Last A330-200 flight at SWISS

[tolipanebas]

Assuming b.air will fly to NYC, if they fly to JFK they limit the number of pax practically to NYC BRU AFI.
If they flew out of EWR, they could alos benefit from connecting pax from other US cities, for instance ORD EWR BRU AFI or IAH EWR BRU AFI or DEN EWR BRU AFi to give just a few examples. I am very much aware tthat the purpose of the US flight(s) is to fly pax to/from AFI, not to fly pax from BRU to the US via NYC, but in order to fill the plane(s) they will need every pax they can get, as the market is very competitive and pax flying JFK BRU AFI will not be enough to fill an A332.

Just because an A332 joins the fleet at the time of them opening their first US route, doesn't automatically mean it is going to be that particular plane which is going to be sent over....

As to the origin of their loads as well as the total volume expected, consider this:
SN currently has 5 daily flights to AFI on A333 on most days of the week, while it is said almost 20% of our pax originate somewhere in North America: theoretically, 5 times 1/5th is a full load (on condition loadfactor on AFI is 100%, which it obviously isn't), but it's a good measure just to give you an idea of the total theoretical volume of transatlantic connecting pax SN can rely on even today and which is pretty much out of grab for any of the current transatlantic operators at BRU!

Of course, not all of our transatlantic pax come from the New York area neither, but it is by far out biggest single market in the US, so you can assume that as from the first day at least half the plane is going to be filled with connecting pax from New York and that is without taking into account another A330 on AFI or the fact SN will more easily manage to sell its AFI destinations in New York once it has its own flight there.

Ad some O&D to this and the last thing SN will want to do is to fill their plane with pax connecting on UA/CO: they will rather want to sell those remaining seats to their own connecting pax from allover the EU, but don't expect them to advertise the flight for very cheap, for very long abroad: at least not if the route is doing as expected.

As such, it really doesn't matter much where the flight ends in New York and whereas I agree with you EWR is more convenient if you want to go to Manhattan itself, JFK is still the prime gateway to New York for most ordinary people living there, as most people -especially Afro-Americans- don't normally live in wealthy and posh Manhattan...

[LJ]

they should send both A332s to EWR.

Thus you think it's wise to increase capacity on BRU-NYC by two additional flights.....where will they get their pax from (at a profitable level)?

BTW if I'm not mistaken SN still hasn't a joint venture with UA/CO/LH over the Atlantic (or have I missed something?). Why not increasing your efforts in a joint venture when Sn will never make it on its own.

[RoMax]

BTW if I'm not mistaken SN still hasn't a joint venture with UA/CO/LH over the Atlantic (or have I missed something?). Why not increasing your efforts in a joint venture when Sn will never make it on its own.

SN and all the JV partners jointly requested the American DoT to approve SN to join the JV. It was also said that they were expecting approval by year-end so that SN will be part of the JV by the time they start with their own flights to the US.
When BD and LX (or was it OS?) joined the joint-venture earlier this year, LH already confirmed that also SN is on the way to join the JV.

[Flanker]

Tolipanebas is right here on one key fact.
Don't expect UA/CO to cooperate too much with SN on feeding in EWR once SN takes over its Africa connections from UA/CO. As such it doesn't matter if SN comes to EWR or JFK.
If anything, pursuing a partnership with B6 (Jetblue) at JFK could be much more interesting for SN, given their extensive network and low fares.

I think that taking A332's instead of A333's was a good judgement call for as far as they intend to use them on this route.

I also stand by my point that SN would have been better off adding routes like Hong Kong and more routes to Africa instead of NYC. New York is already served by 5 daily frequencies by 4 airlines.
Bringing that to 6 daily is madness for a small city like BRU, when even a hub like AMS only has 5-6. Let's not even begin to discuss if they seriously consider putting an A333 on that route.
At best, a B752 could have been justified for as far as this was meant to develop the route and to progressively win over DL and AA pax O&D traffic.

We'll see if the risk pays off, but given that Hong Kong Airlines hasn't decided in the BRU-HKG the route yet as it's awaiting deliveries of aircraft, I hope that a close look is given to it.

