Brussels Airlines adventure in Africa

[DannyVDB]

- there is still no re-newed bilateral agreement allowing BRU Air to fly more than 5x week between BRU and FIH.

They might have their own 5x weekly flights and use the new company to have 2 additional flights to go daily?

The rest of your post is even not worth replying ... Sabena for a very long time, SNBA for some years now and several other European/non-European airlines are running succesfully routes to/from similar airports within similar circumstances ... That is exactly the strength of (some of) those companies.

Regards,
Danny

[FLY4HOURS.BE]

- All Congolese domestic airports are in a miserable condition (bad runways and airport equipment and buildings, ...)

Who says they'gonna fly domestic with that feeder?

Kinshasa's choice is less a political or structural matter than strategical.
Take a map of Africa and look...
where is Kinshasa? Right in the middle of the continent... which is the most ideal position for a feeder airline. They can travel anywhere within Africa without needing mid-range aircraft. From there even the Avro's can serve most of Africa.

It s true that the country is subject to alot of corruption.
But corruption is often a result of lack of money.
If SN brings this airline in, Kinshasa is gonna earn money on that, alot of money, avoiding the corruption part.
If there are no fences around the airport, such a small "SN" hub could make sure there will be enough money to build a fence.
At least around the airline's airplanes...for safety's sake

A good example is Dakar, Senegal.
It has fences and good structures. It was not like this 15 years ago.
It was a desert of sand.
It changed when big airlines started to fly there.

And what s gonna make sure there will be no problems with politics, most of all? The Mauritian status of the airline.
That's what's going to make sure the money can get out of Congo. Actually it will even never get into Congo but goes directly to Mauritius.

Aviation au Congo : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eUxpDnRfBI

Hewa Bora Airways CEO is on it and gives a good impression!!

[JOVAN]

- there is still no re-newed bilateral agreement allowing BRU Air to fly more than 5x week between BRU and FIH.

They might have their own 5x weekly flights and use the new company to have 2 additional flights to go daily?

The rest of your post is even not worth replying ... Sabena for a very long time, SNBA for some years now and several other European/non-European airlines are running succesfully routes to/from similar airports within similar circumstances ... That is exactly the strength of (some of) those companies.

Regards,
Danny

Kabila describes the situation very well. His remarks are very to the point.

How long will it take before again there is a problem in the Belgium-Congolese love story ??

Look back at the history of the last 10-15 years.

I would not invest a penny in this country.

[Atlantis]

Its very, very strange that always the same people have a lot of critics on certain companies of our country. Even when a Belgian airline announce to invest and create a whole new airline in a very difficult continent like Africa, then they spit on it.

I would say, good job Brussels Airlines, take all the changes you have to compete with the competitors.

Its easy to give critics, for some people its normal, because they are very simple and narrow minded. If you are not in the business or no interest in aviation, then look for an other forum where you can bash at 100%

[FLY4HOURS.BE]

For once I gree with Atlantis

[LX-LGX]

Although I wish Brussels Airlines success with this Kinshasa venture, I have serious doubts if this will bring them lots of fortunes and this for several reasons:
- How 'democratic' is the DRC at this time; although they have a democratic elected president and government, there is no sign of any improvement of the administration and justice departments (2 crucial institutions to operate a safe airline and where you can get help from if there is a dispute with whatever person)

(...)

- don't get tempted by corruption to get something done... because once you pay and get trapped in the system, you can't get out. And you need to come up with higher an higher fees.

Good luck !!!

Sure. Indeed. You're right (as always).

Nostradamus also has predicted your doom scenario. In 1555.

[Atlantis]

According to the latest, Hewa Bora Airlines will cease their direct operations between Kinshasa and Brussels. Brussels Airlines will be the only operator between those two cities.
Hewa Bora is going to operate with B737 and Bae146 in Congo and arround. Those flights will connect with the intercontinental flights of Brussels Airlines with further connections to Europe, United States, India and Asia.

The question is, what will happen with the single B767 of Hewa Bora? Will Bru Air take over this aircraft under Belgian registration and use this aircraft for the direct connection? Or are they still going to use the A330 in combination with an other African city?

[FLY4HOURS.BE]

If Hewa Bora stops operating this route it maybe means SN can secure those slots.

And if I m not misinformed the B767 is stored in BRU at the moment:

http://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-b767-23178.htm

I have no idea of what their plans are but the fact that it s stored in BRU might mean it is getting registered here as you suggest.

Interesting...
These 762-ER carry 22O pax on 6500nm range.

Just speculating: A kind of exchange: Avro's for B767? That would make sense as SN needs the long-hauls more than the short-hauls, and it's the other way around for Bora.

[brussels airlines]

An official press release can now be founded at the Brussels Airlines corporate website.

[Ducatibiker]

Hope they have 180° flat beds in this B767 !

