TimTam wrote: ↑24 Mar 2024, 22:38
Good question, but I thought that OS's niche market was (far) Eastern Europe and the Balkans or is this a thing of the past ? (of course, it's not long haul). But what are LH and LX's niche markets ?
I seem to remember forum members contributions saying there is a demand for a non-stop BRU BOS flight.
So, my (perhaps naive) question is : why did not SN get a direct BRU BOS v.v. flight (and aircraft) while making Austrians connect at BRU to BOS ?
For those (who ???) who want to remain loyal to the LhGroup, from Brussels, flying to Boston, just to name one North American city, most of the time flying there means flying east first to fly west afterwards. Oh "God" wie tief Deine Wege !
.
OS had always a relatively strong US routing - Asia came historically via the consolidation of Lauda in the early 2000s.
And "Focus East " eg Eastern Europe was their straetgy pre - acquisition - which led to the 2 bn debt they had at the time LH bought them.
So OS has rather mainstream markets but no niches, whilst SN has niche markets and within the group these are protected, means no other brand is flying there.
Now - your BOS. You can fly there and even transfer trough any other airport the JV partner is flying, eg in UK or Ireland, no need to look after the hubs. And you ticket and money will still stay within the JV of the group.
So, you need to see United and Air Canada in the bigger picture as well and decisions are taken also counting their needs .
Now to the 321LR or XLR.
- first of all, all aircraft in the group are acquired centrally and than allocated to the brands
- as of today, there was no decision for the 321LR, but there were rumors that the 321XLR was developed to allow Airbus to sell into LH group as well
- nevertheless, ITA has 10 ordered so if their operations would be a success in the target niche markets they plan to serve ( Middle East markets where they can't fill a 339), there may by an open window for others in the group as well
- but... as usual, this would mean that the respective brand would need some critical mass of aircraft in it's own fleet adn have the resources to pay the lease rates as the market offers brand new only and show the group that the EUR invested brings more return than somewhere else
Under current market conditions the leae rate of a brand new A321XLR or LR may be higher than of a 12 years old A333 .. so than why go for small solutions?