Brussels Airlines in 2020

[Boavida]

People say the Belgian govt is 'powerless' compared to LH Group, but if they hold the African rights and can decide to grant them to an airline of their choice, they can surely use this in the negotiations, no?

Tui is changing itself and AB lacks the resources to take over SN's flights to Africa.

And what if they takeover some SN people end experience?

And in such scenario they'd loose every feed from both LH Group and Star Alliance as well and can only rely on p2p traffic.

Can't Air Belgium join an alliance ?

[Conti764]

People say the Belgian govt is 'powerless' compared to LH Group, but if they hold the African rights and can decide to grant them to an airline of their choice, they can surely use this in the negotiations, no?

Tui is changing itself and AB lacks the resources to take over SN's flights to Africa.

And what if they takeover some SN people end experience?

And in such scenario they'd loose every feed from both LH Group and Star Alliance as well and can only rely on p2p traffic.

Can't Air Belgium join an alliance ?

Sure, but in these times airlines and alliances will rather be focussing on saving what they already have i.s.o. integrating a small airline flying three old 4-holers from a small market like Belgium.

[Jetter]

Belgian state has the power to deliver slot to Africa. If Brussels Airlines collapse, everything will be granted to Air Belgium or TUI fly.

In my opinion, if bad mother Lufthansa get rids of Brussels Airlines and Austrian. Maybe Brussels Airlines and Austrian could join forces. Brussels Airlines focusing on Africa and North America, western and south Europe while Austrian could focus on Asia, eastern Europe and Middle East.

In my opinion the potential bankruptcy of SN is a great opportunity to have a flag carrier that doesn't focus on the least developed continent on earth, but uses the strengt of Brussel: good connections within Europe and a few major intercontinental destinations.

[MD-11forever]

Ditch SN and LH (who has never had any interest in it besides protecting its backyard) and support Air Belgium instead. Transfer the african rights to them and lease a small fleet of short haul aircraft that focuses on feeding, maybe that’s the better solution. I still fear the african market is far from what it used to be and for sure in the coming years.

Isn't Air Belgium owned by some Chinese company for (slightly less) than 50%? And they are not in such a good condition either afaik. I think investments in Air Belgium will be much larger than throwing a lifeline to SN.

I might be wrong, but it seems to me that this threat from LH is part of the armwrestling game that is being played, as a reminder who really is in charge and who has the most to loose.

Just me 2c.

[Conti764]

Belgian state has the power to deliver slot to Africa. If Brussels Airlines collapse, everything will be granted to Air Belgium or TUI fly.

In my opinion, if bad mother Lufthansa get rids of Brussels Airlines and Austrian. Maybe Brussels Airlines and Austrian could join forces. Brussels Airlines focusing on Africa and North America, western and south Europe while Austrian could focus on Asia, eastern Europe and Middle East.

In my opinion the potential bankruptcy of SN is a great opportunity to have a flag carrier that doesn't focus on the least developed continent on earth, but uses the strengt of Brussel: good connections within Europe and a few major intercontinental destinations.

So basicly a regional airline with a handful of (probably unsuccesful) international destinations. Why would anyone choose this tiny stand alone carrier over any other airline to any destination within its portfolio?

No alliance, no codeshare, no cashcow Africa anymore. Just a kind of Air Baltic XL...

[sn26567]

Who says that an independent Brussels Airlines cannot be part of an alliance, providing the necessary feeder flights for intercontinental connections?

[FLYAIR10]

Does anyone know if the SN-planes are carrying CARGO these days?(and hence hopefully generating some extra revenue)
Or is Lufty chaneling every piece of freight originating in Belgium or SN's destinations they can get hold of through Frankfurt?

[oldblueeyes]

Once again: If and only If SN is going bust, what will happen with the slots???

I would not surprised LH let SN deliberately go bust. But they never wanna leave BRU behind because it would mean extra competition.(and that in these hard times, they can miss that as the pest)

My gamble: they will try to put Eurowings in Brussels at any means.

It might be one of the mean tricks of CS, to let SN "die", replace it at BRU by EW and offer even lower wages and worse working conditions. SN workers might be tempted (CS knows that) to accept to work for EW rather than to be jobless.

As regards the slots, I presume LH can transfer SN slots to EW. This does not mean that he automatically gets traffic rights between Belgium and Africa, unless perhaps if the sets up a Belgian EW. The question to which I don't have an answer is : what can the Belgian State do in such a situation ?
Can it prevent a Belgian EW to get the traffic rights to Africa ? (I'm tempted to say yes, but I am not sure).

