Brussels Airlines new service in b.flex : doritos ?

[cnc]

don't be so childish... FR would make huge losses if not for all the subsidies they get.
If they enter BRU it will be at the same costlevel as any other airline and that doesn't work for them.

[OO-ITR]

Glad to know that Brussels Airlines fill the pockets of its shareholders.

and what do you think your so beloved Ryanair does? Charity??? Don't be a hyprocrit!

And I'll add :
When you are traveling on tickets paid by your customer/employer, value for money is something completely different than when you are traveling on your own spent money.
Which is why corporate travellers make the SN accountants most happy with huge annual profits, and uncorporated travellers make the FR accountants desperate with huge annual losses (or is it the other way round ?) .

Ever been on a SN flight??? I suggest that you book a flight (in b.light of course) and see for yourself. Would be nice for you to see something in the real world!

If you don't mind, I consider that going to Manchester or Marseille and return for a grand total of 24 euros each is good value for money (even if I don't get Doritos into the bargain).

I hope you didn't take any luggage with you

[andorra-airport]

I hope you didn't take any luggage with you

You don't need if you go for a short while. And even if you do, still cheaper then SN. At least you have a choice, in how cheap/expensive you want it. If you don't bring a suitcase at SN you still pay the high price.

[tolipanebas]

As eurojet has explained: it's really not about the snack, the meal, the drink or checked luggage: it's about schedule, schedule, schedule and... well, you've read him: schedule.

A 500 euro ticket on a network carrier with high and well adapted frequencies is indeed far more value for money for corporate flyers than a 5 euro ticket on the single LCC flight of that day, especially if the airport served by them is out of the way from where they'd need to go.

Like it or not: this is how the corporate world is flying, yet it seems many people have no clue about corporate travel policies and simply extrapolate their own private needs and desires to them too: as we've all been able to read here, it's just not working that way and so simply comparing ticket prices to say what's best for them too is indeed useless as they are not the same type of pax as those many people going on a city trip: best proof is that network carriers often cut back on their core routes during summertime, whereas LCC increase flights/capacity: can it be any more different really?

Now, back to topic if you all please: we've drifted way off course.

[OO-ITR]

I hope you didn't take any luggage with you

You don't need if you go for a short while. And even if you do, still cheaper then SN. At least you have a choice, in how cheap/expensive you want it. If you don't bring a suitcase at SN you still pay the high price.

Sorry but I have a full time job in aviation and I hardly see pax without luggage...

[Flanker]

Flanker wrote:
SN & co, need to realize that they're not a public transportation company but a service company. As a service company, they have to understand what people want.


People flying litterally daily with LH group carriers want the best possible flight schedule they can get, with the shortest connecting times, full ticket flexibility, remote check in options, security fast tracks, lounge access (in case of delays) and generous carry on allowances so as to make their same day return trips within Europe as swift and as hastle free as possible: on a very short flight at 1500PM, they couldn't care less about the typical pasta or chicken dish or the very same mayo sandwich they'd be served for the 12th time this month already.
FWIW, cabin crew can often single out the real frequent flyers from those who think they've seen it all because they have already flown twice this year and we're just February ( ) by the simple fact real frequent travellers mostly forgo their meals and prefer to work on their laptop instead. The rate of service refusal is known to be higher the higher the FFP status, believe it or not! So it really comes as no surprise to me when Euroflyer said he didn't take any of the offered snacks on his TXL-BRU recently: in fact that's a fairly normal attitude for a M&M Senator (and higher), especially on short haul....

In this perspective, it is interesting to note the same meal concept is in use for more than a year at LH/LX and has been introduced by OS as well recently: despite this LX got voted best airline in western Europe last year even... with LH second... and OS third!
http://www.worldairlineawards.com/Award ... europe.htm
The reaon is fairly simple: they offer a great network in Europe, which good schedules and a reliable travel experience throughout the journey, including maximum ticket flexibility, rebooking and rerouting options.
THAT what's it all about, boys: you can pretty much forget about the great salad or the tasty pasta dish at 1500PM!

