Last A330-200 flight at SWISS

[kiwiandrew]

Last rumour I've heard JFK is bound to be launched september 2012.

Am I the only one who thinks it would be odd to inaugurate a new North Atlantic route at that time of year? They would miss out on the packed flights of June-August which seem to be the only time that a lot of players actually make money on the North Atlantic routes.

[RoMax]

Am I the only one who thinks it would be odd to inaugurate a new North Atlantic route at that time of year? They would miss out on the packed flights of June-August which seem to be the only time that a lot of players actually make money on the North Atlantic routes.

No you are not the only one. That's one of the reasons why I said: "and actually it would suprise me...".

[HighInTheSky]

Last rumour I've heard JFK is bound to be launched september 2012.

Are you talking about the 1st or the 2nd daily flight?

No, as far as we know, JFK is still planned for end of March/early April.

Maybe this 'rumour' was about the 2nd destination in the USA?

[fretn]

In b4 SFO/LAX & JFK

[BrusselsAirlines]

I see no other options here! For now...

Let's not fool ourselves, since the bankrupt of Sabena, things are going in the good direction.

Star Alliance, Africa/longhaul expansion vs intra-EU, more connecting traffic, fleet harmonisation.

I don't see how things could have gone better with the budgets & current (temporary) members on the board.

Or maybe let's give Dexia a call if they can finance a 30-acft order for 787 & C-series
Sweet dreams!

[LJ]

Let's not fool ourselves, since the bankrupt of Sabena, things are going in the good direction.

It depends on how you define "good direction". LH hasn't made any profit out of its investment in SN (the loss of EUR28mio in H1 2011 speaks for itself). Therefore, the only conclusion is that the value of SN is worse than it was when LH purchased its share. If that is "the good direction"........

[CRJ 900]

I would not panic for this loss. First of all, as already suggested on the forum: making a loss at SN now (by e.g. fleet renewal) might be very good for LH (lower acquisition price when buying the rest of the shares).
Secondly the whole economy suffers (fuel prices for instance). When you see the anouncements made by AF/KLM, I would say SN and the LH-group in general are not doing bad at all.
Rgds,
CRJ 900

[cnc]

I would not panic for this loss. First of all, as already suggested on the forum: making a loss at SN now (by e.g. fleet renewal) might be very good for LH (lower acquisition price when buying the rest of the shares).

it doesn't work like that. the acquisition price is a little more complex then just based on the operational result

[CRJ 900]

To cnc: completely agree with you. It is not as simple as that. I work in industry as well (all be it not aviation).
But on the other hand a small loss won't harm either: if it stays into certain proportions it can even give a positive effect for SN 's future after all.
rgds
CRJ 900

[Stij]

if it stays into certain proportions it can even give a positive effect for SN 's future

OK, that a small loss won't kill them I know, but how a loss can have a positive effect I don't understand, except if you hint at upcoming labour negociations...

Cheers,

Stij

[Flanker]

He's babbling about "some high seatmile-costs A332 operating on transtatlantic bloodbath routes"
As everybody understands all too well by now, SN only needs 1 widebody plane for its planned daily transtatlantic flight, not 2 like is casually claims, yet more importanly even: it's utterly naive to assume that just because a plane joins the fleet at the time of the opening of a new destination, it is automatically that specific plane which is going to be used for that route.
Here's a little theoretical scenario just to illustrate a much better use of slightly smaller A332s within SNs fleet: currently, SN operates 5 times weekly (iso daily) to DKR after it was forced to discontinue the tag-on flights by the Senegalese government: replacing the A333 currently used with a slightly smaller A332 on the BRU-DKR route would allow SN to go back to daily flights, without increasing its total weekly capacity dramatically, while the larger A333 that comes off the 5 weekly DKR route could than be used to serve the USA on weekdays for instance. In short: SN gets to free a low seatmile cost A333 for its transatlantic route (thus not having to lease another one of these much searched after and highly expensive planes) and at the same time it can use a more optimized smaller A332 with a lower trip costs on a detriangled run to AFI thus allowing to increase frequency and yields on the route... My god, what a bad idea indeed!

Your scenario is a disaster.
New York is already operated out of BRU by DL, AA, UA, 9W.
JFK would barely justify a B757-200 for SN, the A332 will be already overkill and an A333 absurd.
Remember that JFK is low yield due to excessive competition and its purpose as a feeder route. Feeding is composed of connecting passengers and are one of the lowest yielding segment of travelers.
Those extra seats and cargo space of the A333 are of better use on the DKR route than the bloodbath JFK route. After some years and 5 extra daily widebody rotations in Africa, we can talk about it again.



Here are some posts of HB-IWC relating to the years of Sabena operating the JFK route.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forum ... id=2028689


Quoting SNBru (Reply 12):
Does anyone know on which routes (out of Europe) Sabena was making a lot of money.

As sated before, the money was being made mainly on certain parts of the Africa network. All the rest was pretty much loss making. Even some of the key transatlantic routes never made any real money, notwithstanding great performance during the summer.

Quoting SNBru (Reply 12):
I guess the BRU-JFK/BRU-BOS route was a profit maker, together with a lot of European routes (BRU generates a lot of diplomatic and political traffic due to the headquarters of NATO and EU institutions). Is this assumption correct?

