2010 Charleroi Airport (CRL) latest news

[cnc]

Flight EF 861 to tozeur yesterday
Flight EF 862 From Tozeur today

Anyone have an idea? It seems a charter flight..... Who is EF?
Thanks guys

this is what CA/EF gave me

EF FEA Far Eastern Air

somehow i doubt this carrier visits CRL

[sean1982]

The aircrafts markings said "strategic", but I have never heard of such a company. Also the pax didn't know where they were going. Check-in desks as the airport said "destination mystère"

[mitsuo.namen]

Thanks
Maybe a special flight. i didn't find information about " EF " and why a flight to tozeur....
Strange.... i only know FR,W6,JAF,JFU,3O,FHY,OB

[cnc]

well you made me curious though
c'mon there must be someone here who works at CRL and knows more

[mitsuo.namen]

is it the same plane ( Strategic airlines ) who had some problems at Lyon airport last week?

ps: It flew 20min ago over my house ( floreffe, Malonne ) The plane is almost all white. I think, it's an old A320 or somethink like that because it was noisy. A lot of noisy than Ryanair and JAF ( who fly very low near Namur)

[sean1982]

Yes, I saw it taxiing in in CRL yesterday while at work. It's definatly an airbus A320, the aircraft reg was F-GSTS

[cnc]

so strategic is a new french airline with 2 A322's if my sources are correct.
i still doubt the airline 2 char code is EF though

[RoMax]

Strategic Airlines is a charter airline based in Brisbane, Australia, but it has both Australian and French AOC (operating charters and wet leasing in Europe and Asia-Pacific). It has 1 A332 and 6 A320's. Two of it's A320's has a french registration, F-GSTS (the one sean1982 has seen) is one of them. But their codes are IATA: VC and ICAO: AGC...

But it is a charter airline, so I suppose they operated under the code of another airline and the code of that airline for wich it was operating should be EF.

BTW: Both their French registrated A320's operated for a few years for Thomas Cook as OO-TCM (until 2007, since 08/2009 with Strategic)and OO-TCL(until 2008, since 07/2009 with Strategic). Between the time they left Thomas Cook they flew for Aerolineas Argentinas and in 2009 they went to Strategic. Their A332 is an ex-Sabena aircraft. After Sabena it operated for LH and LX and then went to Strategic. It has still the Sabena interior.

[kleineboy]

Air Arabia

Winterschedule

Tuesday and saturday: Casablanca - Fes - Charleroi
Thursday : Casablanca - Oujda -Charleroi

source: http://www.goedkoopvliegenclub.nl/pageID_4933112.html

[sdbelgium]

According to http://airlineroute.net/2010/08/02/3o-w10/, Air Arabia will be cancelling CRL alltogether.

[kleineboy]

This is not true.

At the moment can you book Air Arabia flights from Charleroi

[Desert Rat]

In French:

Ariane 5

http://www.lavenir.net/article/detail.a ... d=38951109

[mitsuo.namen]

http://www.pagtour.net/actualite/cp-mal ... index.html

[sn26567]

http://www.pagtour.net/actualite/cp-mal ... index.html

In English: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=42728

[Boeing767copilot]

As per 31st of October 2010 Air Arabia Maroc offers 3 weekly connections between Brussels (instead of Brussels South Charleroi) and Casablanca. New destinations from Brussels Airport are the Moroccan cities of Fez and Oujda.

[cnc]

did they gave a reason for the switch from CRL to BRU?

[Atlantis]

did they gave a reason for the switch from CRL to BRU?

We all know that Ryanair doesn't like competition with other carriers. I think that they are now smilling that Air Arabia is leaving CRL.

But Air Arabia was not a real competition for Ryanair and Jet4You because of no daily flights.
Casablanca is a daily flight ex-BRU with Royal Air Maroc but Fez and Oujda are also not daily ex-BRU.
So from a point of view of Air Arabia it's better to fly from Brussels Airport and expand their ops over there.

[Desert Rat]

The morrocan population is not that big in CRL, in comparison with Brussels, reason why they moved closer to their "main" customers.

[Propwash]

CRL victim of it's own success?

Article (HLN.be) in Dutch Luchthaven van Charleroi raakt oververzadigd

BTW from september 2nd, FR will open a new route CRL - BCN (FR6393 and return FR6392).
Price return ticket (1 adult) € 181,40.

[airazurxtror]

According to "Le Soir", this morning, page 19 :
Air Arabia had too many rivals at Charleroi competing for traffic to Marocco (Jet4you, Jetairfly, Ryanair) and didn't succed in taking a sufficient part of the market (it carried only 50.000 CRL passengers since may 2009).
To enhance the profits, Air Arabia wanted to carry perishable goods as freight - but CRL is not licensed for that kind of freight, as it has no refrigerated warehouse.
Air Arabia will thus fly from Brussels to Casablanca thrice per week - via Fez on tuesday and saturday, via Oujda on thursday.