I think that there is one point that must be made.
LX is break-even in Europe and not thanks to their service but rather the criminals and financiers who need to go to Switzerland. All other LH Group airlines have no clue on how to make money in Europe.

The corporate contracts are only important if they bring significant yields and traffic.
However, the problem is that they don't. SN et al sell flexibility and schedule, but do realize that these bring significant cost to the airlines.

You can only offer schedule if you have the right aircraft to serve it. Otherwise, you don't know what you're doing and you lose money, like SN.

[earthman]

Sorry but I have a full time job in aviation and I hardly see pax without luggage...

That is because you pay for it whether you have it or not. I think quite a few people take luggage with them because they can. I recently had a little trip where I didn't really need to take anything with me that didn't comfortably fit in my cabin baggage, yet I still took a large suitcase with me with all kinds of things that happened to need transportation. If I had to pay extra to take that suitcase with me (or pay less if I didn't take it), I would not have brought it along with me.

[andorra-airport]

Sorry but I have a full time job in aviation and I hardly see pax without luggage...

25 Percent of Ryanair passengers check their bags.

[OO-ITR]

Sorry but I have a full time job in aviation and I hardly see pax without luggage...

That is because you pay for it whether you have it or not. I think quite a few people take luggage with them because they can. I recently had a little trip where I didn't really need to take anything with me that didn't comfortably fit in my cabin baggage, yet I still took a large suitcase with me with all kinds of things that happened to need transportation. If I had to pay extra to take that suitcase with me (or pay less if I didn't take it), I would not have brought it along with me.

???
And why would you take luggage just for 'the fun' of it... Don't you take luggage because you need the things you bring along???

[OO-ITR]

Sorry but I have a full time job in aviation and I hardly see pax without luggage...

25 Percent of Ryanair passengers check their bags.

and 75 percent stuffs their things in their carry on...lol
or do they also have to pay extra for that

[andorra-airport]

and 75 percent stuffs their things in their carry on...lol
or do they also have to pay extra for that

If you go for a short while you don't need much. Toothbrush, underwear, a shirt, etc. And that does fit in a small rucksack. You should know with your full time job in aviation.

[OO-ITR]

and 75 percent stuffs their things in their carry on...lol
or do they also have to pay extra for that

If you go for a short while you don't need much. Toothbrush, underwear, a shirt, etc. And that does fit in a small rucksack. You should know with your full time job in aviation.

strange why pax don't do this then...seeing this every day...with my full time job in aviation.
Talking about it on a forum is one thing, the real life may be different indeed!

[convair]

That pack of Doritos was a real timebomb: on goes again that futile war between supporters of FR and SN, like 2 rival football clans!
One could perhaps recognize the fact that both companies have their role and place on the market; one aims more (although not exclusively) at business travelers , the other (similarly) at leisure travelers. Hence their different methods and strategies, also their advantages and drawbacks, their different (long term or short term) perspectives and their capacity (or lack of) to exert pressure on their suppliers (including airports).
You may despise MOL and its methods and find him arrogant (I do too in fact!) but the fact is that he is a (to say the least) good businessman and has brought air travel to millions of people who could (or would) not afford it.
However refreshing it is to see some airports resisting him (like Edinburgh), potential passengers would prefer to see an increased offer and it doesn't really matter to them wether the money goes to the airport owner's pocket or to MOL's.
But please let the show go on...

[Inquirer]

As a very frequent corporate traveller and user of different * alliance airlines, allow me to add my personal experience of the latest changes at SN, so as to hopefully put them into the right perspective.

Currently I am spending half my live onboard planes flying back and forth to Scandinavia and Eastern Europe and I have noticed too that SN has since recently alligned itself with LH's catering concept on shorter routes.

Although I can understand it may come as a disappointment to the occasional flyer who had hoped to be pampered somewhat more on his particular flight, I can honnestly say that as a frequent flyer I personally couldn't care less about what they give me as onboard service for as long as I can get a drink when I am thirsty and they'll leave me alone so I can toggle on my laptop.

