Montreal yul from bru and ?

[ERICAIRLINES]

We have seasonal air transat-TS flights (3x week) from may to oct..
Brussels Air will not fly to yul this year with the fourth airbus...maybe next year with the fith one..??
AC will not be back in BRU...no equipment available before 2009.
Rumours of Qatar flying doha-gva-bru-yul is also a no way.

Strange that with a so strong demand (even if low yield mainly),take a look at the bsp,we don't manage anymore, to have a daily bru-yul...as also a daily bru-jnb or even cpt.

Belgian community there is second largest(100.000+) after south africa (and for jnb we are in the very same situation !!)....lot of visit friends,families and relatives...lot of students,cultural and business potential too(bombardier,snc,alcan,quebecor,pratt and whitney,iata and oaci located in montreal,tourism is booming etc...)

Good connections are now available at YUL.The airport has been almost totaly rebuild,and have excellent facilities.

Perfect bet would be and AC/Ba codeshare ops...providing good connections in brussels to Africa and europe,and same at yul for canada and the usa...
But AC being a member of star alliance ...very unlikely.
There should be a gap to fill for emirates,qatar,or etihad there...or even ethiopian or jet airways


Both JNB and YUL are good for 60.000 pax a year at least...

I can't believe that cry or nsi are more interesting ...

[tolipanebas]

I can't believe that cry or nsi are more interesting ...

I can:
Just do a search on www.brusselsairlines.com for a set of random quotes to get an idea of the average ticket price to these places...

Good luck if you think you'll easily find a one way economy ticket for under 1,500 euro somewhere before the end of the year!!!!

Now do the same on http://www.air-transat.be/nl for flights between Brussels and Montreal which is roughly the same distance...

First thing you see on their website is the promotional offer on YUL-BRU: 391euro all in! And looking through their booking engine, you have ample choice of flights in the 500 euro range!

Starting to see the point???

Seat mile revenue is about 3 times as high on Africa as it is on North America!!!! SN would be NUTS to send their 4th widebody plane on such a low revenue destination like Montreal if they are convinced they can make 3 times more money with the same plane on Africa.

[sn-remember]

If I follow you well tolipanebas, sn should also abandon their european network since the yield there is too low ! (and will keep going lower the trends in Europe being on low fares).

So they would be happy to serve 3 or 4 daily routes to Africa and nothing else ... until the fares there get lower too.

And then that would leave no alternative but to close the business arguing that it has become impossible to make a profit

MOL must have a great LOL

BTW jnb offers high yields (up to now)
and the NAtlantic is a market that is expected to expand to the profit of LCCs as Europe did when it opened its skies leaving Ryanair conquering a lion share.
But was it not an ambition of sn to go partly low cost ?

Or did you read R. Branson's latest concept ?
https://www.aviation24.be/article14337.html

Best regards
Christophe

[TWA]

I suppose foreign operators (other than 9W) will start transatlantic flights out of BRU to North-American key destinations (Virgin, BA, AF/KL).

[JOVAN]

If I follow you well tolipanebas, sn should also abandon their european network since the yield there is too low ! (and will keep going lower the trends in Europe being on low fares).

So they would be happy to serve 3 or 4 daily routes to Africa and nothing else ... until the fares there get lower too.

And then that would leave no alternative but to close the business arguing that it has become impossible to make a profit

MOL must have a great LOL

BTW jnb offers high yields (up to now)
and the NAtlantic is a market that is expected to expand to the profit of LCCs as Europe did when it opened its skies leaving Ryanair conquering a lion share.
But was it not an ambition of sn to go partly low cost ?

Or did you read R. Branson's latest concept ?
https://www.aviation24.be/article14337.html

Best regards
Christophe

Quite right sn-remember; Brussels Airlines simply has a total lack of ambition and survives for the moment because of African operations.
How long this will continue depends on LH/ET and AF/KL.

2 or 3 years ????

Is a really impossible to have an airline in Belgium that serves 3 or 4 destinations in North America, and 2 or 3 in Asia ??? And JNB ???

We have indeed big Belgian communities in several cities like JNB, SHA, ..
We have HeadQuarters in Brussels for 1.000 of multinationals, there is tourist traffic, there is an enourmous catchment area 300-400 km from BRU.....


.

