Virgin express operating for VBIRD

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dre
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Virgin express operating for VBIRD

Post by dre »

Hi ,



Saw that last days some flights of VBIRD are operated by airplanes of Virgin-express. Do they lease their aircrafts frequently to other operators? Quite strange to see some concurrents leasing aircrafts to each other...

Greetings

DRE

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Avro
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Post by Avro »

If VEX will have some overcapacity, their is nothing unusual that they "sub-lease" an airplane to another company for a certain period, or for special flights.

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Chris

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re

Post by V-Bird »

V-Bird is leasing currentley 2 f-100, and a321 from LH, VEX was for short period, this had to do with the a320`s from dutchbird, dutchbird need the plane`s themeself because of holiday period. Yhe a321 from LH will return next week to LH.

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Post by teddybAIR »

If VEX will have some overcapacity, their is nothing unusual that they "sub-lease" an airplane to another company for a certain period, or for special flights.
Does VEX have overcapacity??? I thought they had quite good loadfactors. ..:oops:
Has anybody got some figures on this?

thx in advance![/quote]

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blackhawk
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Post by blackhawk »

the loadfactors are 92-93% (I think)

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Avro
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Post by Avro »

With "overcapacity" I meant that VEX had probably one plane which they could easily charter for one or two days. That's all. It has nothing to do with the Loadfactors.

SNBA has a lot of planes which are parked at BRU on weekends and that's why they are doing a lot of charters on those days to run more efficiently.

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Chris
8)

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Sabena_690
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Post by Sabena_690 »

Blackhawk, that's not correct. VEX loadfactor in 2003 was 81,3% with 2500290 pax flown.

Very strange that their financial results are so bad, even with a more then average loadfactor.

Frederic
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Avro
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Post by Avro »

Sabena_690 wrote:
Very strange that their financial results are so bad, even with a more then average loadfactor.
That's because they have a too high cost structure. That's why they need to fill the plane completely to be able to make some €'s.
But that's only my 2 cent's.


Chris

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Sabena_690
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Post by Sabena_690 »

That's correct Chris, their cost structure must be way too high.

And a big disadvantage they have, is that their fares are way too high for a lowcost.

The difference between VEX and SN is so small, that most people prefer SN (which is logic, if you compare the big difference in product).

SN has clearly won the fight...

Frederic
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blackhawk
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Post by blackhawk »

Sabena_690, those are numbers that the teacher gave us while discussing direct / indirect costs at Virgin Express during economy lesson. So blaim him for giving me wrong information, shame on you teacher! ;) (or maybe these were the current load factors?)

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Sabena_690
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Post by Sabena_690 »

Blackhawk: it seems that your teacher will have to check luchtzak more, if he wants to stay up to date ;) :mrgreen:

Frederic
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blackhawk
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Post by blackhawk »

Bad idea, i'm not going in discussion with him, he is too clever ;) He also told us that VEX needs a load factor of 83% to cover all the costs. Where is Mr. or Miss Virgin to help us ;)

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Sabena_690
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Post by Sabena_690 »

Only 83%? They had 81,3% in 2003, and achieved to make a big loss.

Would they be profitable with an increase of in loadfactor of 1,7%? Doubt so...

Besides that, sell your tickets for €20 and you can have a 95% loadfactor. The only thing that counts is the yield.

Frederic
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blackhawk
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Post by blackhawk »

Or was it 87% :) Damn, stupid numbers.

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Sabena_690
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Post by Sabena_690 »

Still better then Sabena who needed more than a 100% loadfactor to have a profitable flight to destinations like NRT and JNB! :mrgreen:

Frederic
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VEX Economics

Post by FlightSimCrew »

Dear all, for once and for all.... who believes numbers these days ? If you look at the operating result of VEX it is not that bad. In fact they are loosing less money than SN is doing on their European Network. SN loses about 40/50 milllion EUR per year on Europe only. Luckily they have some African routes who are doing more than very well !

As VEX of course has to compete against those stupid low prices of the competition : Do you honestly believe that SN is profitable with selling as expensive as VEX and even offering more product ????? NO REALLY... can't be... their frequent flyers alone are costing them tons of money. But you are right some people will chose for SN becaus ethey believe they get a good product at a nice price. In fact compare the SN service against LH/BA, Virgin Atlantic... it really sucks.... I'm not talking about the cabin/pilot crew because those people are really showing some good spirit, quite a change compared to SN, but the complete catering, lounges and FFP is nothing compared to Oneworld and Star Alliance offers... they can compete with the product against VEX but they are a very small European player I tell you that.

Do you think VEX prices are really high? Don't you guys think that 49/59/69 EUR is a good price to get to AGP or BCN ? I beleive so... it are the prices of RyanAir that have raised the impression that low fare airlines should sell at 1/2/9 EUR. Take a look at prices of Southwest and JetBlue, you'll never find something lower than 59 dollar.... and that are more succesfull low fare airlines !

