BeOnTop Airlines - Liège Airport

[a380bigbeast]

@an-148: concerning our strategy, I clearly prefer speakin' of "hub and spoke" instead of feeding, and especially "reverse hub and spoke" to specific directions ...

@Toplipanebas: air trafic will doubled all 15 years (Airbus projection), so why not consider that the airports capacity can never followed ... so why not LGG: open H24, ILS Cat3, longest runway, ...

Hello Mr Beontop,

I see what a hub and spoke is but I can't imagine what a reverse hub and spoke looks like. Can you please elaborate? Also, can you share where these spokes are going to/coming from?

[andorra-airport]

I can't imagine what a reverse hub and spoke looks like. Can you please elaborate? ?

Neither did I "a380bigbeast" To be honest I did some google. They said that NorthWest (NW) is a reverse hub and spoke in Amsterdam. And EVA airways too : reversed hub system”, explains Philippe Leysen, S&M Manager of EVA Airways Belgium, “we bring our passengers from Europe to our hub Bangkok, from where they have direct, fast and numerous connections within our Asian network.” (being Taipei nr.1 hub for them)

Not that that made much sense to me.



Maybe he wants to be Liege to become a hub, but also a "spoke" to another hub or hubs?

[Conti764]

@an-148: concerning our strategy, I clearly prefer speakin' of "hub and spoke" instead of feeding, and especially "reverse hub and spoke" to specific directions ...

@Toplipanebas: air trafic will doubled all 15 years (Airbus projection), so why not consider that the airports capacity can never followed ... so why not LGG: open H24, ILS Cat3, longest runway, ...

Hello Mr Beontop,

I see what a hub and spoke is but I can't imagine what a reverse hub and spoke looks like. Can you please elaborate? Also, can you share where these spokes are going to/coming from?

My best guess: an airline with a base at a certain airport (in this case LGG) flying to (major) hubs from other carriers and feeding those partner airlines with Belgian pax from LGG... Am I close?

[a380bigbeast]

Thanks for your thoughts gents.

[Stij]

air trafic will doubled all 15 years (Airbus projection), so why not consider that the airports capacity can never followed ... so why not LGG: open H24, ILS Cat3, longest runway, ...

Right, so why don't you start thinking about your airline when BRU, DUS are CGN are saturated? If I'm not mistaken, BRU (your biggest competitor) can easily double its capacity.

Cheers,

Stij

[Saint Ex]

If I'm not mistaken, BRU (your biggest competitor) can easily double its capacity.

You are being mistaken !

[BeOnTop]

@a380bigbeast
Please consider this as an "example" of "reverse hub and spoke":
You make a flight till A-DAM from Charleroi in the morning, your average market will have a connection with the KLM hub, and you'll have (i hope) a quite good load factor, probably 65% of clients, thanks to the hub' connections! Now coming back, you will not have a lot of clients.
But if coming back, you have a flight till Carcasonne (or any other specific routes that KLM hub doesn't make), included in an interline agreement, you'll have a "reverse hub and spoke" ... (surely not with Ry, but ...)
And so, you develop your traffic adding the both average market ...
Now you can imagine all other connections ...

@at St ex : Indeed sir, I can believe that BRU Airport can be developed, bigger planes let more slots free, but let's ask driver from Antwerp or Leuven if they will agree waiting 30% of time more in their car. It will be the highways that doesn't follow ...

[Desert Rat]

Thanks for the clarifications, although it will be difficult for us to find out who could be the potential partner's....at least, I'm pretty confident that it will not be a star alliance one....Bru being too close......

[BeOnTop]

You're right Desert rat, BRU & Brussels airport will gona begin a "reverse hub and spoke" of Lufthansa with all his african connections and his know-how in this matter ..., and I think Conti764 is not far from the solution: who tell you that we will try to make Brussels or RY destinations..? We never said that ...
Please note: Last time I've spoke with the general Lufthansa marketing manager, he told me he has a great fear not to be able to find clients for their new A380 hub... So, for them, everybody's welcome, even those that are not in the alliance ... and for those, to find for them new slots is not a problem!

