SN to Africa - one cancellation per day

[FlightMate]

I like the

"On 92 airlines operating this type of aircraft Brussels Airlines ranks 93"

on airfleets.net

[OO-ITR]

I like the

"On 92 airlines operating this type of aircraft Brussels Airlines ranks 93"

on airfleets.net

Not bad for a company winning multiple awards for the new cabin and pax satisfaction.

[Passenger]

The best thing for SN, PR wise, is to admit that there is a problem and that it needs to be fixed.

Yet another proof that you are not working in the aviation business.

And also not in PR business, because your suggestion is probably the most stupid PR idea someone will ever have had.

[Flanker2]

According to flightradar24, OO-SFY has been idle since May 2.
4 days to replace an engine! Is this normal?

Yes it is, especially if it is unscheduled.

As others have pointed out before, an engine stall has nothing to do with the age of the plane either, these engines literally get hammered during the AFI ops all the time and may thus degrade fast in between overhauls. Nothing you can do about that except accept the fact and change the engine when it is due.

Last year, we had an engine stall on an engine which was on the wing for less than a week; If you see the condition of some runways we operate to in AFI, it should come as no surprise. With a fleet of just 7 planes, any unscheduled outage will have network consequences: one can only hope our long haul fleet will grow to double digit numbers quickly so as to act as each others back up more easily.

So what was the compressor stall caused by? If it's not FOD, age plays a big factor in compressor stalls. I don't need to explain that to you.

convair wrote:
According to flightradar24, OO-SFY has been idle since May 2.
4 days to replace an engine! Is this normal?


Yes it is, especially if it is unscheduled.

An A330 engine replacement is a 2-shift job even when unscheduled, but at SN it's a 4-day to a week job and I can explain to you why.

SN's core technicians who came over from H117 have little experience on the A330 A-check tasks, let alone engine changes. Next, SN's maintenance department has a weird policy of giving every technician hands-on time on all the aircraft from the Avro to the A32S and A330, instead of working with specialised core teams like you have at most airlines. This in order to be able to use all staff in a flexible manner (why else?) throughout the fleet.
Mix that up with bad logistics (lack of parts, spare engines, consumables, special tools), lack of integration (task cards) and commonality (all the engine types), lack of heavy maintenance experience on the A330 (including the former Sabeniens who only had to change engines from time to time) and even putting former Sabena Technics technicians who have a lot of A330 experience, on Avro tasks (again due to that weird policy) in the midst of a A330 engine change, and it takes muuuuuuuch longer.

Tolipanebas, your PR is not going to help your colleagues at H41 get the tools, training, equipment and spare parts stores they need to do the job properly and smoothly. I think that this should be a message to the SN management.

Investing in spare parts, consumables, special tools, training, etc.. costs money, but cancelling flights and accommodating pax at the Holiday Inn costs money too.

[RTM]

To be fair your PR attempt will not help SN, nor is it accurate.

SN will see more and more of these issues as their A330 fleet gets older. The age plays a role because a lot of structural and non-structural matters start to see more issues more with age.

Corrosion is usually the major issue and no matter how well-maintained your aircraft is, you can't prevent it even with all the Ardrox AV8 in the world. With the A330's, SN is walking into uncharted territories because they have the leading fleet in terms of serial numbers. That also means that whatever ageing issues the A330 will see in its operations, SN will be the first to experience them before anybody else.
So it's useless to close the public's eye, the only thing the public will see is more and more cancellations. The remedy is IMO, not to try to close the public's eyes but to actually fix this issue, for instance by expanding the fleet or finding alternative solutions.

SN's A330's are maintained 'to standards'. To say that they're well-maintained is marketing and is untrue. Please don't make me say more than what I want to say about this.


The best thing for SN, PR wise, is to admit that there is a problem and that it needs to be fixed.

I'll give you the point that it is likely that SN will experience age related problems sooner than an airline operating a younger fleet. You don't need to be an expert to figure that out. The rest is nonsense. Yes, corrosion will be a fact of life, but that is not going to create AOG's and cancelations. It will add to the downtime and bill on C-checks, but that is very well manageble. There will be the odd problem turn up that you can contribute to age, but 9 out of 10 times, that will not have an operational impact. Just more work during scheduled downtime. The fact is that the point of tipping the scale hasn't been met yet. Still some time to go as well I think. Look at KLM, they operate 24 year old 747's, no plans of replacing them yet, and nobody is complaining. Just very well maintained. Like the SN 330's. Don't try to make believe that it is not, it just proves you are sucking it out of your thumb, and actually have no idea what you are talking about, and it is insulting to people involved.

