5th A330 for Brussels Airlines

[sn26567]

Alternatively, it would leave room to add an additional frequency to 2 existing destinations, or add something entirely new even (albeit once weekly might be quite low on frequency).

Last summer there have been some A330 flights to Tel Aviv. Could it also be the case this year?

[sn26567]

Main points:

• BRU-VIE schedule will be adjusted after codeshare
• No codeshare in the pipeline with SAS and TK
• 5th A330 will indeed come from Malaysia
• 5th A319 in April and 6th in June

• The 5th A330 will be painted in SN colours, not Star Alliance colours

[BrightCedars]

In the whole widebody program, how many days will the members of the fleet of soon five spend at home?

1 to 2 days per week are definitely needed to roster routine maintenance, the rest could be potential, if any.

[BrightCedars]

Personally, as a sidenote, I think it is odd there is no service added to Bamako, which used to be paired with Ouagadougou by Sabena, and served 3 times weekly.

I don't think SN will take the risk to start these destinations outright. They will build up a strong point like ABJ which will then enable them to add such destinations as BKO and tweak the triangles.

[Bottie]

Can anyone confirm the registration will be OO-SFV?

Should be correct.

[134flyer]

First of all, great to hear about the official announcement of the expansion!

Looking at the new schedule and the frequencies of the 4 additional destinations, it looks like SN is going to keep an A330 available in BRU one day per week.

Purely theoretically, imagine the 5th A330 is going to serve exclusively all the newly announced routes (I know it is going to be rotated through the network, but come on, just for reasoning purposes, assume this to be the case), then it is going to operate 4 times on Accra-Lome or Accra-Cotonou (theoretical pairings indeed, but again, juft for reasoning), and 2 times per week on Ouagadougou-Abidjan, meaning it is going to be available one day per week, probably for maintenance.

Alternatively, it would leave room to add an additional frequency to 2 existing destinations, or add something entirely new even (albeit once weekly might be quite low on frequency).

When my calculations are correct (and please correct me if I'm wrong), currently SN operates 4 A330's 3 days a week & 3 A330's 4 days a week. With the new schedule it will be 4 A330's 5 days a week & 5 A330's 2 days a week, so apart from maintenance & back-up there should be some room for even more expansion, like you pointed out.

Personally, as a sidenote, I think it is odd there is no service added to Bamako, which used to be paired with Ouagadougou by Sabena, and served 3 times weekly.

Yes, even though SN announced four new destinations (which is more than I expected), I was wondering as well about Bamako. But as mentioned, there is probably room for even more expansion without adding an additional (sixth) A330.

[RoMax]

I suppose they will indeed some space for expansion even without a sixth A330. I remember me that SN upgraded some destinations this winter (Dakar, Banjul, Luanda (not sure about this)). So they had with their four A333's some space for expansion before this winter, so I suppose they will have some space for expansion with this new airplane even with these four new routes. Maybe an upgrade or 1 new route at the end of this year.

[EICAS]

When my calculations are correct (and please correct me if I'm wrong), currently SN operates 4 A330's 3 days a week & 3 A330's 4 days a week. With the new schedule it will be 4 A330's 5 days a week & 5 A330's 2 days a week, so apart from maintenance & back-up there should be some room for even more expansion, like you pointed out.

Correct.

[Atlantis]

Can anyone confirm the registration will be OO-SFV?

That seems correct.

[jessy]

Does anybody know which A333 will be painted in Star Alliance colours since the new addition won't be?
Would be a GE powered one then cause I don't think that they repaint SFW since it already wears the new SN colours thus the only logical solution would be painting the new addition as it should be painted anyway or if they don't take the new addition to repaint a hybrid bird ...

And I'm pretty sure there will be one in SA colours:

source: http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0eV ... G/610x.jpg

[RoMax]

Does anybody know which A333 will be painted in Star Alliance colours since the new addition won't be?
Would be a GE powered one then cause I don't think that they repaint SFW since it already wears the new SN colours thus the only logical solution would be painting the new addition as it should be painted anyway or if they don't take the new addition to repaint a hybrid bird ...

SN already said they will not paint the new one in the Star colors. So I expect they will paint one of the 3 hybrid color A333 in the Star colors when one of them will go in maintenance.

[tangolima]

Hello,

Will be delivered 10th of March.
He is coming in from KUL

Registration will be OO-SFV ( ex. 9M-MKR)

Greetings,
Kristof

[jan_olieslagers]

I understand that SN reserved OO-SFV indeed, but also OO-SFY and OO-SFZ - feeding the hopes for further A330's to come.

[RoMax]

I understand that SN reserved OO-SFV indeed, but also OO-SFY and OO-SFZ - feeding the hopes for further A330's to come.

Do you mean SN reserved the registrations OO-SFY and OO-SFZ so that no other company could use this registration?

Actually I think SN will fly with 6-8 A330's at the end of 2011. With maybe even one/two American destinations.

[airbuske]

Why they don't offer for example one or two flight to AMS to steal some pax from KLM/Skyteam?

[RoMax]

Why they don't offer for example one or two flight to AMS to steal some pax from KLM/Skyteam?

I think they will mainly use the train to get passengers from AMS to BRU.

[airbuske]

For the moment there's no direct connection between AMS and BRU.
Maybe they can put their code on the Thalys when the Diabolo project is finished?
If the Thalys will stop at Bru off course...

[MAM]

Why they don't offer for example one or two flight to AMS to steal some pax from KLM/Skyteam?

I think they will mainly use the train to get passengers from AMS to BRU.

I've read that LH is thinking about launching a limo/taxi service from AMS to DUS or BRU in order to get C-class pax to fly with LH or SN.

[SN1203]

Will be delivered 10th of March.

"It will be delivered" shows a degree of certainty, so it would be nice if you mention your source if it's publicly available, which is (I assume) in this case a bad copy paste from Skyliner Aviation. They mention "Mar10" which is basically March 2010, and not the 10th of March. Skyliner is the only source mentioning this date btw, so I wouldn't take it as "confirmed" (especially as it isn't correct anyway).

[diminbru]

Will be delivered 10th of March.

"It will be delivered" shows a degree of certainty, so it would be nice if you mention your source if it's publicly available, which is (I assume) in this case a bad copy paste from Skyliner Aviation. They mention "Mar10" which is basically March 2010, and not the 10th of March. Skyliner is the only source mentioning this date btw, so I wouldn't take it as "confirmed" (especially as it isn't correct anyway).

Also on Wikipedia.org page of Malaysia Airlines