Brussels Airlines' second US destination

[RoMax]

What I always heard was Boston, Montreal, Chicago and SFO. But lately that changed to Boston, Montreal, Newark and Washington... It becomes difficult to believe something beyond Boston and Montreal (which seem destinations where it's not the question "if?" but "when?")...

[cnc]

SN shouldn't focus so much on the USA with so few new planes comming.
They should try to expand rather than trying to fly to destinations already served by partners.
EWR late flight would be great if they have a/c's to spare but in the current situation?
same thing for ORD and IAD, BOS was average to fine back in the old days but today...

[convair]

Maybe time to revive this topic. It was shown some interest about 2 months ago! ( Even though "US" should be replaced by "North American" in the view of some contributors)

[RoMax]

Maybe time to revive this topic. It was shown some interest about 2 months ago! ( Even though "US" should be replaced by "North American" in the view of some contributors)

I bet my money on IAD => NYC evening flight => Boston

(and indeed, though at this moment I don't think it's needed to rename the topic as long as it's for the second destination, YUL will follow later I believe)

[Airbus330lover]

My bet : IAD

[A330]

My bet : IAD

I bet my money on IAD => NYC evening flight => Boston

I wasn't considering IAD at all, with UA already on the route. Same for EWR. But perhaps IAD can sustain more flights, perhaps not daily from the start, but slowly. Instead of EWR, I look more into a second JFK flight. And again, I don't see this as daily immediately (2 daily combined). They could grow to 10 weekly, and gradually increase that. For both IAD and JFK, a second flight would improve connection times at BRU.
Otherwise, I see BOS which is often rumoured here. And YUL of course. Both IAD, JFK, YUL, and also EWR mean strengthening their position (combined with UA or AC). Perhaps this should be favoured instead of opening new routes like BOS? After all, if these are their prime markets for connecting passengers (AFI).
Are other destinations (SFO, ORD, DEN, IAH) realistic at this time? I guess these would be happening like 5 years from now? If ever.

[RoMax]

Apparently there is a huge business related demand for extra flights to/from IAD (maybe not 2 daily, but let's say 12 weekly and maybe UA with 763ER again?). The same goes for an evening flight to EWR (or JFK, I don't know, but it seems they prefer EWR, for the connections?).
These are markets where UA and/or SN have proven themself, making it less risky to launch these flights, instead of BOS.

But for 2014 or 2015 I believe BOS is a certainty. The market Belgium-BOS is still existing and the market BOS-Africa is growing at high speed. Yes there is much more Europe-BOS competition as in Sabena's time (as stated by some other members), but didn't SN prove with BRU-JFK that's not always a reason not to do it?! SN has the advantage of the strong O&D market for BOS (look at pharmaceuticals and bio industry for exemple), a good long haul product (superior to some EU and all US competitors) and the offering of AFI connections which only AF can compete with. But at this moment it may not be the right time.

So I believe:
1: IAD
2: Evening flight to NYC (I believe EWR, but JFK is also possible)
3: BOS
4: YUL
(and in between some AFI expansion)
...is a good guess.

[quixoticguide]

If SN choses EWR then there are 3 flights to EWR and 2 to JFK.
and 2 are SN flights That would be great.

Maybe a bit off topic but are there some new SN destinations in Europe?
Maybe LED would be a good idea?

[cathay belgium]

Hi,

Palermo returns back in summer 2013,...

CXB

[sn26567]

Maybe LED would be a good idea?

LED was served in summer a few years ago, and it was not a great success...

[Pleasonton]

Do we know when the new US destination will be announced?

[RoMax]

Do we know when the new US destination will be announced?

Soon will be quite a good guess. I don't know either, but you'll know something about it before the end of the month, otherwise there are things going wrong.

[crew1990]

Can we expect a new A330 with this new destination or SN can fly this new destination with their current long-haul fleet?

[RoMax]

Can we expect a new A330 with this new destination or SN can fly this new destination with their current long-haul fleet?

OO-SFU (ex-Sabena A332, now stored in ZRH) was named a couple of times on this forum in the latest weeks.
For sure they need an extra A330 as also the African frequenties go up again as from June (Abidjan, Kinshasa, Dakar back to daily, Freetown to 4 weekly, Cotonou to 3 weekly,...). So they need an extra aircraft to launch a new route (especially a US route which needs more than 3-4 weekly).

[brusselsairlinesfan]

Although I would like ORD,YUL or SFO, I am quite sure they will go for BOS.

Question : last year, JFK was already announced as their first US destination. So will they be ready on time (aircraft, marketing, etc...) for summer 2013?

[RoMax]

Question : last year, JFK was already announced as their first US destination. So will they be ready on time (aircraft, marketing, etc...) for summer 2013?

It would have been better if it was already launched, but as far as I know they plan to announce it very soon (about halfway January). So the difference will be just a few weeks compared to the JFK announcement (very late in December 2011), when they can't announce the route by the end of January, that would be another story. Many things (like the aircraft, (planning for) staff training, codeshare arrangements, preperation of promotions/marketing campains,.. can be done without public announcement), the only issue is that they want/need enough time to 'sell' (as in the exact meaning of the word, but also advertising/marketing) the new route before it will be actually launched.

[sn26567]

For sure they need an extra A330 as also the African frequenties go up again as from June (Abidjan, Kinshasa, Dakar back to daily, Freetown to 4 weekly, Cotonou to 3 weekly,...). So they need an extra aircraft to launch a new route (especially a US route which needs more than 3-4 weekly).

They need an extra A330 only for the US. The frequency increases for some African destinations result from the fat that the Dakar flights can now again be combined with other destinations (from February onwards).

[RoMax]

They need an extra A330 only for the US. The frequency increases for some African destinations result from the fat that the Dakar flights can now again be combined with other destinations (from February onwards).

That's what I ment to say. The frequenties in Africa go back up (Dakar gets extra flights and Freetown and Conakry are combined with DKR instead of Banjul again, Cotonou gets a 3rd weekly rotation, but these aren't the only extra frequenties: FIH, ABJ, NBO, KGL,... will all get their frequency of S12 reinstated as from June after a downgrade in the winter) resulting in full utilisation of the current 7 A330's again (the past months that hasn't been the case as there was always one free A330, the last one left today for Malta and after this one returns, SN will build up their frequenties to Africa again).
So they need a new one for the US, I just wanted to make clear that the current 7 A330's will be fully used again in the summer contrary to the past months, but apperently that wasn't really clear.

[convair]

However, if their plan is for a second flight to JFK, they don't really need to announce it long time in advance. Moreover, all the infrastructure( station staff etc...) is already in place.

[RoMax]

However, if their plan is for a second flight to JFK, they don't really need to announce it long time in advance. Moreover, all the infrastructure( station staff etc...) is already in place.

A second NYC flight would be to EWR I believe. Two daily (or 'up to' two daily) to an airport with no onward connections with a Star-partner seems a bit overkill.