Then the engine problem... Straightaway you assume it is a compressor stall. Nobody said that. It could be a full stall as wel. You just try to make believe you know what you are talking about by throwing around terms. Well you don't obviously.
Yes, a stall can be age related. But it has nothing to do with aircraft age. That will be engine age. A totally different story all together. Theoratically, a 1 year old A330 could have the same engine installed, and nobody would be moaning about age.

And, I dare you to perform an enginechange on a 330, without preperation in two shifts. Or 4 days for that matter... You just don't know what you are talking about.

[werknemer]

According to flightradar24, OO-SFY has been idle since May 2.
4 days to replace an engine! Is this normal?

Yes it is, especially if it is unscheduled.

As others have pointed out before, an engine stall has nothing to do with the age of the plane either, these engines literally get hammered during the AFI ops all the time and may thus degrade fast in between overhauls. Nothing you can do about that except accept the fact and change the engine when it is due.

Last year, we had an engine stall on an engine which was on the wing for less than a week; If you see the condition of some runways we operate to in AFI, it should come as no surprise. With a fleet of just 7 planes, any unscheduled outage will have network consequences: one can only hope our long haul fleet will grow to double digit numbers quickly so as to act as each others back up more easily.

So what was the compressor stall caused by? If it's not FOD, age plays a big factor in compressor stalls. I don't need to explain that to you.

convair wrote:
According to flightradar24, OO-SFY has been idle since May 2.
4 days to replace an engine! Is this normal?


Yes it is, especially if it is unscheduled.

An A330 engine replacement is a 2-shift job even when unscheduled, but at SN it's a 4-day to a week job and I can explain to you why.

SN's core technicians who came over from H117 have little experience on the A330 A-check tasks, let alone engine changes. Next, SN's maintenance department has a weird policy of giving every technician hands-on time on all the aircraft from the Avro to the A32S and A330, instead of working with specialised core teams like you have at most airlines. This in order to be able to use all staff in a flexible manner (why else?) throughout the fleet.
Mix that up with bad logistics (lack of parts, spare engines, consumables, special tools), lack of integration (task cards) and commonality (all the engine types), lack of heavy maintenance experience on the A330 (including the former Sabeniens who only had to change engines from time to time) and even putting former Sabena Technics technicians who have a lot of A330 experience, on Avro tasks (again due to that weird policy) in the midst of a A330 engine change, and it takes muuuuuuuch longer.

Tolipanebas, your PR is not going to help your colleagues at H41 get the tools, training, equipment and spare parts stores they need to do the job properly and smoothly. I think that this should be a message to the SN management.

Investing in spare parts, consumables, special tools, training, etc.. costs money, but cancelling flights and accommodating pax at the Holiday Inn costs money too.

Dear Flanker,

i'm following Luchtzak for more then 6 years every day, i always read all posts even yours.

Sometimes you have good points but sometime you keep pushing your ideas so hard that even i start to stop following the forum.

But this time you're going too far! I demand you to apologize for what you wrote about our technicians. I don't care you don't agree with our management or your negative attitude towards brussels airlines, but you will not insult my colleagues of maintenance. If you have no idea of what is happening then you just shut your mouth and don't invent things that are not true. If you think you know what happened because of your years of experience in i don't know what, then you open a new forum and you start by calling it " i think .... "

Keep giving your opinion in whatever you want but stop throwing shit on my company about things you have no idea.

for your info, i work for sn and i'm not technician but i know everything of what happens with our 330.
And if i was you, i should really listen and believe more what Tulipanebas is writing.

[airazurxtror]

Flanker2, if you have not yet noticed : here, you criticize SN at your own risk, and you'll get a lot of insults.
If you want to criticize, do it about Ryanair - you can do it as much as you please, it's never too much, and you'll get congratulations into the bargain.

[Passenger]

Flanker2, if you have not yet noticed : here, you criticize SN at your own risk, and you'll get a lot of insults.
If you want to criticize, do it about Ryanair - you can do it as much as you please, it's never too much, and you'll get congratulations into the bargain.