I presume that the current government has not had a lot of time to deal with other problems than the covid crisis, but it might be an option, if SN is grounded, to immediately nationalize Brussels Airlines to maintain the traffic rights to Africa.

The A330's are owned by LH.
Given the situation in Africa due to Covid, LH might have time to set up a small (A330 only) Belgian company, called Eurowings Belgium, patch EW titles on the fuselage and have this Belgian airline, on a Belgian AOC with OO-registered A330's fly from BRU to Africa. The BRU hub could be fed from other hubs on LH, LX, OS and EW, together with the excisting *A-partners.

Pure theoritical, but the Belgian state hasn't much to pur pressure on LH, contrary to the other way around.

Or simply doing it from somewhere else.
Let's assume there will be no local deal in Belgium. There would be a clear interest from Lufthansa to keep the promises made in other markets in order to get state control asap out of their business decisions. The German state stake is to prevent a hostile take over, thus Switzerland and Austria are the alternatives.
The key point is that Long Haul work only via feeders. So a significantly less connected Belgian Airline would loose some traffic on the African routes. In case of a frontal attack from a hostile Lufthansa even more, as it would have more ressources to switch pax eg via Zurich and Edelweiss.

Africa might be until winter not a subject of significant long haul traffic - this is helping Lufthansa to work on an alternative.
Even if the slots are national rights, in case of niche-tiny routes pax fly where the offer is as they do not have so many choices.
And let's be honest, to all African governments, a major link to Sitzerland would be higher appreciated than a restart to Belgium - starting from a better/more premium image of the country, lack of colonial history, opportunity to "visit" ones own special bank accounts until a more central hub for transfer pax.

[Conti764]

Who says that an independent Brussels Airlines cannot be part of an alliance, providing the necessary feeder flights for intercontinental connections?

An independant SN is part of an alliance.

A whole new company from scratch isn't and probably won't since without Africa and only a European network it has no added value...

[Atlantis]

Silence is the best now for the negotiations. Leaks to the press, fake or not fake, is only to make the pressure higher and lead to one party to make the decision faster.

Some people think that it will be so easy to start again. It's not. Forget about Air Belgium and SN together. Look who are the shareholders of Air Belgium.

The dismiss of SN would be a disaster for many years. Not only the loss of people at SN but also at BRU, all parties working at BRU and outside.

With COVID-19 there is now only one way and this is state aid, even state aid during Winter time.

Let's all hope that they will succeed bcs otherwise BRU will be a dessert.

[Boavida]

In any case, there has to be a deal on MONDAY and not a day later. All these rumours about bankruptcy are deadly for the image of SN (or any company in this situation).

No one is going to book a flight with an airline that 'seems' on the verge of bankruptcy. This uncertainty has to stop now.

[Ozzie1969]

Let's all hope that they will succeed bcs otherwise BRU will be a dessert.

If BRU turns into a dessert, I bet it's a waffle with strawberries and whipped cream ! Unless you meant 'desert'...

By the way, aren't you the same person who (in another topic) was happy to see Wizzair leave BRU and is afraid of Transavia coming to BRU ? I fail to see the logic in your thinking. Brussels Airlines has to be saved at all cost (to the taxpayer), but no other airlines should come to BRU. The mind boggles.

[Passenger]

Silence is the best now for the negotiations. Leaks to the press, fake or not fake, is only to make the pressure higher and lead to one party to make the decision faster.

Indeed. The fact that both Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines remain silent, is ennoying some people.

What an amazing day it was, Friday: hell broke loose on this forum after one article on the homepage based upon anonymous sources, referring to a newspaper article based upon… an anonymous source. The result: a full day of ultimate speculation, pure nonsense and lots of crap. With top of the bill, this ugly post: “…Ditch SN and LH and support Air Belgium instead…” "Ditch 4.000 people": posted by someone who’s own airline is virtually bankrupt!

[sean1982]

Silence is the best now for the negotiations. Leaks to the press, fake or not fake, is only to make the pressure higher and lead to one party to make the decision faster.

Indeed. The fact that both Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines remain silent, is ennoying some people.

What an amazing day it was, Friday: hell broke loose on this forum after one article on the homepage based upon anonymous sources, referring to a newspaper article based upon… an anonymous source. The result: a full day of ultimate speculation, pure nonsense and lots of crap. With top of the bill, this ugly post: “…Ditch SN and LH and support Air Belgium instead…” "Ditch 4.000 people": posted by someone who’s own airline is virtually bankrupt!

I don’t own an airline, I don’t even work for one anymore. Thank the lord for that. I didn’t say ditch 4000 people, I said “don’t dump taxpayers money in a company that is already virtually bankrupt and where the main investor has no intention at all to do something significant to it”. There are a lot of people who actually agree with that too. You, on the other hand, can’t resist to make it personal again. Not that I expected a higher level of communication.

