Brussels Airlines' fleet renewal

[Stij]

aren't those already for the scrapyard? don't think a new carrier will lease those old birds… but it'll have it's reason why they don't swap them already (most likely for the cabin as it was announced they would introduce a new cabin)

Wasn't Airbus interested in them to see how their planes aged?

Cheers,

Stij

[Conti764]

That's the whole point of the long haul renewal exercise. The "new" aircraft are just arriving a few months too soon.

and thus they can't simply advance the introduction into the fleet and letting SFM N O go ?

If the new cabin is not ready yet and with very expensive early lease terminations, that's not of much use.

But the leases for these 'new' planes have to be paid as well, I assume? Why not store M/N/O until their lease expires and in the mean time deploy the newer jets resulting in more reliability, cheaper operating costs and a higher payload thus revenue? It's not like it takes forever to switch cabins between the old and the newer birds...

Keep one or two old birds standby for whenever an issue would turn up... No external party involved, fewer delays..

[C96C]

A320 n°16 (OO-SNK) is on the Belgian register since today (6/6):
MSN 3373, ex Aeroflot VP-BQU, GECAS OE-IGK


http://www.mobilit.fgov.be:7081/bcaa/ai ... search.jsf

[RoMax]

But the leases for these 'new' planes have to be paid as well, I assume? Why not store M/N/O until their lease expires and in the mean time deploy the newer jets resulting in more reliability, cheaper operating costs and a higher payload thus revenue? It's not like it takes forever to switch cabins between the old and the newer birds...

Keep one or two old birds standby for whenever an issue would turn up... No external party involved, fewer delays..

It isn't that simple. But first of all, please keep in mind that the official role of OO-SFC is already as 'hot spare', it's not absolutely needed to perform the current schedule, but as from next week it will be available to bring relief to the rest of the fleet during the busy summer.

For the others a few remarks why it wouldn't work or not be a good idea:
- Even though some of the will be idle for some time this year, putting them in commercial service would put a lot of pressure on maintenance which is already very busy with the large number of phase ins and phase outs this year. For heavier work you need slots at other MRO organizations at the right time
- Those aircraft have no SN cabins, their configurations are not matching that of SN and the product/cabin is different, galleys are different, etc. SFC went through a light cabin modification to partly solve that and it will continue to fly like this for quite some time so it's worth the investment (and yet it will still have a CX interior of course). So why complexifying this even more by adding 2 or 3 more of these (some with CX and others with SQ cabin without even full lie flat seats), replacing A333's in SN interior, with known galley configurations, etc for just 'a few months'
- Cabin modifications take time and don't come in cheaply. The full cabin retrofit planned for all new A333's is very extensive and will require many weeks of ground time. How do you fit that in the planning if they are already operational and you left the old ones on the ground doing nothing? Put them back in service for a month for that...?
- Leases for the old ladies either continue or you pay for expensive early terminations. In this case money wasted on external leasing companies. The new A333's are from what I know in most (if not all cases) bought by LHG from the lessor and leased to SN under special internal conditions, so not so much of a drama that you have to put these on the ground for some months (I don't even know if SN is actually paying for them in the meantime)

All in all it would cost a lot more, put pressure on teams to rush the phase in of even more widebodies in such short timeframe, result in an absolute nightmare in terms of product and operational consistency with even more variations in cabin and galley lay outs (and even different seat numbers), etc for maybe a few less AOG's in H2 2018 and the first months of 2019. All this while you already have SFC as a spare and with a relative OK configuration to fit operations and sales as they invested in it as it fits like that in the full fleet roll over plan.

[DannyVDB]

I see that SN plans to have more SSJ's

See https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/brussels

I assume one remains for some time 'inactive', another would be a kind of reserve. 5 could become operational. Or would SN go for 7 in total?

D

[TLspotting]

I think the contract will be broken soon by Brussels Airlines...

[nordikcam]

I think the contract will be broken soon by Brussels Airlines...

Hum...interesting and replaced by...?

[DannyVDB]

Maybe, but what makes you think/say that?

What could replace the SSJ. Some routes are thin and can't sustain A319, some airports can't host them ...

So what would be the solution.

