Brussels Airlines in 2019

[C96C]

I don't think so. Their first matter is to make the airline more profitable. Painting aircraft is something SN just can't afford right now. Maybe in a couple of years, they will.

It is often done as part of maintenance. One level of check (C? D?) requires stripping the paint so it must be redone anyway.

That is what I mean: during maintenance, I guess white paint is cheaper than the SN-purple. And repainting a fleet is something that not happens in a short period. Look at Austrian, their blue livery wasn't even completely gone and they replaced the newer livery already with the current one.

[RTM]

It is often done as part of maintenance. One level of check (C? D?) requires stripping the paint so it must be redone anyway.

That is a Boeing thing... Airbus doesn't do D checks, paint stripping is not required. Repaint is normally done every 4 to 5 years. Sometimes more, sometimes less...

[jan_olieslagers]

Ah, thanks, I've learned something.

[PttU]

They took over the whole portfolio of Thomas Cook Airlines. This was nice bcs more customers but if it is profitable, we don't know. It would be better if it could be devided, like in the past with Sabena and Sobelair. Or just the creation of a new charter company next to Jetair. This to let SN fly to pure business destinations

If those routes aren't profitable, can't they just ask higher prices? On routes where there's copmpetition from low cost, it's not easy to up the prices, but in a packaged deal, adding 10-20 euro's per passenger isn't that big of a deal? Or is adding a few euros per passenger not enough?
I think splitting business and leisure isn't necessary the way to go: every passenger is welcome, whether being for business or leisure... fragmentation doesn't lead to optimization.

Regarding new destinations. First newer airplanes who are more fuel efficient. It is not makes sence for trying to be profitable when you are flying with old birds. New destinations can be later but then first into Africa to take some % back from AF/KLM - Turkish Airlines, etc. New destinations in The States as feeder to Africa

Aren't newer airplanes also more expensive regarding leasing?
Even if current airplanes are leased, there probably are contracts for several years, which could mean a fee to be paid when replacing by airplanes cheaper to operate. Or even when current aircraft are owned by SN, it's cheaper to keep using them in stead of doing the investment of buying new ones, no?

[brusselsairlinesfan]

LUFTHANSA announces a re-orientation of Brussels Airlines: closer alignment with Network Airlines; integration into Eurowings will not be further pursued.

The best news ever.

Dear All,

I could not have hoped for better news! This means really new hope for Belgian civil aviation... brussels airlines will remain a true ambassador for Belgium. Of course, it is above all also encouraging for connectivity and growth at Brussels Airport!
My best thoughts to all SN staff and loyal passengers!
Keep up the good hard work for a strong sustainable growth now!
Happy, happy, happy...

Vincent

[brabel]

Looking forward to their monthly traffic figures again!

[theeuropean]

I am happy also with the developments. However, SN is not out of the woods just yet. I agree that "turnaround plan" doesn't sound like they are doing great. On the other side of that coin, I also believe that it will also focus on how to reintegrate SN with the network carriers with minimal cost. According to CH-Aviation it seems that potentially SN may get new aircraft but further down the road. I can't see SN adding longhaul destinations this year. Next year it depends, but there are some European destinations that I think should turn from seasonal to year round - doesn't have to be daily but even 3-5 times a week they should work.

https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news ... -thru-2025

Let us see in 3 months the plan. I wish SN the best!

[Boavida]

From the article:

In March this year, the German holding ordered twenty B787-9s from Boeing - its first of the type - and twenty additional A350-900s from Airbus bringing its overall A350 backlog to forty-five of the type. It is presumed the incoming A350s and B787s will also find placement at Austrian, Brussels Airlines, and Swiss given the aforementioned plan to retire the bulk of their existing widebody fleets.

Dreaming about B787 Dreamliners or A350 for SN....

[Deejay]

One of the first things they need to do is to integrate fully SN flights in the LH booking system.

Example:
I want to book a triangle: BRU-GVA-VIE-BRU
if I try to book this on any of the three actual "network airlines" websites, the leg BRU-GVA that is operated by SN directly, isn't suggested at all. They let you do a stopover in Germany, or in Zurich ....

[rwandan-flyer]

or, even worse:
try to plot a Zurich Kinshasa, and they let you travel over JNB
with SAA

And why not ? The strategy of Skyteam, in Africa is quite good. With KLM and Air France, they can provide the highest numbers of destinations in Africa, via Paris Cdg and Amsterdam. They are helped, with the Nairobi hub. There are even some destinations both served by KLM and Air France (Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Luanda, Cape Town and Johannesburg.


