So, they want to do feeding large hubs in Europe?Acid-drop wrote:They want to be feeding up to 5 hubs in Europe to give up to 800 destinations, but they say feeding will not be their only goal.
Not just 1, but 5?
Meaning they are most likely not going to be affiliated to an alliance or anything, but rather a stand alone project, trying to serve large oneworld hubs (MAD?, LHR?, good luck getting in BTW) as well as Skyteam hubs (CDG?, FCO?) and STAR hubs (FRA?, MUC?, ZRH?, VIE?) then.
I don't know if they realize, but just flying to a large hub alone isn't going to bring much traffic for a stand alone airline. Just looking at the huge traffic volume at those hubs and hoping to take a sufficiently large part of it to make money is naive when you have no commercial agreement with the home carrier whatsoever.
And offering 800 destinations?
Year right, as if any network carrier in an alliance is going to open up its network to BeOnTop just like that!
Good luck trying to get the right to officially feed STAR airlines for instance, with SN just next door at BRU and the German border (and thus DUS) even nearer by! The market in the area between BRU, DUS and LUX (where LGG sits) is perfectly coverered by STAR through SN, LH (and LX). Oh, and the same goes for Oneword actually as BA serves the same 3 airports regularly from LHR. Even Skyteam isn't going to jump of joy for being able to attract feed from LGG to CDG or FCO, I am sure.
Reality is alliance airlines with large networks aren't waiting for freeflowing feed, they want to be fed by partner airlines so they can offer a smooth travel experience and sell the ticket as one!
Best example is SN when they served FRA as stand alone. SN flew to FRA twice daily (LH had 7 or 8 flights) and despite SN having much low fares than LH, the load wasn't great on RJ85 because the thing is people going to a hub do so mainly to catch a (longhaul) flight and almost always have a connecting flight booked with it through a PARTNER AIRLINE from the carrier they will be flying from that hub! That's how alliances work these days: they will almost give the connector flight for free, so what incentive would people still have to book that flight seperately on another airline like BeOnTop?
Feeding European hubs is quite a naive idea, IMHO, driven by the illfated assumption that where there is volume there must be opportunity to take a piece of the market. Sadly, it isn't the case, as most of the traffic is already locked off commercially and what remains (the point-to-point pax) can be attracted really cheaply by the network carriers because they already have both the frequency and the capacity for their connections anyway and can thus price everybody off the route without suffering as much from it as the competitor which lives of those point-to-point pax alone!
As example, have a look at the BRU-FRA, BRU-ZRH or BRU-VIE routes.
After the take-over from SN by LH, the EU demanded that LH put available slots on those routes to competitors, but 2 years after date still nobody dared to step in and for a very good reason (which I've explained above), but hey, maybe BeOnTop thinks they will be the only ones not caught in a catch 22 and can make it work? I wish them luck. LH will eat them alive with a price offensive from BRU, DUS and LUX.