BTW, having only a snack is pretty standard on a short haul flight outside of eating time these days: as others have already said before me, LH or LX have been doing this for some time now and their die hard customers on a business trip definitely prefer it to being disturbed every 5 minutes with some stupid service item like a breadroll, a coffee, some tea, or whatever....
Actually, when LH was first testing this concept over a year ago or so, I got an onboard questionaire to rate it on one of their flights and I gave it top scores: shows just how different the needs of corporate passengers are from the occasional city tripper, I suppose!?

Why fly b.flex then, you may ask?
It's because as the name gives it away, the ticket assures me that when a meeting extends beyond its planned schedule, I can always take the next flight which will be merely 2 hours later without any problem whatsoever. For that my company doesn't mind paying 250 euro for a one way ticket to CPH in b.flex, but they would really hate it if I get stuck somewhere because there's no alternative available when I'd be flying some LCC at 50 euro for instance: those few hundred euro's of possible saving do not outweigh the costs of having a complete field trip turn into complete chaos and believe me, it most certainly would as I often have to make use of the ticket flexibility airlines like SN or LH offer!

Finally, it seems to me as if a lot of people have no realistic idea of the kind of field trips corporate passengers do these days, hence I'll post my last tour: BRU-CPH (SN) CPH-OSL (SK) [hotel] OSL-MUC-POZ (LH) [hotel] POZ-FRA-CPH (LH) CPH-ARN (SK) [hotel] BMA-BRU (SN) all in just 3 days and at a total cost of almost 1,300 euro for tickets only, BTW.

Needless to say my company can't risk having to change the entire very tight tour schedule and make a bunch of new appointments just because I'd miss some intermediate flight due to some telco or meeting extending beyond its planned time frame, so 1,300 euro is an honnest price for such a journey and no I do not expect to get great food served in return for it as I already had 3 business lunches and 2 dinners planned during the trip... with more of the same waiting for me next week.

[earthman]

???
And why would you take luggage just for 'the fun' of it... Don't you take luggage because you need the things you bring along???

Not 'for the fun'. I had to return home for a few days during a holiday (family visit rather), and I knew about this before going on that holiday. I took home with me:
- some dirty clothes which I could just as well have washed at the holiday location,
- various food items which we would otherwise be tempted to bring along when returning from the holiday,
- some heavy liquids (cosmetics) bought online and shipped to the foreign address to avoid high shipping charges, which would otherwise likely have been brought at a later date by someone traveling by car rather than plane,
- some other items that were no longer needed at the holiday location, and which might end up making our luggage too heavy when returning.

Back to the holiday location I took with me:
- the washed clothes
- extra shoes
- a few heavy items which we didn't bring along the first time because of excess weight, but which we decided to leave at home because I was going to make an extra return trip anyway

Still when finally returning home, we had to leave a few items behind, and both suitcases were a little over the 20kg limit (we're not sure how much extra allowance there is, with the same airline we once had to pay excess baggage fees for like one extra kg..), and the hand luggage was all at/over max weight, and we still 'smuggled' some heavy items around the check-in desk (sometimes they weigh the hand luggage there, we wanted to avoid having overweight hand luggage there, so the items were temporarily carried by an accomplice).

Now of course we don't usually travel light and were always packed to the max weight, but if I could have paid less for my short trip back home by not taking checked luggage, I would have done just that. I had a transfer at MUC, so in the end I made 4 flights with a suitcase which would have been with cabin luggage only if I had to pay extra for it.

[Flanker]

Sorry but I have a full time job in aviation and I hardly see pax without luggage...

That is because you pay for it whether you have it or not. I think quite a few people take luggage with them because they can. I recently had a little trip where I didn't really need to take anything with me that didn't comfortably fit in my cabin baggage, yet I still took a large suitcase with me with all kinds of things that happened to need transportation. If I had to pay extra to take that suitcase with me (or pay less if I didn't take it), I would not have brought it along with me.

