LJ wrote:It looks like I'm probably the only one who isn't very positive about this new merger. Especially the idea to create a "low cost" section and a business section in the same plane can't be seen as a positive. It looks to me as a downgrade of the current SN product. Moreover as the few high paying economy pax don't want to pay their premiums anymore and thus yields on the new airline will go down. Needless to say image is valuable and I wonder how the new company wants to be perceived, is it a high service airline or a low service/low fare airline? You can't be both in the eyes of the customer.
I understand your concern regarding a downgrade of the service, but what if the new airline is able to keep the same service level as they offer today in their economy class? It is only my opinion, but I believe they still want to serve their economy pax of today. That class could be described as the premium class, for business people. The empty seats can be sold to price sensitive pax in a low-cost class. Some of you think that economy passengers of today will fly the low-cost class tomorrow and they can be right about that. But what if the airline decides to open only 10-20% of the seats for their low-cost class on business routes? That would mean that cheap seats will be sold fast and that all other pax only have the chance to buy a more expensive ticket with service. ( I don't mean at C-class prices, but at let's say the price of a regular Y ticket today). That would mean, that SN is able to keep the yields high enough and fill up the seats they don't sell today with cheap tickets. One thing seems to be sure, the new airline wants higher loads and maybe those are high enough to cope with the lower yield which can be expected because of not having a real C-class product anylonger.
Concerning the image, I believe that many airlines have more than 1 image. An airline with economy, business and even first class, has different service levels according to the class. By offering different classes they attract different kind of passengers, each with their own profile and desires. This makes me believe that even an airline as AF/KL has more than 1 image depending of the booking class. The new airline can have a full service perception for their premium class as the publicity for these seats won't be the same as for their low-fare pax. We'll have to wait and see how the new airline wants to be percepted. I only want to say that 1 class only airlines do only have 1 image.
LJ wrote:Finally, I wonder why they merge a more business full service airline with a more leisure oriented airline. If you look at the VEX route structure you have to agree that they have a totally diferent focus than SN. Thus if you merge you must either choose between the SN or VEX focus. Both would be stupid as leisure routes have different requirements than business routes (there is a reason why AF/KL still have Transavia and haven't merged it). In the end the best solution would have been to have both airlines in the air and follow the same principle AF/KL has followed, one airline for leisure oriented travel, one for the business destinations. Added bonus would be that you could have two sets of employee benefits and cover (and/or dominate) the entire Belgian aviation market.
I don't think you can compare the new airline to AF/KL flying from CDG/AMS. The BRU market is smaller, for both business and leisure pax. The new airline will be able to focus on both, which seems to be strange. But right now SN has an overcapacity during the summer season, when a lot of the business travellers are enjoying their holiday. TV on the other hand needs extra capacity during the summer to fly BRU pax to their holiday destinations. One company can deal better with these seasons, offcourse if they plan it well. As it is up to the management to make it work, let's see if they can succeed. I agree with you that leisure routes have other requirements than business routes. But by having 2 classes, they can still offer the best product to the market. The airline knows that they don't have to expect a lot of business travelers on those leisure routes and therefore I would suggest they open about 90% of the seats available in the low-cost class. It is just 1 airplane, the same seats, it is all just about moving the curtain and they should be able to monitor which seats are needed on each flight. One new airline can easily swith seasons and prevent things like this: TV leasing an SN plane during the summer, where TV's low-fare pax do get a full service flight contrary to other TV operated flights.
At this moment we don't know much about the new airline, but I only gave my reaction as there is also another possibility of how the new airline can work. We'll have to wait and see what future brings.
OO-VEX
) flag they are more or less British nowadays! And everybody knows that the market is entirely different over there!
