Brussels Airlines in 2024

[Lux_avi]

What I don't understand with pilots is that it's the top of the social basket; they can find a job wherever they want in any other company, why go on strike?

Yeah well, there is already a significant exodus to other airlines.

But for sure, it’s also very easy to quit everything you have in Belgium, leave your family behind and go to the Middle East instead. Why didn’t they think about that, really

It may be necessary to change the model and put the entire company in Ireland because there have been more than a hundred years of commercial aviation in Belgium with only a few short years of weak profitability?

Yes, for the turboprob section maybe.

[Lux_avi]

Not only passengers are frustrated, but travel agencies are now reluctant to book customers on Brussels Airlines, especially if they have a connection with Lufthansa (StrikeHansa) at Munich or Frankfurt. It's not only Brussels Airlines, but the whole Lufthansa Group that is affected.

I bet they book anyway.

[lumumba]

Not only passengers are frustrated, but travel agencies are now reluctant to book customers on Brussels Airlines, especially if they have a connection with Lufthansa (StrikeHansa) at Munich or Frankfurt. It's not only Brussels Airlines, but the whole Lufthansa Group that is affected.

I bet they book anyway.

Anyway it's not good!

[Miqvell]

New interview of Dorothea Von Boxberg about the expertise in Africa, the hub project and the future fleet - but sadly there's a paywall :

BRUSSELS AIRLINES CEO ALIGNS POTENTIAL FLEET GROWTH WITH PROFITABILITY
https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/ ... fitability

[TimTam]

No interview or press conference for the Belgian media (yet) ?

[oldblueeyes]

The key message is in the few free lines - investment if profitable.

[Boavida]

I've read the strike will cut the (fragile!) profits in half... Well done pilots and all parties involved, well done!

[Lux_avi]

I've read the strike will cut the (fragile!) profits in half... Well done pilots and all parties involved, well done!

Don’t judge unless you work there and really know what this is all about.

[oldblueeyes]

Economics are simple. You can only share from profits and not from losses.

LH can spend any Euro only once, if not in BRU others would get it.

Own A333 can expand Discover, is SN can't pitch for them.

[lumumba]

I've read the strike will cut the (fragile!) profits in half... Well done pilots and all parties involved, well done!

Don’t judge unless you work there and really know what this is all about.

But how is this possible a weak company has this one, I don't blame any party but it it's threatening!

[fcw]

I've read the strike will cut the (fragile!) profits in half... Well done pilots and all parties involved, well done!

Ah, always amazing how people swallow this managerial propaganda whilst the same managers are laughing their way to the bank to collect big bonuses!
A 10% pay rise for every SN employee could be covered by increasing ticket price by 1€ on shothaul and 3€ on long haul.

[TimTam]

I have not done the maths, but I am very much tempted to believe you, fcw.
The Big Boss's recent annoucement and the CEO's additional "know-how" boil down inter alia to blaming employees and mainly crews. Management is ready as long as "you" accept to work/fly under poor working and pay conditions.
Try to discover what the alternative could be (in the bosses minds)

[Atlantis]

I've read the strike will cut the (fragile!) profits in half... Well done pilots and all parties involved, well done!

Don’t judge unless you work there and really know what this is all about.

The agreement was on the table. The pilots and unions agreed with the wage increase proposed by SN. But at the end, to compensate it, they had to deliver in 14 recuperation days from the 144 days.

The strike of next week will costs 20 million which was said already by member Boavida.
SN is not out of the danger zone and can be in loss again this year.

But you have to be realistic here. Belgium is not a country were we have a crazy load of flights a day. SN has a very small fleet and a low number of flights per day. Planes are not fully used per day.
But there is more light at the end of the tunnel, finally profit and we have a very, very important new carrier, Singapore Airlines, who wants to fly back to BRU with an important number of codeshares. If you f*ck this up as a partner, you are not reliable. With all this, the profit could be stable or maybe more, but not when you start to strike. Striking is a right, but when you put your own company in danger, think twice.

And the message from the Germans was clear: only investments if profitable. The Germans were years ago the only ones who wanted to invest in SN. Even if I have the feeling that they were better in another alliance, the situation is like it is and SN is still there.

[fcw]

The agreement was on the table. The pilots and unions agreed with the wage increase proposed by SN. But at the end, to compensate it, they had to deliver in 14 recuperation days from the 144 days.

