SN to Africa - one cancellation per day

[JOVAN]

Off topic:

With all the knowhow of some members on this forum, I would urge them to start an airline themselves. With all I read here that company will grow big in a matter of a few years. A business plan made by them will quickly bring people to invest big money, so a start up should be possible very fast. It seems not that difficult to run an airline company... If I were a headhunter, this would be my fishing pond to find bright cookies.

If you should look for pilots, please give me an address to send my CV, I would love to fly for a perfect airline, where delays don't exist, where people are very well paid, flying new planes (which are almost free by the way), and where even the weather is good everyday, so no extra stress when there's a snow- or thunderstorm.

Pocahontas,
This is a Forum where airline and airport fanatics can write their opinion about certaine situations, companies, infrastructure, etc..

As a very regulat flyer; and user of BRU, and moderate fan of SN, I acnnotbut express my disappointment.

Where do SN stand after the restart 12 years ago ??

Most of us would dream they become something like half what KLM means to Holland, or half what Swiss means to Switzerland, or Austrian to Austria,...

We see an old fashioned airline, in nothing attractive or sexy, with strange flight schedules; based in the Economical center of Europe and NOT taking advantage of that, flying 3rd hand planes, ....

Nobody claims to be able to start a new airline; we just give air to our disappointment of what we see now. And many members give good ideas indeed.
But probably SN will prefer to order expensive studies from Top Experts. And pay huge amounts for this.

And do not forget that SN (like other Belgian airlines) got Government money recently.
So most of us are share holders. That gives us definitely the right to criticize and give our opinion.

Greetz

[Passenger]

4. Airlines have negotiated rates with hotels but you also have to provide:

Financial compensation
In addition, if you are denied boarding, your flight is cancelled or arrives more than 3 hours late on arrival at the final destination stated on your ticket, you may be entitled to compensation of €250 - 600, depending on the distance of the flight:

Within the EU
1,500 km or less – €250
over 1,500 km – €400
Between EU airport and non-EU airport
1,500 km or less – €250
1,500 – 3,500 km – €400
over 3,500 km – €600

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/tr ... dex_en.htm

Let's do the math together: 600€ x 500 pax = 300.000€/day
Without counting cost of accommodation, meals, crews on standby, aircraft lease and insurance still running, phone bills and human resources to deal with each and single pax.
AF will happily charge you the full rate for short-notice bookings if you re-book pax, if they even operate the route.

No savings to be made here, believe me.

Once again : incorrect information from someone who knows the existence of EU Regulation 261/2004, but who has never dealt with it professionally. In Dutch, we say “de klok horen luiden maar niet weten waar de klepel hangt” (translated: mister know-it-all doesn’t know at all what he’s talking about).

The indemnity (600 Euro for a BRU-FIH) is only an automatism for overbookings ("denied boarding"). For cancellations of flights - which was the case here - the reason of the cancellation matters. Example: an airline cancels a flight because they have only 5 pax on the outbound and 3 on the inbound: operational cancellation, indemnity to be paid. However, “extraordinary circumstances” waive the indemnity. Airlines usually bring up a technical failure as an “unexpected flight safety shortcoming” and therefore “extraordinary circumstance”, to waive the indemnity. In such cases, they “only” have to provide hotel accommodation, meals and telephone calls.

Relevant remarks from EU Rule 261/2004:

“… As under the Montreal Convention, obligations on operating air carriers should be limited or excluded in cases where an event has been caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Such circumstances may, in particular, occur in cases of political instability, meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned, security risks, unexpected flight safety shortcomings and strikes that affect the operation of an operating air carrier…”

“…Extraordinary circumstances should be deemed to exist where the impact of an air traffic management decision in relation to a particular aircraft on a particular day gives rise to a long delay, an overnight delay, or the cancellation of one or more flights by that aircraft, even though all reasonable measures had been taken by the air carrier concerned to avoid the delays or cancellations…”

[Pocahontas]

@JOVAN so we are shareholders of everything the government puts money into? Mmm strange philosophy... and do people who pay more taxes have more shares then?

Is KLM supported by it's government, and how much? Same question for Air France and others... I don't know, but I would love to know. But we are off topic let's get back on it.

[RTM]

Mr Inquirer and RTM, you indeed can't keep a spare plane around the clock for the occasional cancellation.

But what about a spare engine, special tooling that they always have to take on loan because they don't have their own, and small teams of A330-dedicated staff who can manage engine/APU changes much more efficiently than one proficient guy walking a bunch of first-timers through each task.
Actually such issues can even leave complications like this one that followed an engine change: http://www.avherald.com/h?article=43e5cb61&opt=0

FYI, Spare engines and tooling are normally available on site. Apart from times where an engine replacement just took place. I think this might have been the case here, but not quite sure.

