Brussels Airlines' fleet renewal

[lenain258]

VP-BQU having MSN 3373, future A320 for SN was ferried on 15/01 to Ostrava

[luchtzak]

VP-BQU having MSN 3373, future A320 for SN was ferried on 15/01 to Ostrava

Thanks for the news! And will be registered as ... ?

[nordikcam]

VP-BQU having MSN 3373, future A320 for SN was ferried on 15/01 to Ostrava

Thanks for the news! And will be registered as ... ?

Airfleets.net : OO-SNK

http://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-a320-3373.htm

SNJ will come from AZ and 2 other ones from AB...

[sn26567]

And the livery will be ...

[RoMax]

In a very short period of time (since October 2017) SN will have grown its A320 fleet with 6 additional aircraft (some entering very soon, and all of them before the start of the busy summer). July-August will even require a wet-lease A320 because the number of summer flights will be so high this year that they can't operate them all with the regular fleet.

That combined with the 'new' A333's that will start to arrive this year (some for temporary operations at EW and SN before really replacing current A333's and being taken delivery off but not entering commercial service until the end of the year) and the 2 first A343's for EW, this is quite a heavy year for the Maintenance and Operations departments at SN for sure!

[tolipanebas]

SNJ will come from AZ and 2 other ones from AB...

SNJ will come to BRU this weekend: the first of 4 additional A320 added to the fleet this year.

[DannyVDB]

Will the 4 A320 just be added or will they replace some of the A319 (of course after the summer season)?

[DeltaWiskey]

Will the 4 A320 just be added or will they replace some of the A319 (of course after the summer season)?

The 4 A320 that are going to join the fleet in H1 are meant replace the last Avro, cover Thomas Cook contract and provide extra capacity (plus one wet lease A320 to cover the peak summer months). At one time last year there were plans/rumours to return 2 A319's (SSD/SSN) to the lessor this winter/spring, but those leases have been extended instead. I believe that 2 A319 leases end in WI19 (SSA/SSB), but no news yet what will replace them (but I assume it will be A320's, unless they get extended as well). They still have around 6 months to decide.

[DeltaWiskey]

EW should be thankful that SN is willing to help them, otherwise they couldn't fill the gap at DUS.

I don't really think it was about SN's "willingness to help". I believe it was more something like this:

[LH] -Hello SN, in order to avoid lengthy union talks in Germany, we have decided that you will start operating long haul flights for Eurowings from DUS.
[SN] -Uuuuhm, oooh... But we are Brussels Airlines, you say what!?
[LH] -Yes, that's what we have decided at the latest Board Meeting.
[SN] -Ok, we will start working on it.

(Of course this is just a little bit satire and does not reflect 100% reality )

[CTBke]

Will the 4 A320 just be added or will they replace some of the A319 (of course after the summer season)?

The 4 A320 that are going to join the fleet in H1 are meant replace the last Avro, cover Thomas Cook contract and provide extra capacity (plus one wet lease A320 to cover the peak summer months). At one time last year there were plans/rumours to return 2 A319's (SSD/SSN) to the lessor this winter/spring, but those leases have been extended instead. I believe that 2 A319 leases end in WI19 (SSA/SSB), but no news yet what will replace them (but I assume it will be A320's, unless they get extended as well). They still have around 6 months to decide.

Any idea where the wetlease will come from ?

[lenain258]

OO-SNJ is on the way to Brussels

[crew1990]

So during the pick summer, there will be a total of 39 A319/A320 flying on behalf of SN, it start to be really impressive!

Just for info Austrian has 36 A319/A320/A321, Swiss got 34 A319/A320/A321, both airlines are flying from multiple base while SN have the 39 A319/A320 based at brussels airport

And SN has no domestic network!

[RoMax]

So during the pick summer, there will be a total of 39 A319/A320 flying on behalf of SN, it start to be really impressive!

Just for info Austrian has 36 A319/A320/A321, Swiss got 34 A319/A320/A321, both airlines are flying from multiple base while SN have the 39 A319/A320 based at brussels airport

For SN it's indeed impressive compared to not that many years ago and out of 1 base it's definitely not bad. However let's not forget that besides this quite large fleet of A319/320's, SN has only some wet-lease additions (all combined worth about 6 full time in the summer for CityJet/BMI/ASL?) and 10 widebodies. OS also has just 12 widebodies, but they do have a big regional fleet of 18 Q400's and 17 E195's. Swiss has a smaller regional fleet of currently 15 CSeries (although larger than the regionals of OS and even replacing the A319's and some A320's - with 15 still coming of which 13 the relatively large CS300) and a widebody fleet which is in # of a/c almost 3 times larger than that of SN.

SN will easily reach 10mio pax in 2018, maybe even more towards 10.5mio. OS reached 12.9mio in 2017 and LX 16.9mio, I don't know how much they'll grow in 2018, but even if it's limited, the gap will still be very significant with LX and also quite a bit with OS. Outside the group, Finnair is a bit closer with 11.9mio in 2017 and Air Europa is also in that range. TAP grew so fast that they are out of reach for the moment (in between OS and LX) and even Aegean exceeded the 13mio mark in 2017. I haven't seen pax figures for Aer Lingus yet, but based on its about 12% growth in RPK's I assume it's somewhere in the range of 11-12mio pax in 2017. So in traffic terms SN is trailing a group of medium sized European airlines, but just not there yet.