[lumumba]

Hi everybody.
If you want to make a booking in December and after you have a flight every day to FIH.(not in the timetable)
I'm flying this week-end to Kinshasa I will try to get some INFO.
Regards
patrice

[TCAS_climb]

Hurray... Hurray, for the single company who injects money in a project that's blacklisted even before it's off the ground !!! That's going to improve their brand !



Ok, just kidding, we all know that individual airlines can leave the "dark side of the list" if they demonstrate their compliance with regulations despite a blanket ban for a whole country.

But still, they'll be competing with companies who don't pay much attention to the rules. It's going to be tough.

[FLY4HOURS.BE]

Yeah it's gonna be tough for the other airline's too, because many people over there are ready to pay extra for the safety.

[camel]

Yeah it's gonna be tough for the other airline's too, because many people over there are ready to pay extra for the safety.

Yes I think people of Congo will be happy to board a safe aircraft with good connections to europe. Feeding the FIH-BRU flights with the local airline results in a better loadfactor on the bru.air european sector. I think it's a win-win situation...

[TCAS_climb]

How about meeting in 18 months and have a drink while looking at the results of this experiment ?


Domestic flights are currently full of people who can't afford "safety" (i.e. higher price & more restrictions) and of people who would afford "safety"... if they could, but there's no tangible option at this time.

[Ducatibiker]

Looks like Business Class to Kin is going to be quite full...with Brussels Airlines managers eager to escape the B.mess they have created in Europe.

[tolipanebas]

Let me give you a brief overview of what I think we be the plan of SN, based on observation, facts, pieces of inside knowledge and pure guessing.

Contrary to Hewa Bora, the new airline (dubbed 'NEO' for the time being) will focus far more on international than domestic flights, as these are generally more lucrative, less open to competition and can attract greater numbers of connecting pax.

Currently HBA's only international flights are not realy of great interest to SN.
They are:
-) a once weekly flight to Brussels,
-) a flight to Johannesburg via Lubumbashi (maybe the only one which would make some sense to offer through code share)
-) an omnibus route up North in Central Africa: Brazzaville-Douala-Lagos-Lome.
The rest of their flights is aimed at domestic destinations, often linked by omnibus routes, which again are not really interesting for SN.

What I think will happen is that the new airline will axe some of the smaller intermediate stops on the domestic routes and link the big centres with FIH directly and at the same time focus its attention on new international routes in Central Africa.

To give you an exemple: LUANDA.
Only an hour flight from FIH, it is a highly lucrative destination for SN (and in fact any other European airline), yet sadly it is restricted to a once weekly flight (flown on sunday) under the bilateral.
SN could start to offer several weekly connections to Luanda through their Kinshasa hub as the Congolese airline has a right to higher frequencies, something which it currently doesn't use as there is very few local traffic on the route. And BRU-FIH-LAD isn't even a detour, so it wouldn't be that far stretched to offer it.

Same for other international destinations in the vicinity of FIH really, like Pointe-Noire for instance, which is a niche destination for Air France thanks to high yielding oil companies: an SN flight through FIH would probably do well.

And there are others like those (anybody has other suggestions?), for which I am convinced we will see several of these make their appearance in the SN time table of 2008, all with one or two weekly frequencies (flown on B737), while the 2 BAe146s fly the daily domestic schedule.

So far, my previous predictions have not been far off:
-) the mauritian venture is just a leasing firm which will provide the new airline with the planes, and no actual flying will be done overthere
-) the focus was on FIH, not KGL (which could still see a smaller feeder project next year BTW)
-) the BRU-FIH flight will become daily as of December (hence its omission in the press release on the increased services to AFI)
-) etc. etc.
So I am excited to see if I am right this time as well.

[DannyVDB]

Hi tolipanebas,

I also think it will go in this direction. Domestic flights to Lubumbashi, Kisangani and a few others.

I also think about Libreville as international route, eventually Bangui.

Regards,
Danny

[tolipanebas]

I also think about Libreville as international route, eventually Bangui.

I don't know about BGF (Bangui) really.
BGF is served by Air France only once weekly on A330-200, their smallest wide body plane, so demand must be very low and the only reason for AF to serve BGF is said to be the in large French military presence in the Central African Republic: ZERO chances of SN capturing even a small portion of this niche market in my view.

Besides and more generally, offering destinations well NORTH of FIH to pax coming in from Europe has the huge disadvantage one is flying many extra miles on silly detours (and thus loosing time and burning expensive fuel), so I doubt SN will offer (m)any connections in that direction.

I think we have to look more to the SOUTH, EAST and WEST.

LBV (Libreville) would make more sense as new destination, as it is relatively nearby, situated in a north easterly direction from FIH and apparently sees good demand, with Air France serving the city 4 times weekly on B777. No surprise really as Gabon too is an oil rich country, and Libreville is on the coast, just like PNR which I gave as an example of a good future destination before...

[ambrew]

Asuming FIH becomes an b.air hub operating Avro. Will the company develop it's own maintenace facilities in FIH or use the existing Hewa Bora ones ?