Brussels Airlines' fleet renewal

[Atlantis]

On https://sites.google.com/view/europeanairlinefleets/bel a 12th A330 appeared for 2026. Even if this is not official yet, the person/organsisation behind this page is most of the time (not always) really well informed.

From what I heard lately, one of the plan on the network could be to add frequencies on the existing destination and to operate more direct flight.

That's indeed the plan.

[TimTam]

I am jumping in the air with utter joy and excitment. LH Group continues to distribute alms to SN.

[oldblueeyes]

Each available Euro can be invested only once.
And it goes where it brings the best Return- Cash and Strategic Position.

All 3 small Budget brands are getting a fair long haul growth option: SM 2 additional A330, OS got two 789 and Discover shall replace 3x332 with 5x333 in the coming two years.

You may not like it, but SNosm't treated worse than it's peers.

But for this you need to ackowledge first that SN is not playing in the same league you assume.

[TimTam]

Please forgive my ignorance, but in such a brands mess, a cat would not recognize her kittens. Which are the 3 small budget airlines within the LH Group ? Thanks !

[Atlantis]

Please forgive my ignorance, but in such a brands mess, a cat would not recognize her kittens. Which are the 3 small budget airlines within the LH Group ? Thanks !

Like member Oldblueeys was saying: Brussels Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Discover

[lumumba]

La Libre Belgique is a quality news paper if they say that there is a community problem at Brussels Airlines, it is true.
And this forum is exactly where we have tu discuse about denying the problem is really not the solution..

[sn26567]

La Libre Belgique is a quality news paper if they say that there is a community problem at Brussels Airlines, it is true.
And this forum is exactly where we have tu discuse about denying the problem is really not the solution..

Let's avoid this, please. Furthermore, the title in LLB is somewhat misleading: it's more about (mis)management of Brussels Airlines by Lufthansa!

[oldblueeyes]

To me it seems that there is a lot of tension accumulated, with respect to several imagined things- otherwise the reality won't be seen so negative.

Starting by facts and not by dreams and using meaningfull judgement and not unrealistic wishes, reading the public available Information on strategy and it's execution as benchmarks would help a lot.

The first thing everyone needs to acknowledge is that despite London and partially Paris, all other European hubs need the transfer passengers to fill the planes.
There are no magic growth pools- either you take these Pax from competition or you re allocate them within your group.

So if anyone is dreaming about new routes, ask yourself first :
- Do they cover any demand capped somewhere else?
- Do they enlarge a secured position within the group?
- or if none of above, what would be the trade off with the other brands?

2 additional narrowbodies and 1 adfitional widebody per year is a high Single digit growth capacity expansion per year, compared to the size of SN.

[TimTam]

Please forgive my ignorance, but in such a brands mess, a cat would not recognize her kittens. Which are the 3 small budget airlines within the LH Group ? Thanks !

Like member Oldblueeys was saying: Brussels Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Discover

Thank you. What about Eurowings ?

[fcw]

Please forgive my ignorance, but in such a brands mess, a cat would not recognize her kittens. Which are the 3 small budget airlines within the LH Group ? Thanks !

Like member Oldblueeys was saying: Brussels Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Discover

Thank you. What about Eurowings ?

Eurowings operates a fleet of almost 100 aircraft, would you call that small?

[TimTam]

You are right. Compared to dwarf SN, 100 aircraft is not small. Compared to the 700 aircraft or so of LH, it is.... ?

[fcw]

You are right. Compared to dwarf SN, 100 aircraft is not small. Compared to the 700 aircraft or so of LH, it is.... ?

May I suggest you do some homework before trying to stir up things? Mainline operates less than 300 aircraft.

[oldblueeyes]

Eurowings is at slightly above 100 aircraft plus 20+ wet leased during summer- tendency goes here towards multi annual agreements. On top some code sharing with Smartwings and Volotea.

LH itself has less than 300 in the Mainline- tendency decreasing due to more Long Haul / personnel allocation and of course legacy tariff.

Eurowings planning is going towards 150 own AC and up to 200 with partners.

The importance is given by a Mix of product, mass and role.

- LH and Swiss are covering the Premium market, swiss 100% with all long haul planes having a first class - the size of their long haul fleet drives the waves of feeding short haul fleets
- LH has the European short haul Hub in MUC - logically main transfer pax fluxes go via MUC for obvious reasons, larger planes bring the cost down; and no other brand can compete here, since LH Co Owns the terminal, so is earning on ground services as well

All the other brands cover their home markets or a certain niche :
- Discover is leisure ( short haul actually follow up of Sun Express Germany, long haul competition to Condor)
- Edelweiss is same for Swiss
- Eurowiungs is P2P non hubs
- Austrian and Brussels cover their home markets and have a certain long haul

If ITA would fly it would become immeduately no3 after Swiss in terms of long haul and with feeding needs and low market share in FCO. If it won't go trough, some growth may be distributed in a different way.

[TimTam]

You are right. Compared to dwarf SN, 100 aircraft is not small. Compared to the 700 aircraft or so of LH, it is.... ?

May I suggest you do some homework before trying to stir up things? Mainline operates less than 300 aircraft.