The difference is: remarks about Ryanair are usually based upon clear facts, whilst remarks about Brussels Airlines are usually based upon personal thoughts and/or presumptions, ànd they usually come from staff from (airlines at) LGG and/or CRL.

[Flanker2]

Dear Werknemer,

I have the most profound respect for the technicians at SN, both good ones and bad ones. I apologise if my post isn't clear. I won't apologise to the technicians because I'm not pointing the finger to them, quite to the opposite they should be supported by highlighting these issues that make simple jobs very complex for them.

If it's not clear yet, I'm pointing the finger towards some parts of management, due to the lack of resources these technicians have to work with. It's a shame because if managed and organised well, SN could easily start offering top-notch third party maintenance. The reality is that it's a managerial mess, mainly due to lack of resources but also willpower. Many very good maintenance managers have left in recent memory and it's a pity. There is still great talent left in management, people who ask the right questions and fight for the company and I'm baffled by the level of dedication of these few dedicated management people.

So it's not really fair to put everyone under the same title, ie "management".

Please read the post again and you will notice that I'm not criticising the technicians.
I also understand that all of management are sandwiched between difficult positions but it's their job to make it work, otherwise they shouldn't become managers in the first place.

A true waste of potential.

[Passenger]

Dear Werknemer,

I have the most profound respect for the technicians at SN, both good ones and bad ones.

You say that there are bad technicians within Brussels Airlines. I invite you to send a confidential and private message to webmaster Luchtzak with their names. The webmaster can then confirm here that you indeed know bad technicians.

Otherwise, tell us for what company (*) you are working for or what you are studying, and maybe we will then understand why you constantly publish hatred stuff about Brussels Airlines (**).

(*) I indeed mention "company" because you have proven many times that you do no work in the aviation business. Like you pretended to know Kinshasa Airport...

(**) the webmaster knows I am not working for / have never worked for Brussels Airlines and/or Sabena and/or Brussels Airport.

[rwandan-flyer]

[KVS Availability Tool 7.1.7/Diamond - Amadeus Operational Info: SN 1453/08 May 2013]

Planned Flight Info
Segment Departure Arrival Duration
------- --------- --------- --------
BRU-KGL 10:50/Wed 19:15/Wed 08:25
KGL-BJM 20:15/Wed 20:55/Wed 00:40
BJM-EBB 21:55/Wed 00:00/Thu 01:05
EBB-BRU 01:00/Thu 08:20/Thu 08:20

[airazurxtror]

The difference is: remarks about Ryanair are usually based upon clear facts, whilst remarks about Brussels Airlines are usually based upon personal thoughts and/or presumptions, ànd they usually come from staff from (airlines at) LGG and/or CRL.

Priceless !

[Flanker2]

Dear Werknemer,

I have the most profound respect for the technicians at SN, both good ones and bad ones.

You say that there are bad technicians within Brussels Airlines. I invite you to send a confidential and private message to webmaster Luchtzak with their names. The webmaster can then confirm here that you indeed know bad technicians.

Otherwise, tell us for what company (*) you are working for or what you are studying, and maybe we will then understand why you constantly publish hatred stuff about Brussels Airlines (**).

(*) I indeed mention "company" because you have proven many times that you do no work in the aviation business. Like you pretended to know Kinshasa Airport...

(**) the webmaster knows I am not working for / have never worked for Brussels Airlines and/or Sabena and/or Brussels Airport.

Well this is taking a ridiculous turn isn't it?
I don't post hatred towards SN, quite to the opposite. If you look, I've spent a lot of time offering idea's for improvement but also criticising critical aspects of SN's operations that should be in place.

But if you don't work for SN, why do you care so much, shouldn't that be the question?
Why do you want to know who I am so badly? It's almost an obsession.

I don't have to prove to you what I know about SN nor give any names, though I could probably give you at least 20-30? You take it if you want to, otherwise you can keep trying to shoot my credibility down for whatever purpose you're imagining. Like I said, doing PR is not in the interest of SN employees, nor is it in the long term interest of the company and management.

I'm not an active SN employee, but how do you know that I'm not a former employee? Actually, if you browse through recent threads, you will find the answer.

If you had any idea of what is going on behind the curtains, you would probably not post this kind of things.
But you don't, so why don't you take a more humble approach to posting? I'm asking you in the nicest way possible.

Note that my tone is intended to be very gentle and inviting, because I want to have nice conversations.