[a380bigbeast]

@a380bigbeast
Please consider this as an "example" of "reverse hub and spoke":
You make a flight till A-DAM from Charleroi in the morning, your average market will have a connection with the KLM hub, and you'll have (i hope) a quite good load factor, probably 65% of clients, thanks to the hub' connections! Now coming back, you will not have a lot of clients.
But if coming back, you have a flight till Carcasonne (or any other specific routes that KLM hub doesn't make), included in an interline agreement, you'll have a "reverse hub and spoke" ... (surely not with Ry, but ...)
And so, you develop your traffic adding the both average market ...
Now you can imagine all other connections ...

@at St ex : Indeed sir, I can believe that BRU Airport can be developed, bigger planes let more slots free, but let's ask driver from Antwerp or Leuven if they will agree waiting 30% of time more in their car. It will be the highways that doesn't follow ...

Wel, well. Thanks for your comment.

In your example, what would be the routing? Crl-ams-ccf-ams-crl or crl-ams-crl-ccf-crl-am-scrl? In the first case, crl would just be one of the spoke whose hub would be ams. In the second case, doing ccf-ams with a stop in crl is not terrific for customers...

[Homo Aeroportus]

@BeOnTop,

I'm sure you know that AF has 3 daily flights between AMS and TLS, a small town 1-hour drive from Carcassonne.
140 EUR return.



Reggae Man, Reggae.

H.A.

[Acid-drop]

i'm lost with this whole reverse hub and spoke :

You make a flight till A-DAM from Charleroi in the morning, your average market will have a connection with the KLM hub, and you'll have (i hope) a quite good load factor, probably 65% of clients, thanks to the hub' connections! Now coming back, you will not have a lot of clients.

I don't see why you would have less clients on the way back. All clients that left to AMS have to go back some day ... using the same path, isn't it ? If it's for long haul, you'll have return client are any time, not only in the evening.

But if coming back, you have a flight till Carcasonne (or any other specific routes that KLM hub doesn't make), included in an interline agreement, you'll have a "reverse hub and spoke" ... (surely not with Ry, but ...)
And so, you develop your traffic adding the both average market ...

Ok for that leg, but what about the way to come back at the base : Carcasonne - Charleroi ? that would be a small load factor again

BRU & Brussels airport will gona begin a "reverse hub and spoke" of Lufthansa with all his african connections

To me it looks like BRU is just another lufthansa hub ... do you call it "reverse hub and spoke" because it's a different company that actually do the flights ?

he told me he has a great fear not to be able to find clients for their new A380 hub..

Liège-Guillemins is already quite well connected to FRA with a 3 daily ICE high speed train direct into the airport in 2h20. Or you are talking about munchen ? or Zurich ?

And one more question : will you be part of an alliance ?
When I buy a plane ticket, I never make the connections myself (maybe I should ?), I just take the connection suggested by the company.

[Desert Rat]

@BeOnTop,

I'm sure you know that AF has 3 daily flights between AMS and TLS, a small town 1-hour drive from Carcassonne.
140 EUR return.



Reggae Man, Reggae.

H.A.

it was just an example I think.

[andorra-airport]

When I buy a plane ticket, I never make the connections myself (maybe I should ?), I just take the connection suggested by the company.

If you choose your connection by yourself (other airline, other alliance) then in most cases you have to buy separate tickets. Might be a problem when there is a delay.

[Desert Rat]

You need indeed to be very lucky, I did it once in toronto between an Etihad flight and a westjet one ...I didn't have any problems but....in case of trouble or delay, that's another story!

[Stij]

@at St ex : Indeed sir, I can believe that BRU Airport can be developed, bigger planes let more slots free, but let's ask driver from Antwerp or Leuven if they will agree waiting 30% of time more in their car. It will be the highways that doesn't follow ...

Thank-you for the Leuven example, because that's... me! The train dude, the train! Even without traffic jams, I'll still take the train, no parking fee and you arrive under the terminal, one elevator and you're there. In 2 years Antwerp and a lot more citys will be connected very well to Bru's railway station.

Even more about Antwerp: try catching an evening flight at LGG when coming by car from Antwerp... you'll take the train to Bru!

Seriously, I think your "feeding", "reverse hub and spoke system" or whatever you may call it will only work when BRU is saturated... and that's far away. Besides, when BRU starts to become saturated, slots will become more expensive and airliners will start flying to LGG, ANR, CRL and (long shot) OST for that reason. I'll take it even a bit further: IMHO in a not so distant future, the EU will forbid flights to destinations under 1 hour flying if a good HST connection is available. The consequence for Belgium would be that all flights to AMS, CDG, LHR and FRA (the 4 most important European hubs) would have to be stopped anyway.