Lufthansa group could use Zurich and Frankfurt to improve connecting to Africa, by providing new routes from these airports. In the past Lufthansa, Swissair and swiss (during the early days), had a big network in Africa. 3 hubs (Brussels, Frankfurt and Zurich), for Africans ops, will be probably a good thing. Some destinations could be both served by SN, with LX or LH, or only by SN, LX or LH.

You can do, a Brussels-Kinshasa with SN, then back from Kinshasa to Brussels via Zurich, by flying on LX to ZRH and then on SN from ZRH to Brussels). That's an AK KLM common routing when you fly between Europe and Africa, via CDG or AMS (ex: Paris Cdg-Amsterdam-Nairobi-Mayotte-Nairobi-Paris Cdg : AF+ KLM + Kenya Airways).

Swiss said, in 2017, that they could use A321Neo to Africa, where the A330 is too big.
Ethiopian Airlines and Kenya Airways are now serving Geneva.

Swiss eyes narrowbodies for Africa, but longhaul cargo market won't be affected

https://theloadstar.com/swiss-eyes-afri ... go-market/


Competition is stiff in Africa. Oneworld has now a good presence, via Royal Air Maroc, Comair and Qatar Airways. Even some Star Alliance members are growing fast in Africa: TAP, Turkish Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines. If i m right SN has dropped code share with ET and TK. LH has dropped with Turkish Airlines.

Even Iberia: Iberia planea usar sus nuevos A321neo para ir a África https://translate.google.com/translate? ... 68454.html

[sn26567]

or, even worse:
try to plot a Zurich Kinshasa, and they let you travel over JNB
with SAA

And why not ? The strategy of Skyteam, in Africa is quite good. With KLM and Air France, they can provide the highest numbers of destinations in Africa, via Paris Cdg and Amsterdam. They are helped, with the Nairobi hub. There are even some destinations both served by KLM and Air France (Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Luanda, Cape Town and Johannesburg.

The strategy of Skyteam in Africa might be quite good, indeed, but the strategy of Lufthansa Group is lacking coherence, as shown by the above example. Maybe the Network Airlines are still considering Brussels Airlines as a low-cost point-to-point airline to avoid st all costs, even if it means using other Star Alliance airlines.

Now that Brussels Airlines has freed itself from the Eurowings chains, let's hope that it will be considered as an equal to Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian and have its flights integrated in the Network Airlines schedules.

[convair]

One of the first things they need to do is to integrate fully SN flights in the LH booking system.

Example:
I want to book a triangle: BRU-GVA-VIE-BRU
if I try to book this on any of the three actual "network airlines" websites, the leg BRU-GVA that is operated by SN directly, isn't suggested at all. They let you do a stopover in Germany, or in Zurich ....


or, even worse:
try to plot a Zurich Kinshasa, and they let you travel over JNB
with SAA

talking about shooting yourself in the knee ....

Unbelievable! This is the kind of non-sense the Carsten Spohr strategy has led to!

[rwandan-flyer]

Now that Brussels Airlines has freed itself from the Eurowings chains, let's hope that it will be considered as an equal to Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian and have its flights integrated in the Network Airlines schedules

In deed, we can imagine, that SN could focus mainly on French Speaking countries. Gabon, Republic of Congo or Mali (SN could resume Bamako service) are not served by Lufthansa Group. SN could serve some destinations already served by LH or LX: Lagos and Dar Es Salaam. I don't know, if market is strong, for Chad and Niger.

Swiss and Lufthansa could focus mainly on English Speaking countries, such as Uganda or Rwanda. Maybe Swiss could add Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire to its network. Most of these routes could be operated with code share others airlines members of the Lufthansa Group

A perferct routing could be: Washington-Frankfurt-Kigali-Brussels-Washington. (Lufthansa, from USA to Rwanda and Brussels Airlines, from Rwanda to USA)

However it's Lufthansa which decides and it's very hard to make some predictions. We will get more infos, in few months.

[theeuropean]

I also think what you Rwandan-flyer said is correct. Why not open new routes that have limited competition and earn also more money and also focus on the European network at the same time.