As for NRT, looking at the recent context of Japan, I think that it's not in SN's interest to adventure themselves over there. If NH does it in 2012-2013, SN may have no other choice than to let them do it and try to make the most of it.

[DannyVDB]

Hi all,

Regarding JFK versus EWR, I think JFK is underestimated. As said by several on the forum you are very close to the city areas where afro-americans are living, you are close to Manhattan as well (UN!). But also the major other cities in the US have a connection to JFK: LA, SFrisco, Boston, Washington, Chicago, ... That's enough. Most passengers are coming from the big cities anyway, not the smaller ones ...

About Brussels as a 'small city'. The additional reason why a direct JFK flight would be good is that still many people from the BRU catchment area are going through Amsterdam, Frankfurt, LHR or Paris, just because the offer is bigger there. the chance that they will fly from BRU (on SN) will be bigger with the additional flight. It is just about taking a small share back from this huge market (New York is the biggest destination from BRU - see stats on BruAirport!).

Just my two cents,
Danny

[Air Key West]

OK and thanks Tolipanebas. As (nearly) always, you've convinced me that JFK is a good option.

[ggmeese]

HB-IQA was seen this morning at Air Livery Manchester, in full Brussels Airlines c/s, still wearing its swiss registration.

[Bralo20]

HB-IQA was seen this morning at Air Livery Manchester, in full Brussels Airlines c/s, still wearing its swiss registration.

It will fly back to ZRH tomorrow if everything goes as scheduled. Final checks etc... prior to delivery to SN.


I wonder if they "bought" the planes from LX, leased them from LX or that LX sold them to a leasing company (like ILFC for example) to lease them to SN?

[OO-ITR]

HB-IQA was seen this morning at Air Livery Manchester, in full Brussels Airlines c/s, still wearing its swiss registration.

hopefully we will see a pic on some site soon. Or even better, see her in real

[Hommie]

It will keep the Swiss registration for the moment. They will dry lease it from Swiss.
(Brussels Airlines pilots will fly it)
After the cabins of the FV,FW,FM,FN and FO are changed then they will change this machine
and lease it from a leasing company.

[lumumba]

Hi everybody. The Bangui operation is confermd by the crew of A.F here. Regards pat

[Bralo20]

Et voila...

SN's first A332 on picture... HB-IQA, to become OO-SFY

http://www.plane-mad.com/photos/27/27377.jpg

[OO-ITR]

Et voila...

SN's first A332 on picture... HB-IQA, to become OO-SFY

http://www.plane-mad.com/photos/27/27377.jpg[/img]

sweet!!! thanks Bralo20, I knew I could count on you

[tolipanebas]

Tolipanebas is right here on one key fact.
Don't expect UA/CO to cooperate too much with SN on feeding in EWR once SN takes over its Africa connections from UA/CO.

UA/CO have their own pax to fill their daily flight between NY and BRU with, often originating elsewhere in the Americas first, hence SN feels the need to operate to NY itself: they say they simply can not find enough capacity for their own US-bound pax on the UA/CO transatlantic routes from BRU right now and often have to dump them on AA, 9W or DL flights even! The amount of interlining between the US and AFI via BRU is simply unbelievable indeed and it is almost entirely due to a lack of a self-operated link to New York.

If anything, pursuing a partnership with B6 (Jetblue) at JFK could be much more interesting for SN, given their extensive network and low fares.

For economy pax, B6 is by far the best domestic airline in the US from a comfort point of view.
When flying economy in the US, I know I'd rather fly on an SN/B6 combo ticket, rather than on an AA or DL ticket for instance! A 767 without any IFE -or worse even a 757- and then further on an MD-80 are no way to travel these days!
BTW, B6 is partly owned by LH and they do have a commercial partnership with them at JFK, but they don't have one with LX nor OS which are both serving JFK too, so it doesn't seem very likely to happen, at least not right away.

I think that taking A332's instead of A333's was a good judgement call for as far as they intend to use them on this route.