What gives you the right to feel so superior to call everything that does not support your view “nonsense and crap” I wonder? Why do you feel that you’re the übermensch of this forum and everyone else is wrong?

[Flanker2]

Silence is the best now for the negotiations. Leaks to the press, fake or not fake, is only to make the pressure higher and lead to one party to make the decision faster.

Indeed. The fact that both Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines remain silent, is ennoying some people.

What an amazing day it was, Friday: hell broke loose on this forum after one article on the homepage based upon anonymous sources, referring to a newspaper article based upon… an anonymous source. The result: a full day of ultimate speculation, pure nonsense and lots of crap. With top of the bill, this ugly post: “…Ditch SN and LH and support Air Belgium instead…” "Ditch 4.000 people": posted by someone who’s own airline is virtually bankrupt!

I think that there is nothing worse than having a job where you always have to worry about your company going broke, not knowing if you'll still have a job the next day, and said company uses that against you to make you work more for less.

We are talking about low pay jobs, a majority of whom are getting less than Horeca, crews earning less than industry standards, with no ability to conduct a normal social or family life, with higher risk to health, without job security or future prospects.
Is Lufthansa actually saving these 4000 people by keeping them employed? Wouldn't they be better off working for other airlines or in different sectors?

Moreover, how much credit does LH deserve for "saving" those jobs when the taxpayer is footing the bill and Lufthansa is only talking about downsizing?

How long will 390 Millions last in the hands of Lufthansa? 6 months?
What happens after that? Another 390 Millions?

[Atlantis]

Let's all hope that they will succeed bcs otherwise BRU will be a dessert.

If BRU turns into a dessert, I bet it's a waffle with strawberries and whipped cream ! Unless you meant 'desert'...

By the way, aren't you the same person who (in another topic) was happy to see Wizzair leave BRU and is afraid of Transavia coming to BRU ? I fail to see the logic in your thinking. Brussels Airlines has to be saved at all cost (to the taxpayer), but no other airlines should come to BRU. The mind boggles.

That was for sure not me bcs I was even giving the information that there would come more destinations. But Corona and their too fast starting up with barely flying people decided differently.

And I have completely nothing against other airlines coming to BRU. So what you wrote there is nonsense and only on your conto.

The only thing you have to be aware is that you don't kill routes and airlines on certain destinations

[Luke777]

The post of Ansett is obvious; LH only takes swiss and austrian with them into the guarantee-story. The previous years of financial loss, despite high occupancy made SN not attractive, the weight of the Africa-added-value was too low... sad story...

[oldblueeyes]

Just to come back to reality:

- Brussels was supposed to reduce its cost in the pre-Corona plan by 8% in total, in order to acheieve a sustainable financial position
- even post Corona, an expected realistic scenario is to have around 2023 a market roughly at 80% of the level from 2019

As unpleasat as it is, a signifcant portion of the jobs will be lost anyhow, regardless what scenario will follow.

The next point is the recovery way. This year maybe 1/4 of the capacity will be really needed, the forecast for 2021 is for 50%. This is also a reality that has to be acknowledged by unions and governments. So one can try to find a solution to save as many jobs on the long run by implementing part time models, susbsidies etc for the transition period, or one can go the IAG way. The grass is not greener somewhere else and for sure not in the early steps of a state company.

[Shonix]

Belgian state has the power to deliver slot to Africa. If Brussels Airlines collapse, everything will be granted to Air Belgium or TUI fly.

In my opinion, if bad mother Lufthansa get rids of Brussels Airlines and Austrian. Maybe Brussels Airlines and Austrian could join forces. Brussels Airlines focusing on Africa and North America, western and south Europe while Austrian could focus on Asia, eastern Europe and Middle East.

In my opinion the potential bankruptcy of SN is a great opportunity to have a flag carrier that doesn't focus on the least developed continent on earth, but uses the strengt of Brussel: good connections within Europe and a few major intercontinental destinations.

So basicly a regional airline with a handful of (probably unsuccesful) international destinations. Why would anyone choose this tiny stand alone carrier over any other airline to any destination within its portfolio?

No alliance, no codeshare, no cashcow Africa anymore. Just a kind of Air Baltic XL...

Why not trying? All major airlines started someday with tiny ressources. Why not believing in it and investing. If there is a will, there is a way.

[sean1982]

The only thing you have to be aware is that you don't kill routes and airlines on certain destinations

Thats whats called a "free market" ... in North Korea that would not be the case