VLM brand to be revitalized?

[Inquirer]

According to De Tijd, the new owner of Cityjet plans to split up the regional airline into different geographical entities, which may see the return of the VLM brand.

http://www.tijd.be/nieuws/ondernemingen ... 0-3085.art

Into aviation thinks it has a bigger chance of turning Cityjet around that way, as well as make it easier for them to sell it on afterwards...

[teddybAIR]

It is a public secret that VLM has an extremely low cost structure. The reason for the loss they make is that AF/KLM does not allow them to fly more. Actually, VLM has lower seat-mile costs than any of the equivalent companies in the group, but is not allowed to fly more for political reasons (french unions amongst others). Pure financially speaking, it would make a whole lot of sense to increase the utilisation of the F-50's drastically.

[Coronado]

According to an article in Travel Magazine

http://www.travel-magazine.be/nl-be/Pag ... temID/4465

they already are thinking about new destinations out of ANR : ZRH, GVA, BHX, MUC ...

[air belgium]

Fingers crossed for a new VLM start from Antwerp airport!

[teddybAIR]

I would also advise them to shortlist and guard their key strategic assets, which are very attractive targets to companies who restructure airlines (e.g. slots at london city)...

[Inquirer]

As far as I understand it, Intro aviation happens to be a company who's into the business of buying airlines, restructuring them and selling them on (at a profit), hence their decision to brake up Cityjet: it will make it much easier not just to restructure, but also to sell them again.

[teddybAIR]

Yeah, everybody is reacting enthousiastically on emotional grounds because they have some historic affinity with the VLM brand, but I did not necessarily read this as 'good' news. Intro aviation is not in the charity business and aviation is amongst the most competitive industries around, so expect at least some rationalisation to happen in the near future. Part of that will probably be the announced routes and thus augmentation of the utilisation rate of the fleet. But looking at how much down time the fleet actually has, much to my regret, I would not be surprised by some downsizing in the near future.

[RoMax]

Related to the fleet, replacing (or at least finding and selecting a replacement for) the ageing fleet of F-50's and Avro's is one of the major and early goals of Intro Aviation for CityJet/VLM.

[teddybAIR]

Related to the fleet, replacing (or at least finding and selecting a replacement for) the ageing fleet of F-50's and Avro's is one of the major and early goals of Intro Aviation for CityJet/VLM.

Do you have a source?

[RoMax]

Related to the fleet, replacing (or at least finding and selecting a replacement for) the ageing fleet of F-50's and Avro's is one of the major and early goals of Intro Aviation for CityJet/VLM.

Do you have a source?

An article of Flightglobal, though that's only available to pro members. CH-aviation also says it in the last sentence. Though they talk about "upgrading", Flightglobal says "fleet renewal".
http://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/ ... et-and-vlm

[teddybAIR]

Will be interesting to follow, but I'm not sure a capital rise of a few million will facilitate a fleet renewal

[RoMax]

Will be interesting to follow, but I'm not sure a capital rise of a few million will facilitate a fleet renewal

I doubt that any financing is already included in this initial capital increase.

[Flanker2]

It's also not easy to replace those cheap F50's. They are cheap in capital cost and they have a relatively low fuel burn at around 600-700kg per hour. Their maintenance cost is going up though.
Whether you go with ATR, Q400's or any type of RJ's, it poses a problem on the capital and fuel costs.
Also, it will cost money in tooling and spares inventory, retraining, etc...

My choice would be Embraer 120's, new ones if possible.
Nothing beats them in efficiency and they're just the right size for ANR... which is also why DAT had them back when they were the best game in town.
Embraer can deliver them new from the factory at quite a good price and their fuel burn is interesting.



http://www.abpic.co.uk/images/images/1141183M.jpg

[Air Key West]

Sorry to disagree, Flanker. I flew DAT's EMB120 on several occasions when sabena still existed. If my memory serves me right, they mainly operated feeder flights for sabena. I can remember it was a very uncomfortable plane. So, please, no EMB120.

[Established02]

they already are thinking about new destinations out of ANR : ZRH, GVA, BHX, MUC ...

Good luck fighting SN and U2 down the (short E19) road with in total 9 daily frequencies to GVA, 3 to BSL and an abundance of low fares!

A few years ago VLM/WX tried ANR-FRA for a while, but the route was very short-lived. Why would MUC perform any better? ANR-MAN didn't do so well either, will BHX be any different?

VLM used to earn some butter (out of LCY), thanks to a few high yield routes with limited competition. A lot of that is gone by now. What remains is mainly dry bread.

It's tough to survive as a very small stand-alone airline. You're facing the alliances and the LCCs. You have limited resources to deal with all the complexities and the new technological developments. And especially the ageing F50 fleet doesn't help either.

[sn26567]

VLM also tried ANR-GVA, and that route too was stopped after a few months.

On the cost-cutting side, VLM has reduced the number of flight attendants from two to one on their F50s. There is no way they can cut further, at least on staff!

[Flanker2]

Sorry to disagree, Flanker. I flew DAT's EMB120 on several occasions when sabena still existed. If my memory serves me right, they mainly operated feeder flights for sabena. I can remember it was a very uncomfortable plane. So, please, no EMB120.

Don't be sorry. The E120 isn't the most comfortable airplane out there and neither are the ERJ135/145 that are based on this aircraft.

In my opinion, VG needs an airplane with maximum 35 seats and to operate a schedule with decent frequencies in order to be able to compete on routes like GVA.
Then, the plane also needs to be able to land and be handled at LCY. Even though the E120, and this may come as a surprise to some, isn't LCY certified, it can be if the demand is there (until now not done yet as the E120 is scarce in Europe).
For me, the ATR42 is already too big for ANR, so even ATR72 or Q400 are too big. With FR, SN and now Vueling in BRU, I don't see enough market left for a LCC turboprop operator.
The F50 is proving already a bit too big for VG.

The E120 isn't very comfortable, but IMO financial viability comes before comfort.
I'm sure that some of the ANR pax would trade some of the discomforts of the E120 for lower fares and increased convenience of flying out of ANR iso BRU to GVA and other destinations. A lot of BRU-GVA pax generate in the Antwerp area. VG couldn't do it successfully in the past because they flew the route using RJ85's. It's too much aircraft, too soon IMO.
They need to start small and build their market in a first step and I just don't see other options.

Starting the route with ERJ135 is a non-starter, it can't be profitable and if you go for a replacement, it should be something that can soldier on and stay useful in the next 20 years.

This is why IMO the only realistic and sustainable option is the EMB120.

Feel free to disagree and post your opinions on which aircraft is in your opinion a better fit.

[Boavida]

The return of the VLM name would be nice. After this, we can only hope LH will use the same Sabena again for SN... (not joking)

[CTBke]

The return of the VLM name would be nice. After this, we can only hope LH will use the same Sabena again for SN... (not joking)

keep on dreaming ... people are used to the ''bollekes'' no way in changing it again into Sabena..

[teddybAIR]

The return of the VLM name would be nice. After this, we can only hope LH will use the same Sabena again for SN... (not joking)

Well, do you have a rational argumentation for that except for nostalgia? Because if you do, the curator will be happy to conclude that you will be willing to pay for the ownership of a brand which according to you has significantly more value than the Brussels Airlines brand.
Since you state your hope for reintroducing the Sabena brand: what would be the price you would be willing to pay the curator? If it is anything below a few million well then your desire for the sabena brand is only based on nostalgia instead of common business sense