[Passenger]

Unbelievable how many people believed that stupid crap nonsense “try Zürich-Kinshasa: they let you travel over Johannesburg”. They don’t.

Resa systems allways look for the best connection: first non stop, then with one stopover, then with two stopovers. And in between, carrier selection and connection time join the party (own metal or codesharing). For ZRH-FIH, the first option that is shown on Swiss.com, is Swiss ZRH-BRU and Brussels Airlines BRU-FIH. A connection time of 2h20 may be short, hence the system puts as second choice Helvetic 21h00-22h20 connecting to Brussels Airlines +1 10h35-20h20. The third choice is indeed ZRH-JNB 22h40-09h10 +1 connecting to SAA JNB-FIH 20h50-23h40. Simply because that routing is possible with just one stopover. As from the fourth option, there is a list of 30 possibilities to get from ZRH to BRU: all 30 of them connect to Brussels Airlines SN359.

- - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - -

If one searches for ZRH-FIH on the German site Lufthansa.com, the search engine will even send you on ET codesharing flights via ADD. Simply because the engine is programmed to include FRA, and then looks for codesharings starting te same day.

If one does the search BRU-FIH on the general resa systems, ZRH-BRU-FIH LX/SN shows as first. Unless one starts changing parameters (preferential carrier, preferential via-airport, ...).

Same applies for search-engine-based OTA's like Connections and Joker/Boundless, where "cheapest first" preveals above all.

[Homo Aeroportus]

Flew WAW-BRU with SN yesterday morning.
First time I was on that 06:45 flight (due to misconnection the evening before, not unusual with LOT).

Was a full boat but for 4 seats. After boarding, Capt Speaking announced a 30-minute delay due to restrictions at EBBR (07L arrivals) which triggered the need for informing transfer passengers.
+15 destinations were listed, to Europe but also JFK, IAD, Africa.

I later spoke with the purser and she showed me the list ; about 75% of the Pax were in transfer ! She said she was used to this on that early morning flight.

So much for a point-to-point airline.

H.A.

[Aerofool]

Results of 2018 are published on the website of the National Bank. For the first time more than 10 million passengers, net profit of 12.8 million euros (in 2017 there was a loss of more than 60 million euros).

Link to Central Balance Sheet Office: https://www.nbb.be/en/central-balance-sheet-office

[Matt]

Flew WAW-BRU with SN yesterday morning.
First time I was on that 06:45 flight (due to misconnection the evening before, not unusual with LOT).

Was a full boat but for 4 seats. After boarding, Capt Speaking announced a 30-minute delay due to restrictions at EBBR (07L arrivals) which triggered the need for informing transfer passengers.
+15 destinations were listed, to Europe but also JFK, IAD, Africa.

I later spoke with the purser and she showed me the list ; about 75% of the Pax were in transfer ! She said she was used to this on that early morning flight.

So much for a point-to-point airline.

H.A.

Well, that's the fault of our amazing politicians and complainers about whether or not a plane can fly over their houses/regions. Landing on 01 should have been an option yesterday morning...

07R shouldn't be used normally ( correct me if i'm wrong here ) for landings because of the Nato.
And because 07L doesn't have an ILS it cannot handle as many aircraft as 01/19, 25R or 25L can.

Speaking of which: it has been ages seen I have seen an aircraft landing on 19...

[PttU]

Results of 2018 are published on the website of the National Bank. For the first time more than 10 million passengers, net profit of 12.8 million euros (in 2017 there was a loss of more than 60 million euros).

Link to Central Balance Sheet Office: https://www.nbb.be/en/central-balance-sheet-office

Hey, CS !!! We want more new planes !!!

Well... the results of 2018 don't mean a thing for 2019: the skeyes-strikes etc might mean the current situation is not as good as this result might seem. Furthermore: a profit of 12.8m in 2018 means there's still 47.2m of 2017 to compensate.
So let's be optimistic, but carefull optimistic

[Passenger]

Results of 2018 are published on the website of the National Bank. For the first time more than 10 million passengers, net profit of 12.8 million euros (in 2017 there was a loss of more than 60 million euros).

Link to Central Balance Sheet Office: https://www.nbb.be/en/central-balance-sheet-office

Hey, CS !!! We want more new planes !!!

Reply from Carsten Spohr: "a profit of 12.774.667 Euro (after taxes) for BY2018 is very nice, well done, but you still have a cumulated loss of 92.732.030 Euro".