[OO-ITR]

The difference is: remarks about Ryanair are usually based upon clear facts, whilst remarks about Brussels Airlines are usually based upon personal thoughts and/or presumptions, ànd they usually come from staff from (airlines at) LGG and/or CRL.

Priceless !

of course. the truth is always priceless...
In every topic the same SN bashers come back with the same old remarks...
But when someone posts a real fact that happened with Ryanair then no one can talk about it.
So I was amazed you posted in here that you were whining about people 'bashing' Ryanair.

And I personally prefer people critisizing SN about cancellations due to technicals than critisizing another airline because the staff are treated like slaves, or emergency landings due to taking too little fuel, and so on and so on...

[RTM]

Flanker, may I point out to you that obtaining an AML is not something to joke about. The requirements, training and exams are tough, and will take many years to complete. I would like you to try it. You'll see you don't know so much about aircraft afterall. Talking about a humble approach.

Ok, not all technicians are of the same quality, that is a normal human fact. But stating you can name 30 bad ones...? That is just a plain insult to all of them. You don't work for SN, so you can't Judge. Stop making stuff up.

[Flanker2]

Let's focus on the thread here, every post takes us far away with out-of-context quoting by some children who are trying to do PR "in the name of the airline". Or are they lawyers? Or politicians.

How can you decide what's in the best interest of SN technicians? Are you one? Were you one? Or are you just another management guy trying to manipulate the conversation? What is your background?

What's wrong with these SN fan boys, they are so polarised...

For the record, the 20-30 wouldn't be specifically about "bad" ones, just the ones I know. Also, if I said "bad" ones, it doesn't mean that it's their fault.
Why focus on the "bad" ones? Is Earth such a dark place and are we monkeys in a jungle?

Let's leave my credibility aside, where does SN stand with its credibility as a premium African airline?
Is cancelling flights day after day due to AOG acceptable to you? Isn't that avoidable? Doesn't it impact the passengers who fly SN and don't you think that this will cause a much bigger PR issue than whatever you're trying to "damage control" here?

[RoMax]

What is your background?

I'm sorry, I stayed out of this discussion, but seriously who are you to ask that (even if it's a rhetorical question)?! You claim to be the specialist in maintenance, logistics, airline management,... (not in these words, but with the way you push your ideas as if they are facts), but refuse to give any indication about your real background...

Let's leave my credibility aside, where does SN stand with its credibility as a premium African airline?
Is cancelling flights day after day due to AOG acceptable to you? Isn't that avoidable? Doesn't it impact the passengers who fly SN and don't you think that this will cause a much bigger PR issue than whatever you're trying to "damage control" here?

True, it's very bad for SN's image. I don't think anyone can deny that. The question here was, is that SN's fault in a direct way (lacking maintenance, failed planning,...). You seem to be convinced it is SN's fault, others blame it on the heavy AFI operations that put the A330's to their limits (not age-related). I don't know, I'm not the specialist. But I do know that SN's current fleet and long haul network combination is asking for troubles. They have a heavy shedule and little to no back-up due to the small fleet. I just hope SN sees they should grow with at least two A330's each year (both North-America and Africa need more flights and with every addition of an aircraft, and they can create more room for back up).

[LeFreak]

Dear flanker,

I have always read your posts with a big grain of salt and several times I've had to bite my teeth not to respond, but now I've had it. I've had it with you insulting my colleagues. As a Brussels airlines pilot, I get into each and every one of our planes and fly them around knowing that these machines are in the good hands of our technicians and engineers. Those guys and girls do their utmost best with the resources they are given, just like everybody else in the company. Our cabin crew often go the extra mile for our pax, we pilots try to get our pax smooth and safe at their destination, the technicians keep our planes going etc.. Etc..

They are all hard working individuals who deserve respect.

I know things could be better managed, believe me all of my colleagues, be it on the ground or in the air, realise this but things take time to change. I'm not the biggest fan of our management, but I stand behind my airline and I am very proud to be one of its pilots.

[Flanker2]

Dear Lefreak,

I've had it too with your SN fan boys attitude of going defensive whenever there is a critic about your airline. You said that I'm insulting SN technicians, funnily enough I probably know more of them than you do. Please point me to the insult? Aren't you the one being defensive?

Your airline is a mess. As long as you're putting up with your smile face and carry your pride around nothing will get fixed and it will go from bad to worse.

[b720]

Boys, carry your personal disputes in private. Thank you.