As with every shrunk plane, the A332 is more economical on a trip basis, yet also more costly on a seat basis, so depending your actual loads, it is either a good choice or a bad one to operate it.
If on the day of the flight you only have 150 pax, then better send the A332 and use the plane with the lowest trip cost; if however you see that 3 weeks before the flight you already have 220 bookings, then better keep selling seats and send the A333: it will have higher trip costs allright, but it will allow you to take in more pax and thus increases revenues while lowering the unit costs.
An A332/A333 combo does offer more flexibility on a daily basis, yet you have to have sufficient routes where you can swap both planes around on, otherwise you'll end up operating a plane which doesn't have the right size for the route on an almost daily basis. With several African flights finally de-triangled (DKR, FIH) there is room to operate some A332s alongside the bigger A333s and rotate those planes between JFK, DKR and FIH in function of the actual bookings. Adding a second A332 and operating that one to AFI, also on non-stop routes, is going to make things easier even further.

I also stand by my point that SN would have been better off adding routes like Hong Kong and more routes to Africa instead of NYC. New York is already served by 5 daily frequencies by 4 airlines.
Bringing that to 6 daily is madness for a small city like BRU, when even a hub like AMS only has 5-6.

SN should focus on what it is best at: AFI, however, they think they need to operate to the US simply to be able to (de)feed their AFI flights and to allow further growth there, both in number of pax on existing flights, as well as in more frequencies and/or destinations.
Besides, there may be 5 dailies to NY from BRU all right, but 2 of them are mainly transit flights (9W) with very modest pax intake at BRU. The SN flight to JFK is a bit of the same really: it's really just an AFI-BRU-JFK transit flight, with some O&D intake at BRU.

We'll see if the risk pays off, but given that Hong Kong Airlines hasn't decided in the BRU-HKG the route yet as it's awaiting deliveries of aircraft, I hope that a close look is given to it.

As I've said: SN should focus on what it is good at: AFI, rather than do what everybody else does.
I don't think the flow between HKG and AFI is justifying a daily flight there, so better not venture where others have gone before.

SN's first A332 on picture... HB-IQA, to become OO-SFY
http://www.plane-mad.com/photos/27/27377.jpg

Too bad they didn't give it a STAR ALLIANCE livery...

SN should have more than just one STAR ALLIANCE plane, yet with only 1 RJ left to repaint, chances are running thin for a second one however... maybe the second A332?

[Stij]

Stupid connections!

The conclusion is that there won't be a an evening rotation because SN needs connections to AFI and the US carriers need connections to the heartland.

Oh well, maybe some day BRU AIR will have grown so much it needs a second rotation for the O/D traffic and the European transfer pax. A good differentiator could be the evening rotation... Naah, I'll have to keep on dreaming...

Cheers,

Stij

[RoMax]

http://www.skyliner-aviation.de/viewpho ... picid=7424

Another nice picture of it, looks very good.

Is there already more information: when will it come to BRU, when can it enter service for SN, wich routes will it start operating this winter (while replacing the A333's that undergo maintenance and will get the new interior), ... ?

[Yuri166]

Et voila...

SN's first A332 on picture... HB-IQA, to become OO-SFY

http://www.plane-mad.com/photos/27/27377.jpg

The brusselsairlines.com tiltles at the back are crooked...

Same here:

[galaxy]

The brusselsairlines.com tiltles at the back are crooked...

The plane stands crooked because it is descending, but the titles at the back stand straight.

[LJ]

UA/CO have their own pax to fill their daily flight between NY and BRU with, often originating elsewhere in the Americas first, hence SN feels the need to operate to NY itself: they say they simply can not find enough capacity for their own US-bound pax on the UA/CO transatlantic routes from BRU right now and often have to dump them on AA, 9W or DL flights even!

This argument is only valid until the joint venture is approved. When the JV is approved SN has a lot more access to UA/CO. Moreover why haven't UA/CO upgauged BRU when they are doing so great on EWR-BRU? Probably because they aren't earning much money even with high loads.

A joint venture means that there is no reason for SN to start their own flights over the Atlantic. Unless the other partners don't have the spare capacity.....

[RoMax]

The plane stands crooked because it is descending, but the titles at the back stand straight.

Yes indeed, the windows are going up in the back (or going down to the front, just like you want it), but the titles are straight. And yes it looks crooked compared to the top of the aircraft also, but that's optical illusion.

But on the A333's it looks much better as it is placed parallel with the windows.