[ERICAIRLINES]

Why is AF flying to yul up to 3 times a day (4 starting in 2008)and will use the a380 later on the route ??
Af is not the kind of airline to loose money ..same for KL,BA,LH,Lx etc....

[JAF-195]

I can't understand why Air Canada don't fly to Bru. They nearly fly everywhere else in Europe. I think that AC should start to think about a Bru oportunity with either a B767 or a A330. I think it would work and that the planes would be full.

[tolipanebas]

Why is AF flying to yul up to 3 times a day (4 starting in 2008)and will use the a380 later on the route ??
Af is not the kind of airline to loose money ..same for KL,BA,LH,Lx etc....

I can feel the disappointment in your post, but really, when you have limited resourses like SN, you better deploy them there where you think you can make best use of them and it only takes a glance at the average ticket prices to see that this is in Africa.

Do not get me wrong: I am not pretending there is no market for a YUL flight. SN could easily fill such a daily flight, but as you have said yourself: AF are flying YUL 3 times a day and they are not the only one, so you already can imagine what that means for the yield on the potential BRU-YUL route SN should open according to you...

How low do you think SN would have to price their tickets to convince the average pax to take the daily SN flight over one of the 3 daily AF flights?

When you have it so hard to finance a 4th long haul plane as SN has, why waste it on low yield North Atlantic routes when you can deploy it on African routes which bring in 3 times as much money for the same investment AND have the added benefit they help you remain focussed on your core market segment.

I've critisized SN on many occasions before, but this time I feel they have taken a good decision by remaining focussed on what is their only chance to ever becoming an airline which can be an interesting bride for a future partner airline they will inevitably need.

I'd love to see SN have a daily YUL too, and add an evening JFK flight to that, take benefit of the boom in asia by serving a couple of Chinese and Indian destinations themself and why not return to NRT just as Sabena did, but the reality is this would warrant at least 7 more long haul planes for which there just isn't the money and even then, it would not help SN much along as they would be just another medium sized European airline trying to follow the beaten long haul path, probably with the same level of success as all their other likes then: Austrian, Malev....

Reality dictates no Belgian airline is ever going to sail the 7 seas alone as this takes just too much money and thus the best option for SN according to me is to build a long haul network specialized on ONE continent (Africa), so that they have a good chance of becoming attractive to investors (which they will need in the medium future) and a benchmark in their niche, pretty much like TAP is on Brasil for instance.

I've posted the new revised Africa schedule from SN in this related topic, good to know it for those interested in all the above:
sns-4th-a330-300-has-arrived-at-bru-t20 ... rt,80.html

[ERICAIRLINES]

It is true Tp is now focussing mainly on Brzil,which is a good bet for the future..
Sn on Africa... I agree also

But one think I can not accept ,is that airlines like(to name just a few)Finnair and Austrian (both smaller countries than belgium),can have on their network (from helsinki and vienna ,cities which are less important and central as Brussels is):tokjo,osaka,bombay,shnagai,beijing,hong kong etc etc..

Why is it possible to have such non stop flights from these two cities ,and not possible from BRU...Brussels being the capital of Europe,nato etc...

[TWA]

Indeed finnair's long haul fleet is booming, unbelievable achievement for such a small population in Finland.

Anyway SN can put their flightnumber again on lots of nonstop American and Canadian destinations thanks to the partnership with Jet Airways, who on their turn (that's what the rumour says) might take over SN in just a few years from now.

[JOVAN]

It is true Tp is now focussing mainly on Brzil,which is a good bet for the future..
Sn on Africa... I agree also

But one think I can not accept ,is that airlines like(to name just a few)Finnair and Austrian (both smaller countries than belgium),can have on their network (from helsinki and vienna ,cities which are less important and central as Brussels is):tokjo,osaka,bombay,shnagai,beijing,hong kong etc etc..

Why is it possible to have such non stop flights from these two cities ,and not possible from BRU...Brussels being the capital of Europe,nato etc...

Maybe we have to hire some Finnish managers, instead of 2nd hand Belgians who worked in 3rd line in some multinationals.
Finnair has Beijing, Shanghai, Guanghzou, Hong Kong ,Bangkok, Tokyo, Nagoya,...

And their MD-11's are full I can assure you.

How weak can we be in Belgium?

But we have good companies and good top-managers.

If you would put a Philippe Bodson on the reigns of SN, wouldn't that be better than the present CEO ?? We have plenty of successful managers with lon international experience. But they put Mr. Nobody's at the top.
Village people.