[JOVAN]

So during the pick summer, there will be a total of 39 A319/A320 flying on behalf of SN, it start to be really impressive!

Just for info Austrian has 36 A319/A320/A321, Swiss got 34 A319/A320/A321, both airlines are flying from multiple base while SN have the 39 A319/A320 based at brussels airport

For SN it's indeed impressive compared to not that many years ago and out of 1 base it's definitely not bad. However let's not forget that besides this quite large fleet of A319/320's, SN has only some wet-lease additions (all combined worth about 6 full time in the summer for CityJet/BMI/ASL?) and 10 widebodies. OS also has just 12 widebodies, but they do have a big regional fleet of 18 Q400's and 17 E195's. Swiss has a smaller regional fleet of currently 15 CSeries (although larger than the regionals of OS and even replacing the A319's and some A320's - with 15 still coming of which 13 the relatively large CS300) and a widebody fleet which is in # of a/c almost 3 times larger than that of SN.

SN will easily reach 10mio pax in 2018, maybe even more towards 10.5mio. OS reached 12.9mio in 2017 and LX 16.9mio, I don't know how much they'll grow in 2018, but even if it's limited, the gap will still be very significant with LX and also quite a bit with OS. Outside the group, Finnair is a bit closer with 11.9mio in 2017 and Air Europa is also in that range. TAP grew so fast that they are out of reach for the moment (in between OS and LX) and even Aegean exceeded the 13mio mark in 2017. I haven't seen pax figures for Aer Lingus yet, but based on its about 12% growth in RPK's I assume it's somewhere in the range of 11-12mio pax in 2017. So in traffic terms SN is trailing a group of medium sized European airlines, but just not there yet.

TP, OS, LX, Finnair, Aegean ... all have domestic flights as well.

I remember that Porto-Lisbon is one of the busiest routes in Europe.

So, SN's growth (and BRU's growth) have to come from intra-European tarffic.
Transfer PAX is what they need.

A320 for tourist destination is OK; that will bring a growth of max. 1 mio PAX or so.
A fleet of Embraers or eqv is actually a must to have an increase that means an increase in PAX.


D

[JustPlanes]

Brussels is probably the only airport of a major European city to offer nonstop flights to only 4 of the TOP 20 major US International Airports... Thats a joke! How can you attract serious transfer traffic when you really have so little to offer... At least on the Asian side it keeps on growing thanks to Asian airlines but on the North/South America side its at a complete standstill... on the contrary they've lost PHL... I guess they're waiting for Norwegian to come in and start service to Florida and California... and no doubt they will fill those planes...

[nordikcam]

Brussels is probably the only airport of a major European city to offer nonstop flights to only 4 of the TOP 20 major US International Airports... Thats a joke! How can you attract serious transfer traffic when you really have so little to offer... At least on the Asian side it keeps on growing thanks to Asian airlines but on the North/South America side its at a complete standstill... on the contrary they've lost PHL... I guess they're waiting for Norwegian to come in and start service to Florida and California... and no doubt they will fill those planes...

I have a hard time understanding that AA can fly PHL BUD on a daily basis and can not do it on BRU to take an example.

[brabel]

Brussels is probably the only airport of a major European city to offer nonstop flights to only 4 of the TOP 20 major US International Airports... Thats a joke! How can you attract serious transfer traffic when you really have so little to offer... At least on the Asian side it keeps on growing thanks to Asian airlines but on the North/South America side its at a complete standstill... on the contrary they've lost PHL... I guess they're waiting for Norwegian to come in and start service to Florida and California... and no doubt they will fill those planes...

I have a hard time understanding that AA can fly PHL BUD on a daily basis and can not do it on BRU to take an example.

Maybe SN should open the route then

[nordikcam]

Maybe SN should open the route then

I did not say that SN had to open the line, SN does not have a plane and would have other priorities overseas, I said that I did not understand how AA could fill a plane daily on PHL BUD and nothing on BRU. It's strange in my opinion. Especially since BUD has 13M passengers and BRU 25M.

[Conti764]

Maybe SN should open the route then

I did not say that SN had to open the line, SN does not have a plane and would have other priorities overseas, I said that I did not understand how AA could fill a plane daily on PHL BUD and nothing on BRU. It's strange in my opinion. Especially since BUD has 13M passengers and BRU 25M.

Malev...

The day LH acquired SN wad the day AA lost all purpose at BRU...

[nordikcam]

Maybe SN should open the route then

I did not say that SN had to open the line, SN does not have a plane and would have other priorities overseas, I said that I did not understand how AA could fill a plane daily on PHL BUD and nothing on BRU. It's strange in my opinion. Especially since BUD has 13M passengers and BRU 25M.

Malev...

The day LH acquired SN wad the day AA lost all purpose at BRU...

Malev...true ! Thx.