D

[pitrixplanespotting]

Maybe, but what makes you think/say that?

What could replace the SSJ. Some routes are thin and can't sustain A319, some airports can't host them ...

So what would be the solution.

D

Embraer from Lufthansa, maybe CS100 from Swiss?

[AIRMARSHAL]

perhaps Cityjets' CRJ-900 series

[convair]

Toronto SN551 flight today operated with OO-SFC, one of the "newwest" SN aircraft. Its first revenue flight for SN, btw.

[CTBke]

Toronto SN551 flight today operated with OO-SFC, one of the "newwest" SN aircraft. Its first revenue flight for SN, btw.

nice to see they put it into service straight away, note that the cabin is still ex Cathay Pacific

[CTBke]

perhaps Cityjets' CRJ-900 series

aren't they 'exclusively' for SAS as they're in their uniform? only the reg tells you it's a cityjet plane (and the safety card)

[DannyVDB]

But LH has no spare aircraft; why would they give it some of them SN?

I think they will stick to the SSJ for the time being ... another solution will need more time.

Just my two cents

D

PS: BTW, I was on an CRJ900 yesterday and a lot less comfortable than the SSJ100 ...

[Boeing767copilot]

In the meantime Cityjet to expand its fleet by up to seven CRJ-900s as part of a US$100 million deal to further expand its wet leasing operation, says executive chairman Pat Byrne.

The aircraft will be leased to Cityjet by part-owner and leasing company, Falko. The aircraft are currently undergoing maintenance and C-checks.

Two of the CRJs will be used by Cityjet as part of its current operation with SAS.

The Dublin-based airline is in talks with other major European carriers about similar operations.

[Darjeeling]

The interior of OO-SFC is far from being a hard punishment:

https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/7815191

Basically the regional products of Asian carriers is up the long-haul product standards of many European carriers. This one is much more attractive than what EW proposes on the A340s.

Now, I know it's not good for product consistency, but still better than some old interiors on (very) ageing birds like SFM, SFN...

[CTBke]

The interior of OO-SFC is far from being a hard punishment:

https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/7815191

Basically the regional products of Asian carriers is up the long-haul product standards of many European carriers. This one is much more attractive than what EW proposes on the A340s.

Now, I know it's not good for product consistency, but still better than some old interiors on (very) ageing birds like SFM, SFN...

EW's long haul product are the Business seats from Lufthansa ...and for a low fare airline a lot better than what you get on TUI or Norwegian

[theeuropean]

CityJet has had also many problems with SAS with many cancellations, it doesn’t seem it is just related to the Sukhoi Super Jets. Maybe it’s an organisational issue of the company. So SAS has no put on pressure on CityJet to up their game.

Here’s the article in Danish but behind a paywall:

https://www.check-in.dk/sas-maa-aflyse- ... lyvninger/

[RTM]

The interior of OO-SFC is far from being a hard punishment:

https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/7815191

Basically the regional products of Asian carriers is up the long-haul product standards of many European carriers. This one is much more attractive than what EW proposes on the A340s.

Now, I know it's not good for product consistency, but still better than some old interiors on (very) ageing birds like SFM, SFN...

Please explain…

The current interiors on the LH SN fleet are less than 6 years old… Probably younger than the still factory interiors of the latest additions...

[lumumba]

The interior of OO-SFC is far from being a hard punishment:

https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/7815191

Basically the regional products of Asian carriers is up the long-haul product standards of many European carriers. This one is much more attractive than what EW proposes on the A340s.

Now, I know it's not good for product consistency, but still better than some old interiors on (very) ageing birds like SFM, SFN...

Please explain…

The current interiors on the LH SN fleet are less than 6 years old… Probably younger than the still factory interiors of the latest additions...

I can not compare with the new one but in Y the interior of Singapore Airline (SFX) was cleaner than the Y in SN plane's....
I think that they changed the seats but not all the interior for example I was seated on 37A ( it was a 200)in my last flight and the carpet was loose on my feet it was dirty!

Normally they have to change every 5 years I tough like that?
I'm not sure the interior of SFX is older that 6 years!

Also the there is no humidity in the windows of SFX in the older SN plane's yes you can not look true the windows anymore....