Can we really not look further than our clocktower?

Small country, small people.

.

[tolipanebas]

It is true TAP is now focussing mainly on Brazil,which is a good bet for the future..
SN on Africa... I agree also.

But one think I can not accept, is that airlines like(to name just a few)Finnair and Austrian (both smaller countries than belgium),can have on their network (from Helsinki and Vienna ,cities which are less important and central as Brussels is: Tokyo, Osaka, Bombay, Shangai, Beijing, Hong Kong etc etc..

Why is it possible to have such non stop flights from these two cities ,and not possible from BRU...Brussels being the capital of Europe,nato etc...

Let's first look at AY:

If you look at the map of the world my friend, you'll find that 8 out of 10 of AY's Asian destinations are situated in the NE part of Asia, meaning that Finnland pretty much lays under the ideal polar route from Europe to these places...
In short: AY's Asian network is focussed on making use of their geographical advantage and the airline has thus done pretty much the same excercise as SN: focus on ONE AREA where they think they are at a cler advantage and maximize on that. Same with their Indian flights: look up the route from the US to India and where it passes over....
You'll see it is no coincidence AY picks this area of the world as their domain, and not for instance South America.

I know that when you look at the names, places like Tokio, Shangai, Osaka etc may look to make more sense from a business point of view than Conakry, Abidjan, Entebbe to you, but I am glad to see SN is not stepping into the pitfall to go for the big names, but rather the big money makers by applying a clearcut method to find their core market.

AY will never open flights to CPT for instance and just as likely SN will never serve Seoul for pretty much the same reasons: no large enough domestic market, and no geografical/strategical/political advantage whatsoever to serve the route cheaper than the competition which does have the domestic market yet which doesn't benefit in full from an optimal geographical/strategical/political advantage.

Now to Austrian:

The indeed serve the places you named and just as clearly they do NOT have the domestic market NOR the geographical advantage AY has in serving them.... And guess what that does to their profitability: OS is loosing money, shedding half of its wide body fleet, witdrawing from some of the most unprofitiable Asian destinations and looking for other oportunities where they DO have some reason of being. The reason it doesn't work for them is exactly the same as the reason why it does work for AY: they are too much to the south and too far from the optimum route, meaning they have to fly 1 hour more which costs money, yet can't be charged to the pax as the competitor would then undercut them.

The lesson is that a destination which works for one, doesn't work for the other and one doesn't have to copy the list of destinations, but the strategical advantage which makes those destinations profitable at some airlines.

Imagine TP and AY would swap network for instance, with AY serving South America and TP going to Asia. I think we both agree it woudn't make sense, do we? Well then it should also be possible to understand less explicit exemples as why OS is wrong by wanting to serve much of the Northern Asian destinations they now serve and even why SN must maximize on their political/strategical and to some extend also geographical position and serve only Africa.

[Phatius]

Very nice analysis, tolipanebas!

I think that the route structure of an airline is based on numerous items. Most of the times historical ties are reflected in the network. Besides that, profitability and revenue are nowadays priorities number 1, and that's not only for a small(er) airline as Brussels Airlines. If you take a look at the intercontinental schedule changes carriers as BA, AF or LH make, you learn that not every (new) destination is making big $$$!

The big advantage SN has, is (and I know most people on this forum will not agree) that they had the guts to start routes to places where no other airlines dares to land!! Do you think that opening a route to BUJ, KGL, ROB or FNA takes just a few days of planning? Only the diplomatic part, operations, organizing to open offices/staff, negociate with local handlers, .... can take forever! For a YUL flight that takes probably only 5% of the effort, but also 5% of the revenue!

But such a strategy is a risky affair! If you loose a destination due to political unrest, you can easely loose the $$$ you earned during 3 months in a few days!

What will the future bring? Nobody knows, but I think that the first thing SN wants to proove is that they are THE carrier linking Africa with the world, and you can not do that with 3 330's!! Does this mean they will never fly to Asia or the USA? Off course not, if they spot a market with enough yields/revenue, they'll take their chances. But it's a good policy to first fortify your core market and diversify afterwards!

So if you want to go to YUL, take a AF/BA/LH/AC flight, and amadeus will show you that you have +40 possibities to reach it daily, and at very reasonable rates!

Best regards,

Phatius