The BRU-BOS route lost money because of weak performance outside the summer season, the BRU-JFK/EWR routes suffered from overcapacity most of the year. Overall transatlantic yields were also down because Sabena would attract up to 80% connecting traffic on those flights, and only about 20% higher yielding O/D traffic.

Sabena used to have 80% connecting and 20% O&D. The overcapacity was already there back then.
What SN will be doing by operating the A332's to JFK is very likely to be a zero operation or slightly negative. No extra loss but no extra profit.
No extra loss because what they're paying CO (soon UA) for the connecting traffic is coming directly on the A332's and the rest of the seats will probably be compensated by low-yield leisure pax. No extra profit because the traffic from the US to Africa isn't going to increase just because SN is doing the NYC-BRU leg itself instead of CO.
The only ones that are winning from this are some petrol refineries and some Sheiks who own the oil wells.

[Flanker]

Let's not fool ourselves, since the bankrupt of Sabena, things are going in the good direction.

Star Alliance, Africa/longhaul expansion vs intra-EU, more connecting traffic, fleet harmonisation.

Can't help but have a déja-vu.
Atlantic Excellence Alliance, SR assisted long-haul expansion, artificially increased low yield intra-EU connecting traffic, fleet harmonisation to Airbus.
The only difference with back then is that there's less money in the bank and much less interest to do anything thanks to airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet that can easily take over SN's role of doing:
(quoted from above link)

Sabena, like many others, was a public service.
For most of SN's existence, the management was never asked to run a business but to administer a public service, under the higher auspices of the mainstream political parties running the successive governments.
Socialists, Christian Democrats and Liberals share (theoritically) the responsibility , the management has never been anything else than an instrument.

Wise words. Let's not fool ourselves.

[BrusselsAirlines]

You're right. History will probably repeat itself one day, the major human shortcoming of forgetting. But we'll have some time until all fails again and then it will rise again etc. It's just a ride we're all on, just a question to find the right balance between reality, seriousness and hapiness. It can be a fun ride, just depends on your views and expectations.

Anyway, it's a competitive, dynamic game out there. I think it's wise to start the US ops. It's a good market and I guess the money won't be made either on those few seats we have @ present on AA, Continental or others. At least people will be on our own metal for the entire trip + we get more fleet flexibility with more acft and a standardised cabin and service. That's the better way on the LT both for pax and the cpy.

It will be tough the next years but we just keep on growing & investing steadily, both in terms of pax & marketshare, it's called investing & that eats profit on the ST! Fleet harmonisation & reduction on EU traffic and expansion in Africa.
That's just as good as it gets. For now.

[Flanker]

I like that. Cautious optimism.

[BrusselsAirlines]

Cautious optimism. Nicely phrased!

If only I could hold on to that mindset more often
It's a thin line between passiveness & conciousness...

Grtz

[Passenger]

...
He's babbling about "some high seatmile-costs A332 operating on transtatlantic bloodbath routes"
...

Would be great if the moderators would delete posts like this because the quote is not correct.

Deleting the name of the original poster is indeed: a) unfair and b) incorrect as quote.

[tolipanebas]

...
He's babbling about "some high seatmile-costs A332 operating on transtatlantic bloodbath routes"
...

Would be great if the moderators would delete posts like this because the quote is not correct.

Deleting the name of the original poster is indeed: a) unfair and b) incorrect as quote.

Thank you. I'd like to see quotes of mine being referred to as from me indeed.

Back to topic:

Dear Flanker aka NCB is once again flip-flopping on his previous analysis just so he can continue disagreeing with all he sees coming his way.

Those extra seats and cargo space of the A333 are of better use on the DKR route than the bloodbath JFK route.

Euh...
I thought you'd always said SN had to go smaller and thinner on AFI, so they could increase frequencies?

In my world, 7 times non stop on A332 iso 5 times non-stop on A333 or 7 times with a tag-on on A333 is smaller and thinner and more frequent too?!

In your world however it seems an A333 is too big for a daily DKR with a tag-on, yet an A332 is too small for a daily DKR without a tag-on?

Should SN ask Airbus to design them an tailored A332-and-a-half?

[bruteboeing]

i'll bet you he's gonna say 757 now ^^

[tolipanebas]

i'll bet you he's gonna say 757 now ^^

Small detail, the 757 is out of production since half a decade and for a reason: it isn't exactly the most fuel efficient plane on a seat basis....

The Boeing 757 is the AVRO RJ of the (pseudo-)longhaul planes: it's old, it's thirsty and it doesn't carry that much payload: unless you are completely unable to stimulate your loads, you're better off with something bigger. A 757 to JFK is ridiculous for an airline like SN: their marketshare on the BRU-JFK route could so easily be stimulated given the huge market they can tap into in Africa that operating merely a 757 to JFK would automatically qualify management for the 'idiots of the year' reward.

[BrusselsAirlines]

We continue on our ride...all plans on hold with the estimated increase of the fuel price the coming months.

News of the day - this must be a joke! Maybe they are in some parallel meeting with the fed govnment