As for the "specialists" comment... The USAF works that way. They actually have specialists on LH MLG's, and on RH MLG's. And they are so restricted, they can't, and are not allowed to take over eachothers work. Your suggestion is not that restrictive, but it is leaning towards it. You can't obtain extra A330's and not let more staff get trained and experienced on them. Beside that, who or what will do the work in case of holliday and/or illness? While you have a lot of guys idling, but no experience and/or authority. That would be stupidity, and a luxury you can't afford. And if you really think that it is only one experienced person working on an ETOPS aircraft engine change with a couple of no-brains, than that is something you have made up to suite your argument, it is simply BS.

SN manages engine changes on the Avro in less than one shift because they always have the tools, equipment, spare engines and savoir-faire available, as readily acquired through the heavy maintenance done on the Avro's.

Yes, that is "THE" reason. They can do an engine change on an Avro faster because they have base maintenance experience on them. You do know the differance between apple's and pears?

Regarding flying A32S to Africa, I don't see where the MX issue kicks in. You have a fleet of 20, of which a small part will night-stop elsewhere (although this task can also be done by smaller aircraft depending on the route), part will fly to Africa and a minimal part will stay in BRU.

I am not going to restart this discussion. Your facts were wrong then, and still are now. Mx was an issue. But feel free to change your insights.

As of next month you have 8 aircraft. One will operate IAD though.
So nothing changes. Whenever there is an aircraft out on C-check, an AOG will lead to flight cancellations.
The more aircraft you have, the more likely that one of them is on C-check at any given time. If SN wants to continue doing this this way, it's very efficient but it's also necessary to provide the necessary resources to do it in a durable way, instead of only pocketing the money and leaving passengers to dry.

A little bit short sighted comment, but yes, there can develope a situation where you have cancelations. But given that C-checks are only scheduled in the low season, and with the expansion of the fleet more and more slack wil be build in, they should be ok most of the time. Wit 9 A/C next year, a full week spare will be available. So if you keep expanding, and you hit 18 A/C, you will have 2, etc... But eventually, no matter how much money you throw at it. Sooner or later a situation will develope where you have to cancel a flight. Murphy just works that way. So it is best to find a cost/benefit balance in that, and that is what they are doing.

[LJ]

The indemnity (600 Euro for a BRU-FIH) is only an automatism for overbookings ("denied boarding"). For cancellations of flights - which was the case here - the reason of the cancellation matters. Example: an airline cancels a flight because they have only 5 pax on the outbound and 3 on the inbound: operational cancellation, indemnity to be paid. However, “extraordinary circumstances” waive the indemnity. Airlines usually bring up a technical failure as an “unexpected flight safety shortcoming” and therefore “extraordinary circumstance”, to waive the indemnity. In such cases, they “only” have to provide hotel accommodation, meals and telephone calls.

Cancellations due to technical matters is not waiving the cancellation compensation. The EU Courts have been clear on this and the airline will have to pay compensation if a cancellation is due to technical issues.

[LeFreak]

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.

Final words: LOL ROFL

[airazurxtror]

Mid-december, at Charleroi, the FR 737 arriving (on time) from Budapest went tech (something iced up).
A spare aircraft was ready, the crew switched over and the return flight departed only 40 minutes late (it needed to be de-iced).
Different companies, different attitude towards the customer ...

[RTM]

Lets keep Ryanair out of this discussion please. But for what it is worth, aircraft swaps, for various reasons, are daily buisiness at any company. SN is no different.

[Passenger]

Mid-december, at Charleroi, the FR 737 arriving (on time) from Budapest went tech (something iced up).
A spare aircraft was ready, the crew switched over and the return flight departed only 40 minutes late (it needed to be de-iced).
Different companies, different attitude towards the customer ...

It's not always 40 minutes:

http://avherald.com/h?article=461dcc13&opt=0
and
http://avherald.com/h?article=461c49eb&opt=0
and
http://avherald.com/h?article=4607f6eb&opt=0
and
http://avherald.com/h?article=43b86893&opt=0

[RTM]

Please,... this topic has NOTHING to do with Ryanair. Lets keep it that way.

Thanks.

[sn26567]

Please,... this topic has NOTHING to do with Ryanair. Lets keep it that way.

Thanks.

Seconded!

[JOVAN]

@JOVAN so we are shareholders of everything the government puts money into? Mmm strange philosophy... and do people who pay more taxes have more shares then?

Is KLM supported by it's government, and how much? Same question for Air France and others... I don't know, but I would love to know. But we are off topic let's get back on it.

Pocahontas,
Put on your glasses and read again.

Anyway, we are free to ventilate our opinion here, as long as we follow the rules (see 'forum rules')

My opinion is that SN is a VERY mediocre, and that we Belgians deserve better.
That is an opinion.
Hope one day it will get better, but then many things have to change at SN and a big wake-up call is needed.

[Vinnie-Winnie]

I also wish some of the members here would start an airline, invest their own and just keep their strategy private as SN does. Honestly without any sarcasm would wish them all the best...