I know that VEX can become even more cost efficient...being able to boost up profitability... You can also easily see that figures have been mocked up in order to show good figures next year (in case of a merger)... it requires just only a little more financial analysis than a regular school teacher has. Sorry for the expression....

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Avro
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Post by Avro »

You are probably right about SN loosing money on european routes especially when selling tickets with very low prices (nearly the same than VEX), but don't forget that there are also C class pax that pay a huge amount of money for the same flights. I know that those pax are becoming rare those days, but nonetheless they exist, and on some routes there are many of them. Well this will give SN an extra income and thus enable them to sell tickets at very low prices to fill the planes in Y class.

Anyway, you mentioned a very important point there. You're right that lowcost airlines shouldn't be compared with Ryanair that sells tickets for 1 or 2 euros. But in my opinion you couldn't say that VEX is really doing its best either. Personally I think that the low cost price should be somewhere in the middle, something like 35€ for a one way within europe.
In fact compare the SN service against LH/BA, Virgin Atlantic... it really sucks.... but the complete catering, lounges and FFP is nothing compared to Oneworld and Star Alliance offers...
Could you explain us what you don't like with SN's frequent flyer program ? I always thought that it was quite a good one. I mean you can earn miles quite quickly. But maybe I'm wrong :? I mean I don't fly that much ;)

BTW in your reply you only mentioned the service of the airlines (SN LH BA ...) how do you compare the level of comforts in the different airlines (on short haul).


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Chris

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Post by Burner »

Interesting thread...

Do you remember that Virgin is always complaining about unfair competition etc. That they cannot be profitable because of the dumping of former SN and actual SNBA (both supposedly helped by governement, politics, BIAC and all kind of other invisible forces...).

I don't know if it is true or not (and even if it would be, we will never know for sure, because such practices are usually covered up).

What I DO know for sure (out of the respective annual reports) is that their cost/ASK is 6,14 cent. This is low cost.

Just to give you an idea: Easyjet, the lowcost airline that is worshipped in other threads all over internet has an cost/ASK of 4,17 pence. If I remember well the exchange rates, I guess this would be round about 7 cent. This is HIGHER cost than Virgin Express.

So I don't know what to blame it on, but it sure as hell is not on the cost side they have a problem.

Sorry to wake you up.



Greetz,

Burner

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Post by FlightSimCrew »

Dear Burner....

Indeed you are right about the lower cost per ASK that VEX is realizing than EZY but do remember that the average stage length of EasyJet routes is about 600/700km....due to the inland routes in UK. VEx average stage length is about 1.200km so much more. This means that although they have lower cost per ask the cost per sector is much higher than EZy recquiring more loadfactor or higher yield. This is just simple maths...did you were awake during those lessons .... ????

About those invisible forces I can say that the relatioship between SNBA and former Sabena and BIAc (=politics) has never been a very good one. I think it is quite normal that VEX complains on predatory pricing of airlines like Alitalia. Did you know that AZ always keeps their inventory open on low cost routes lower than their cost per seat which is prohibited. On other no competitive routes they ask price sthrough the roof a few days before departure.

Let me give you an example
on BRU-LIN AZ asks 59€ more than 14 dayss out but also 59€ the day of departure. On a compareble route suchs as AMS-TRN which has about the same length they ask 59€ more than 14 days out but 259€ the day of departure. No wonder they are posting millions of EUR loss covered by the government.

As a reply on the FFP I would like to say that indeed I like the program and find it's pretty good but it just does not deliver any real benefits to SNBA. It costs them about 10/15 mio per year. You have to get a lot of C-pax for this amount !

Burner
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Post by Burner »

Dear FlightSimCrew,

I am of course aware of the facts you mentioned. I am also aware of the differences in personal and company taxes btwn Gr. Br. and Belgium, the higher fees in BRU compared to the average EZY hubs, the slower turnarounds in BRU etc. etc. etc. Facts that give VEX also some disadvantage compared to EZY. So no, I was not asleep...

But this is not the point.

The point is: VEX is turning red numbers.
Previous posters implied that THE main problem was the cost base.

I disagree. That's why I posted a fact, unknown to most. That this is a "relative" statement is true. Most statements are usually in some way relative. In this particular case as well, because, yes, we are talking about 2 different airlines. The cost/ASK remains however one of the most used airline cost comparison tools used world wide. Without correction for stage lenght, without correction for taxes. I did not invent that.

In spite of your sceptical interpretation of the data I think the info remains valid enough to think twice before blaming the high cost base of VEX. As it is a free world, you are entitled to your own opinion...

I am now going to sleep.

Greetz

Burner

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