sn26567 wrote: 24 Mar 2018, 23:41
RoMax wrote: 24 Mar 2018, 13:25
No it's not the SN product and brand, why would it be if it's operated out of Germany (yes even in Germany SN is a very bad known brand).
But why is SN so badly known in Germany? Because LH decided to monopolise the routes from BRU to its main bases FRA and MUC. The former SN (Sabena) was flying to those airports and was well known there.
No André, a few flights to FRA and MUC don't bring brand knowledge to the German market (and anyway, the German market split of SN to non-hub destinations and LH on FRA/MUC was jointly decided at a time when SN could have perfectly blocked the decision if they wanted to - even if that would have meant upsetting the new investors at that time). It's just a simple fact that small airlines are hardly known outside their home market(s) and secondary or core markets (like much of Africa for SN, parts of Asia for Finnair, Brazil for TAP, etc. ). You can throw a lot of money behind that and fly anywhere anytime, but in the end the truth is that it will likely not pay off as you expect. It's not because we aviation enthusiasts can name the top 50 of EU airlines and likely guess much of the order in size correctly, that the general public can. If you ask the average European to name the airlines they know out of their head (besides their home carrier(s)) and they come to Ryanair, easyJet, Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France and depending on where they live SAS, KLM, Iberia, WizzAir and Alitalia, it will already be a lot (of course a few more here and there, but the 'common list' is very limited).
Sabena was not well known in Germany 'because it was flying to FRA and MUC', but because it was carrying a legacy for decades, it used to be a leading airline in Europe (eventually dropping further and further down the list in terms of size vs. the rest, but still considered a well known and relatively prestigious company). SN also served FRA and MUC for many years until after the investment from LH, the company was really not better known in Germany back than compared to now (quite the contrary, the links with LHG, Miles&More and Star Alliance brought a huge German-speaking public to BRU, but on the total German market that still doesn't mean a lot).
But in any case, this is for me totally beside the point. SN would have never ever had more brand recognition in Germany than another German member of the LH Group. I will not repeat the history of Eurowings here, but I already explained that even though it has been totally revived after the Germanwings disaster, Eurowings already exists for decades (and was itself the founder of Germanwings before LH came into the story - both of which are operating since the 1990's already). The brand went under the radar a bit for several years when it flew as a franchise for LH Regional (but it always remained a very recognizable "operated by Eurowings" operation).
We can be chauvinistic, but it would just be absolute nonsense to have the SN brand operating out of DUS in the context of the LH Group which has the 2 market leading airlines in Germany in the group.