Cheers,

Stij

[Acid-drop]

I don't think the future of regional airport is linked to BRU.
The congestion is only one advantage of LGG or CRL. Night flights, no slots, cheap parkings for pax, cheap fees/tax, subsidies, human size, ... these are all nice differences

but in the end, the 2 most important points for the pax are : the destination list and the price.

[Stij]

I don't think the future of regional airport is linked to BRU.
The congestion is only one advantage of LGG or CRL. Night flights, no slots, cheap parkings for pax, cheap fees/tax, subsidies, human size, ... these are all nice differences

but in the end, the 2 most important points for the pax are : the destination list and the price.

Might I add distance and frequency?

Cheers,

Stij

[Conti764]

@a380bigbeast
Please consider this as an "example" of "reverse hub and spoke":
You make a flight till A-DAM from Charleroi in the morning, your average market will have a connection with the KLM hub, and you'll have (i hope) a quite good load factor, probably 65% of clients, thanks to the hub' connections! Now coming back, you will not have a lot of clients.
But if coming back, you have a flight till Carcasonne (or any other specific routes that KLM hub doesn't make), included in an interline agreement, you'll have a "reverse hub and spoke" ... (surely not with Ry, but ...)
And so, you develop your traffic adding the both average market ...
Now you can imagine all other connections ...

Many European carriers 'sacrifice' their European routes only to feed the long haul flights which will return more revenue. They take their losses on the European flight only to make more profit on the long haul flights. Pax flying point to point in Europe pay much more for the flight in comparison to a passenger transfering trough a hub of that same airline to fly long haul.

If you want to feed those airlines, you'll have to do it at prices which are at least as low as those offered by the airline you feed into and it will bite into your revenue and profitability. If not, the airline would choose to put those pax either on their own flight or, if unavailable, on a partner airlines flight.

With all due respect, but I don't see this project succeeding.

[tolipanebas]

@a380bigbeast
Please consider this as an "example" of "reverse hub and spoke":
You make a flight till A-DAM from Charleroi in the morning, your average market will have a connection with the KLM hub, and you'll have (i hope) a quite good load factor, probably 65% of clients, thanks to the hub' connections! Now coming back, you will not have a lot of clients.
But if coming back, you have a flight till Carcasonne (or any other specific routes that KLM hub doesn't make), included in an interline agreement, you'll have a "reverse hub and spoke" ... (surely not with Ry, but ...)
And so, you develop your traffic adding the both average market ...
Now you can imagine all other connections ...

Many European carriers 'sacrifice' their European routes only to feed the long haul flights which will return more revenue. They take their losses on the European flight only to make more profit on the long haul flights. Pax flying point to point in Europe pay much more for the flight in comparison to a passenger transfering trough a hub of that same airline to fly long haul.

If you want to feed those airlines, you'll have to do it at prices which are at least as low as those offered by the airline you feed into and it will bite into your revenue and profitability. If not, the airline would choose to put those pax either on their own flight or, if unavailable, on a partner airlines flight.

With all due respect, but I don't see this project succeeding.

Not to mention that all of the big network carriers have regional jets and/or props which they could theoretically deploy on a route to LGG, yet none of them is doing so... Why's that you think?
Best guess: because the expected feed from a place like LGG isn't enough to justify even a daily ATR/Q400 right now...

If the core of the BoT business plan is indeed about focussing on 10 or so connecting pax per trip to whatever hub(s) they may serve, which is a realistic estimation of the transfer pax they can expect BTW, based on what I see as average feed per flight at a STAR alliance airline like SN, then good luck to them!

Allow me to suggest to start with a Metroliner or similar, iso an A318, just like OLT or Air Valléé for instance, because these 2 small airlines are doing exactly what BoT wants to do too: feed alliance hubs as non-affiliated carrier from a small niche regional airport....

Interestingly enough, small turboprops are also exactly the kind of planes which nearby startup airline "Wings Of Maatstricht" is planning on operating on its soon to be launched feeder routes to AMS, MUC and LON in the hope to feed those hubs with free flowing connecting traffic from the very same region as BoT is aiming it...