???
And why would you take luggage just for 'the fun' of it... Don't you take luggage because you need the things you bring along???

Earthman is right.
Most FR pax stuff what they need into their carry-on trolleys, me included. It's surprising how much you can fit in there.

The rare occasions when I flew traditionally expensive airlines, I checked my luggage and only took my laptop and an apple with me. I admit that I also took a bunch of books and extra things that I never used during my trip.
It's free so why not?

That's the way the average travellers goes about. But don't worry, such misconceptions are not rare, as airline staff except cabin crew are so product-focussed and not really in touch with the travel experience as seen from the pax perspective.

That's where Ryanair is strongest, because if you look at their timetables to smaller airports with limited public transportation and a lower density of population and businesses, they make sure that the pax have a convenient transit time onto trains and busses.

Ryanair is much more practice oriented. They study the routes by going into the field, researching emmigrant numbers, businesses and hobby clubs, travel offerings, public transportation and even school trip potential, etc...

A 500 euro ticket on a network carrier with high and well adapted frequencies is indeed far more value for money for corporate flyers than a 5 euro ticket on the single LCC flight of that day, especially if the airport served by them is out of the way from where they'd need to go.

Like it or not: this is how the corporate world is flying, yet it seems many people have no clue about corporate travel policies and simply extrapolate their own private needs and desires to them too: as we've all been able to read here, it's just not working that way and so simply comparing ticket prices to say what's best for them too is indeed useless as they are not the same type of pax as those many people going on a city trip: best proof is that network carriers often cut back on their core routes during summertime, whereas LCC increase flights/capacity: can it be any more different really?

Some corporations, especially several with headquarters in Belgium work like that.
However, SME's and self-employed people form the majority of business travellers. Corporate frequent travellers are a small breed that cost the airline more money than they seem to make them earn. You see them more often because they stick out with their pinguin attire, but in a city like Brussels/Belgium, they're only less than 10% of all air travellers.
Hence why mr SN co-ceo has the wrong perception about the business class travellerand says that it's an extinct breed.

The corporate frequent traveller who pays for business class is indeed extinct, I'm not sure he ever existed except in the '60's. But that's not who the potential business class passenger is.

The real business class customer is that successful business owner who often manages his own budget and wants to travel with class. It's also the sales rep who makes millions in sales for a modest salary package and prefers perks in nature rather than more salary taxed at 57%. It's the retired army commander, the retired self-employed emigrant, the shareholder of a major company, the cocaine retailer, the high-earning lawyer, judge, notary, doctor, dentist, real-estate owner.

Those are people who choose when and how they fly and when the choice is between flying cramped in the front two rows at 850 euro's, or a few more rows to the back at 600 euro's...

More and more of them are switching over to LCC's because they discover during trips with the family that the aircraft cabins are nicer, the schedules better and more reliable, the airports more convenient and budget savings allow them to book extra tickets for flexibility and travel security and a nicer hotel or even do some extra sales calls that don't look promising enough to warrant a 1000 euro trip but do warrant a 250 euro citytrip combined with business.

I think that by 2025, airline networks like SN's will be extinct in Europe. There will only be longhaul+feeding (mainly large RJ's) carriers, LCC's dominating short-haul travel and full service carriers with a luxurious product offering (on-board wifi, catering on demand, ife, real business class and comfy economy class with legroom, free snacks and drinks à volonté, at good fares.)
Ryanair is entering these business markets one by one (MAN, BUD) and soon they will become the largest carrier in Belgium.

What does it mean? (since most won't read half of it)
The corporate frequent travellers are important clients for airlines, but some like SN are so focussed on them that they forget that all the other customers are the customers that they need to convince the most

[Inquirer]

Am I right in assuming you say there's no future for airlines which cater for the needs of the many corporate travellers like me who use them almost daily for their no frills efficiency because there just aren't enough of us around to guarantee sustainability, yet there will somehow be a sufficiently large market for premium airlines that offer the most frills possible? Excuse me saying, but that is just daydreaming, IMHO.