Honestly, who would accept to work 14 extra days/year to self-finance a salary increase?
Can you even call it an increase if you have to work 7% more?

[Atlantis]

The agreement was on the table. The pilots and unions agreed with the wage increase proposed by SN. But at the end, to compensate it, they had to deliver in 14 recuperation days from the 144 days.

Honestly, who would accept to work 14 extra days/year to self-finance a salary increase?
Can you even call it an increase if you have to work 7% more?

If I remember well, a part of the profit of last year was going to be paid to all employees as an extra bonus and that was not a small amount.
It's not only a dividend to the shareholders

[jan_olieslagers]

investment if profitable

Visit Amsterdam, and you can read, carved into a stone wall several centruries ago: "De kost gaat voor de baat uit" - cost goes before profit.

[fcw]

If I remember well, a part of the profit of last year was going to be paid to all employees as an extra bonus and that was not a small amount.
It's not only a dividend to the shareholders

You are mixing up two different things here, profit share is peanuts compared to management bonuses.
Believe me, there wouldn’t be a strike if employees would get the same percentage of their salary as bonus as managers do.

In fact, those who are telling the company is in danger get a bonus if they can minimise the salary increase. Managers earn less if employees get a bigger salary increase. These managers, who aren’t here for the long term anyhow, just want their short term personal bonus, they don’t care about the long term future of the company. It’s much more important if they can brag off about how they kept costs under control and increased productivity in their next job interview.

[oldblueeyes]

If I remember well, a part of the profit of last year was going to be paid to all employees as an extra bonus and that was not a small amount.
It's not only a dividend to the shareholders

You are mixing up two different things here, profit share is peanuts compared to management bonuses.
Believe me, there wouldn’t be a strike if employees would get the same percentage of their salary as bonus as managers do.

In fact, those who are telling the company is in danger get a bonus if they can minimise the salary increase. Managers earn less if employees get a bigger salary increase. These managers, who aren’t here for the long term anyhow, just want their short term personal bonus, they don’t care about the long term future of the company. It’s much more important if they can brag off about how they kept costs under control and increased productivity in their next job interview.

Why should everone get the same percentage of bonus?

Let's face reality - in any sector of this world there is a management ladder, some can climb it, some not. It is selfunderstanding that those climing it are getting more variable rewards.
And it is a personal decision of anyone choosing a job to be more on the safe side, with less bonuses or more on the risky side, being judged by hard economic facts - applies to all economic sectors to execcutives, people in sales and so on.

Managers role is to navigate the company's future - board is setting the direction for the shareholders, top management eg LH is defining the strategy and local management is executing it.

The job at Brussels is to bring the company finally in a sustainable profit shape. By any management model, this is happening in one of two scenarios - either you cut down all things that do not work and provide money (regardless how emotional they are for the locals) and you execute straight forward a clear business model that can provide sustainable profits.

You can bechmark several group companies - they were starting to improve once they gave up complexity, local emotions and traditions, and started focusing on their markets evolution not on the history:

Austrian:
- got rid of their historical high complexity on serving al small Eastern European airports
- moved away from serving all small national county airports
- now fleet is streamlined to one regional jt size E195 (no more Q400, Fokker 70 and 100)
- One mainstream narrowbody family A320 with some A321 left , but A319 phased out (one landed at SN)
- future one long haul model

Eurowings:
- enheritated the decentral Lufthansa bases (were doing 2013 300 mio annual losses)
- got a lot of Air Berlin assets ( bankrupt beacause unable to eearn money)
- made a black zero on short haul from the above two, but started earning money as they went away from the Q400 fleet feeding DUS and terminated the decentral long haul experiment

Same strategy is targeted to SN - a third brand operating in the same type of environment - heavy LCC competition around it's home base:
- focus on A320 only
- cost control /high productivity to compete with LCC
- carfeull niche hub

You liek it or not - the SN cost will be always compared to those Ryanair and Wizz and Transavia. This is your market reality, reagardless of what you are dreaming of.

[Lux_avi]

You liek it or not - the SN cost will be always compared to those Ryanair and Wizz and Transavia. This is your market reality, reagardless of what you are dreaming of.

Ok so basically… you’re saying pilots should work more and earn less than at major LCC’s because the cost structure of SN is too high?

[Ge203]

Agreement with unions found, pilot strike cancelled.