and it will do so from the hub where the most money can be made...

From a LH point of view, it seems much easier to transfer all the African SN routes to FRA. In this view, the only reshuffling I can see happening in the future is that most African routes will be transferred to FRA.

Sure, LH can do so tomorrow and they can then combine them with all of those OS and LX longhauls which they can also transfer to FRA just as easily: it would turn FRA into the most impressive megahub the world has ever seen... in theory...
Unfortunately, it would also mean LH would have to massively invest and would see the operating costs of many of those transferred routes explode as a consequence, while at the same time they'd leave behind a wide-open market for new competitors which will quickly step in at ZRH, BRU or VIE thus filling the voids...

Reliance on LH has cornered SN into a position where SN's balance sheet is under more pressure than ever before, while fuel is expensive and the economic climate is uncertain.

And being a stand-alone airline would suddenly make our fuel less expensive or the economic climate less uncertain for SN? I'd rather not think of scenarios in which LH would still be our competitor on the European market under the present economic conditions, nor would I like to speculate on just how hard we'd be squeezed by being caught up right in the middle of a huge clash between AF/KL and LH on our niche market!

There's too much uncertainty to start talking about the oh so bright future under the new master.

May I point out you're the one constantly writing about which type of planes or which new routes SN should urgently consider while bashing everybody who dares to point out that none of your proposals is even remotely likely to be considered, even if they were technically possible, given the limited financial resources?

[Flanker]

Tolipanebas, it seems that you've become the specialist of off-context quoting.

Let me answer your own arguments with your own claims.

Does FRA or MUC have a huge African O&D market?
The relative weakness will just move with the flights, you know.

LH already serves many of those routes already (Houston for instance) OR can more easily fill any newly-added feeders (Aberdeen for instance) thanks to their huge intercontinental network.

Unfortunately, it would also mean LH would have to massively invest and would see the operating costs of many of those transferred routes explode as a consequence, while at the same time they'd leave behind a wide-open market for new competitors which will quickly step in at ZRH, BRU or VIE thus filling the voids...

There are several factors to consider here.
First of all FRA was capacity limited and gave rise to the development of the MUC hub.
Second of all, LH kept most LX long-haul routes for the pure and simple reasons that ZRH as a financial center can sustain them (SQ is even sending A380's) AND because of German traffic right limitations. LX is operating as a self-sustaining airline, it would be a shame to break it down.

AUA in VIE is a big question mark. LH owns it at 100% but besides grounding some CRJ's, they haven't made any major investments yet. AUA is smaller than it used to be, still loss-making and unable to reach its 2011 operational break-even target. No added long-haul.

BRU isn't much of a market and SN by no means has any grips on it, just look at the low market share.
Last but not least, operating costs of consolidated routes don't explode. Consolidation is there to cut costs.
As a intra-European hub, BRU is a lost cause. SN's fleet isn't suited to compete.
The only investment that LH would have to make is to shift 6 or 7 of their own A330's to the African routes and take-over the local African operations. That is a much much smaller investment than taking-over the entire Brussels Airlines operation.

[tolipanebas]

Tolipanebas, it seems that you've become the specialist of off-context quoting.

Maybe that's because I am merely quoting remarks from you then?

Last but not least, operating costs of consolidated routes don't explode. Consolidation is there to cut costs.

Consolidation as in reducing overlaps cuts costs; consolidation as in moving everyting to FRA however, won't cut costs as the unit cost of LH is significantly higher than at SN or OS!
Aks the unions at LH what they are most scared off these days: scenarios of LH outsourcing longhaul flights!
So you're considering relocating OUA and BKO plus its tag-ons to FRA for instance? Any idea what that would do to the profitability of these destinations? I can tell you LH has done the exercise already just to see how lean we truely operate and it showed they can not operate profitably to any of these places given their inherently higher cost basis! How did you call that before... euh, checkmate?
Why do you think they got after us in the first place when they decided AFI would be their next target? Because we happened to have a few old A330s operating some triangular flights there?
The Germans did their homework first, believe me.

The only investment that LH would have to make is to shift 6 or 7 of their own A330's to the African routes and take-over the local African operations. That is a much much smaller investment than taking-over the entire Brussels Airlines operation.

As I've said before, Lufthansa can freely do so indeed, just as they can do with OS or even LX.
It's a theoretical possibility indeed, but it isn't the most probable one and the remote possibility of it happening nevertheless does not justify not teaming up with LH, especially as there isn't really an abundance of other partners to choose from these days, while a stand-alone scenario is completely impossible given the reluctancy from our historic shareholders to invest any further.
SN has to work with the financial means it has, not the financial means it would love to have and in such a context, the partnership with LH is a gift even if it entails some risks.
As they say: in the long run, we're all dead anyway, so doing nothing isn't an option either.

[Flanker]

I suggest that we move this debate to the newly created, more adequate topic, if that's alright with you.

[RoMax]

I suggest that we move this debate to the newly created, more adequate topic, if that's alright with you.

I don't think that's a good idea, we don't need another topic with this endless discussion that we already have in each SN topic. Keep that new topic clean for real news/rumours (somehow that sounds not right ) and not for the great ideas of the luchtzak members that say what SN should
do.

[Air Key West]

Back on track. So, b.air is going to get two ex LX A332s.
If b.air is serious in wanting to attract even more US pax and offer them a seamless service from a given point in the US to Europe and Africa, they should send both A332s to EWR.
BRU EWR 0800 1030
EWR BRU 1530 0500
BRU EWR 1930 2200
EWR BRU 2330 1300
(approximate flight times, also slots permitting)
Such flight schedules should optimize AFI connections for both waves to and from the black continent.
As I have said before, it would imho be a mistake to favor JFK over EWR, since at EWR you will also offer connections to a major Star partner, CO/UA.
If you need to go to NYC, it does not make any difference whether you fly to JFK or EWR. Travel time to Manhattan (where most be will want to be) is approximately the same.

[cnc]

it would imho be a mistake to favor JFK over EWR, since at EWR you will also offer connections to a major Star partner, CO/UA.
If you need to go to NYC, it does not make any difference whether you fly to JFK or EWR. Travel time to Manhattan (where most be will want to be) is approximately the same.

UA can fly those pax from EWR to BRU like they do now.
JFK is a different catch area

[Air Key West]

Why is JFK a different catch area ? (I'm not telling you that you are wrong, I'm just asking).

[OO-ITR]

As I have said before, it would imho be a mistake to favor JFK over EWR, since at EWR you will also offer connections to a major Star partner, CO/UA.
If you need to go to NYC, it does not make any difference whether you fly to JFK or EWR. Travel time to Manhattan (where most be will want to be) is approximately the same.

just a few remarks.
SN will send a A333 to the US (whatever destination it will be).
CO/UA is already the *A partner flying to EWR. SN is looking for passengers connecting in BRU for the AFI flights. And not the other way round. Passengers flying to the US to transfer onto another (US) destination.
EWR is indeed easier if you have to be in Manhattan, but the focus for SN is on african (american) people, who live more in Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens (and closer to JFK)

[Air Key West]

Assuming b.air will fly to NYC, if they fly to JFK they limit the number of pax practically to NYC BRU AFI.
If they flew out of EWR, they could alos benefit from connecting pax from other US cities, for instance ORD EWR BRU AFI or IAH EWR BRU AFI or DEN EWR BRU AFi to give just a few examples. I am very much aware tthat the purpose of the US flight(s) is to fly pax to/from AFI, not to fly pax from BRU to the US via NYC, but in order to fill the plane(s) they will need every pax they can get, as the market is very competitive and pax flying JFK BRU AFI will not be enough to fill an A332.