Baseless claims, misinformation, unsustainable and uneconomical solutions seem to be the new normal here on Luchtzak.

Once about a time there was a contributor called Avro, Atlantis made many more comments and SN26567 contributed a lot more...

What happened?

[Passenger]

The indemnity (600 Euro for a BRU-FIH) is only an automatism for overbookings ("denied boarding"). For cancellations of flights - which was the case here - the reason of the cancellation matters. Example: an airline cancels a flight because they have only 5 pax on the outbound and 3 on the inbound: operational cancellation, indemnity to be paid. However, “extraordinary circumstances” waive the indemnity. Airlines usually bring up a technical failure as an “unexpected flight safety shortcoming” and therefore “extraordinary circumstance”, to waive the indemnity. In such cases, they “only” have to provide hotel accommodation, meals and telephone calls.

Cancellations due to technical matters is not waiving the cancellation compensation. The EU Courts have been clear on this and the airline will have to pay compensation if a cancellation is due to technical issues.

[*]No, the EU Court of Justice has not. There are a few cases in which the EU Court of Justice has ruled in favour of passengers, although there was obvious proof of extraordinary circumstances. Like the claim for hotel costs and meals by pax, stranded after the airspace was closed by ATC because of an ash cloud of our Icelandic friend. The airline (R.) stated that their obligations were excluded because this was obvious “extraordinary circumstances”. But the EU Court of Justice surprisingly ruled that the airline had to pay. “261/2004 is Consumer Protection Legislation and when pax are stranded in an unknown country, they surely need protection”, the EU Court said.

But once again: this was only about the costs for hotels and meals, and not about the indemnity (600 euro) that flanker unfairly brought up.

There are no (or at least not enough) Court cases to state that technical issues always lead to the compensation (600 euro). At the contrary: the Dutch aviation safety board Degas has already warned against such dangerous thoughts: “a technical failure is inherent to aviation, and when airlines will be punished for taking extreme safety measures, there is a risk that they will loosen them”, Degas states.

It needs too much space to discuss this in detail and it goes beyond this topic, so I’m not going to discuss this here any further.

[cnc]

lets be fair, SN is taking the easy (cheap) way out. Maybe big daddy LH has a finger in all this, maybe SN is obsessed with keeping the cost as low as possible even if it can cost them some loyal pax.
anyway i'm not sure SN is taking the wrong direction in handling the situation.

[OO-ITR]

My opinion is that SN is a VERY mediocre, and that we Belgians deserve better.
That is an opinion.
Hope one day it will get better, but then many things have to change at SN and a big wake-up call is needed.

that is your opinion of course. Others think different about it :

http://www.travel360.be/nieuws/actueel- ... rd?gn=5116
http://www.globaltravelerusa.com/wines- ... wing-2012/

http://www.imsco-us.com/index.php/bruss ... ins-award/

http://www.staralliance.com/de/about/ai ... _airlines/

and for the second time in row (Q4-2012 AND Q1-2013) SN was awarded with nr 1 long haul satisfaction in the Star Alliance survey.

N°1 for the Long Haul Overall Satisfaction
N°1 for the Long haul Retention
N°1 for the Long haul Recommendation
N°1 for the Long haul Cabin overall

lets be fair, SN is taking the easy (cheap) way out. Maybe big daddy LH has a finger in all this, maybe SN is obsessed with keeping the cost as low as possible even if it can cost them some loyal pax.
anyway i'm not sure SN is taking the wrong direction in handling the situation.

Can you specify what you mean with taking the wrong direction in handling the situation?

[sean1982]

Cancelling the flight rather then chartering another airplane is for sure the wrong direction if you don't have a back-up

[RTM]

That depends... If it is indeed true the pax were transported by rerouting the remaining flights, why go to the expense of chartering an ad-hoc aircraft...?
But, you cannot do that all the time. For one, the loadfactors on the affected flights will have to allow it. SN probably has a book with different scenarios they can choose from in varying circomstances. This time they could manage with not renting another plane.

What is wrong with that?

[sean1982]

that you disrupt a lot of people's travel plans by not bringing them where they are supposed to go within a reasonable time frame which has been agreed when they purchased a ticket. A chartered aircraft could have brought them on time with as less as disruption as possible. The only one being, they are not flying the "award winning long haul cabin"

[RTM]

Ok, fair point. And I don't doubt they gave it a lot of thought. But decided on this way in the end. I'm sure they would have not hesitated in bringing in a wetlease if they deemed it the way to go.
The thing is, it is not difficult to critisize a descicion like that if you don't know all the role playing factors. If you want to look at it from a negative angle, you will allways find arguments to be negative. No big deal. While in honesty, it could just as well be a very creative way of minimalising the damage. Glass half full vs half empty discussion. Lets just hope it will be a while before they have to get creative again.