Why is the market moving in the other direction then, if I may ask?
And what do you think will trigger the U turn in the minds of the companies that need to pay for it?
Or do you really think that the retired army commander, the self-employed emigrant, the shareholder of a major company, the cocaine retailer, the high-earning lawyer, judge, notary, doctor, dentist, real-estate owner are all going to fly 4 times weekly at least to take my place on board? They'll need to, because I know for sure that my company isn't going to pay for any unwanted frills at those new airlines you talk about, just as they will never lift the embargo on flying RyanAir for instance for as long as they can't match the flexibility of a STAR alliance airline like SN or LH for instance....

I remember you told me you fly a King Air for a business flights airline and I've told you we occasionally make use of such flights too, but that's a long way from constanly flying C class on routine trips like a BRU-CPH: don't just assume it to ever happen either, it won't.

[sn26567]

Am I right in assuming you say there's no future for airlines which cater for the needs of the many corporate travellers like me who use them almost daily for their no frills efficiency because there just aren't enough of us around to guarantee sustainability

You are right.
Evidence is that the airlines who catered exclusively for the businessmen have been closed or have introduced economy seating (MaxJet, Eos, L'Avion, Openskies).

[euroflyer]

Hm, I think I need to add some ideas here as well But I have to say I can agree to most what has been said on this by eurojet and tolipanebas ... I have myself done well above 100 flights / year on short-haul European flights for around 10 years now. Nearly all of them for business travel, most in economy class and most either out of Frankfurt or Brussels.

For me as, what you would call a corporate traveller, there are a number of things which are most important

(1) schedule
(2) punctuality
(3) fast service at check-in & security, boarding and de-boarding
(4) possibility to take some hand-luggage on board and to check-in luggage (if needed) very fast and without any additional payments or 'bureaucratic procedures'
(5) Lounge access (not for fun, but in order to have a quiet place to work with my laptop

I admit food on board sometimes is convenient if I have a very tight schedule and not much time for any kind of meal at my destination or at the airport, but it is not "important" ...

The idea to fly in for a meeting the day before is just funny for me, do not know who actually has the time to do anything like this these days. I often do a triangular flight like FRA-TXL-BRU-FRA within one day to attend two meetings on the same day. And I have meetings the day before and after as well AND sometimes I actually need some time at my desk in the office.

I simply cannot take an airline which forces me to plan my schedule according to their flight timetable - I need an airline which has a timetable that fits my schedule! And yes, it should be a decent, safe and punctual airline.

I am happy because as a Senator LH always gives me priority for a seat in the first eco rows and tries to keep the middle seat there free as well - that is something I like because I can read papers and work with my Laptop. Indeed, yes, I often do not even take the snack I am offered on LH flights - however, that depends on the day and my "other meals" I might get.

I have never used FR and I cannot say anything about them. However, I did use easy jet once (because they used to be the only direct airline between BER and GVA) because their schedule was best for me and I did use flybe once - both was a disaster because they expected me to be at the airport / security / gate hours before the departure (well, it felt at least like hours) and I had to PAY AT flyby to check in my luggage after waiting at the desk some 20 minutes . Usually, if I leave from BRU for example, I leave the office in the European quarter by taxi around 1 hour before departure (even at 5pm afternoon in the biggest traffic) and I arrive at the airport some 30 min before departure. Thanks to fast lane access I have never missed a single flight.

So I think SN is on the right track, however, they might consider merging b.flex and b.light some time, as the difference in the service is not so big anymore and you can have different kind of flexibility within eco without different service classes on board.

I am aware that other travelers might have different requirements, but ok, I am happy with the recent developments

[OO-ITR]

So I think SN is on the right track, however, they might consider merging b.flex and b.light some time, as the difference in the service is not so big anymore and you can have different kind of flexibility within eco without different service classes on board.

I can't agree more. Merging b.flex and b.light with a kind of flexibility within eco is indeed the right thing to do. e.g. keeping cheap prices without flexibility ...