I did some homework, but did not realize that the figure I found was for the entire Group apparently. Sincerely sorry. Btw, I am not stirring things up. I base my comments both on facts (which I got wrong this time, I admit, but does nobody ever make mistakes ?) and personal perception of situations which are part of the freedom of expression. As long as I don't become agressive towards other members in the forum, that should be OK, shouldn't it ?

[rwandan-flyer]

You are right. Compared to dwarf SN, 100 aircraft is not small. Compared to the 700 aircraft or so of LH, it is.... ?

May I suggest you do some homework before trying to stir up things? Mainline operates less than 300 aircraft.

I did some homework, but did not realize that the figure I found was for the entire Group apparently. Sincerely sorry. Btw, I am not stirring things up. I base my comments both on facts (which I got wrong this time, I admit, but does nobody ever make mistakes ?) and personal perception of situations which are part of the freedom of expression. As long as I don't become agressive towards other members in the forum, that should be OK, shouldn't it ?

Ok let's talk about the facts

I won't make a a comparison with Lufthansa and Germany, British Airways and UK or Air France and France.


Ireland (5,056,935 population https://www.worldometers.info/world-pop ... opulation/)

Aer Lingus :

Fleet : 74 aircraft (incld Aer Lingus Regional) : 10 700 000 pax in 2023 (https://mediacentre.aerlingus.com/press ... /108/19118). Main hub : Dublin : 31,908,471 pax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Airport)

Niche Markets : Europe, North America, 1 domestic service to Donegal and various routes operated from Shannon, Cork and North Ireland Airport

Main hub : Dublin Airport : 31,908,471 pax in 2023 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Airport

Danemark 5,903 millions (2022) population https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... population

SAS Scandinavian : fleet : 68 aircraft (Scandinavian Airlines contracted fleet aka SAS Ireland). If we add the Scandinavian Airlines contracted fleet aka SAS Ireland : 59 aircraft. Total 127 aircraft (in 2020 161!!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Airlines

Niche markets : Asia, Domestic, North America and Europe. The airline operates also several routes from Danish Airports.

But SAS is the national flag carrier of 3 countries, it means that all the fleet is not based at CPH.

It's quite hard to make with others however i have selected Copenhagen because it became the biggest base for SAS in 2023 (https://airserviceone.com/sas-is-europe ... es-coming/) Copenhagen Airport : 26,765,393 pax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Airport

Netherlands (17,671,125 population : https://www.worldometers.info/world-pop ... opulation/)

KLM : 107 aircraft (KLM Citty Hopper not included). No niche market. A global network with many destinations in Europe, America, Africa and Asia. NED had an important colonial empire mainly in Asia, America, Africa and in Caraïbes ( Dutch East India Company, Dutch West India Company & trading posts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_colonial_empire)

Meaning huge business ties and many migrants living in NED. 26 000 Ghanians live in NED, 38 125 Brazilians, 84 453 Chinese, 349 000 Indo People (Indonesia) live in NED (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demograph ... etherlands)

The same reason that British Airways has huge network in Middle East because British had trade posts in Qatar, Oman, UAE,....ties are very important https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oman#Brit ... lonisation)

Hub: Amsterdam Airport : 61,889,586 pax in 2023 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam ... t_Schiphol

Austria 9,042 millions (2022) population https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... population

Austrian Airlines

Fleet : 69 aircraft. Nice markets : North America, Asia and Europe. Till the arrival of LH Group, the airline had a strong global network, but they have closed many routes.

Austria hosts a strong diaspora from Asia : 30 000 Filipinos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipinos_in_Austria), 31,000 Indians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria%E ... _relations) and also a diaspora from Arab Countries mainly from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon or Palestine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabs_in_Austria)

With the strong Asian network from Vienna, it will be interesting to know how many people have connecting flights to USA and Canada

Furthermore, Austria has recorded strong from Asia about tourism industry

Guests from Asian countries such as China (+233.9%), Taiwan (+700.8%), Japan (+140.1%) and South Korea (+184.8%) achieved particularly high increases in overnight stays compared to the previous year. Total arrivals : 45.20 millions https://www.statistik.at/fileadmin/anno ... 2023EN.pdf)

Hub : Vienna : 29,533,186 pax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_In ... al_Airport

Portugal

TAP Air Portugal : 80 aircraft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAP_Air_Portugal)

Nice market : America, Europe and Africa

Portugal is an important market. 1st because Portugal had a colonial empire in South America and in Africa with trade post in Asia. The African Diaspora and South American diaspora is huge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Portugal). But you have also a strong Portuguese diaspora in North America, South America and in Africa (5 000 000 in Brazil, 1 400 000 in USA, 500 000 in Angola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_people).

Then TAP Air Portugal has a strong domestic network and operates flights also from Porto. Like KLM by building a strong network in terms of destinations and frequencies in America and Europe (based on many factors), you are able to built a strong and you have the capacity to serve some markets which are probably not the biggest from your country. If you serve 10 dest in USA because you have huge diaspora you can then add new routes to Africa to tap into market between USA and Africa (English Speaking Markets). If you serve 5 cities in France with huge frequencies you can open new routes to West Africa (French Speaking Market)

Hub : Lisbon : 33,649,000 pax in 2023 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_Airport

Switzerland 8,776 millions (2022) population https://www.google.com/search?q=switzer ... s-wiz-serp

Swiss Airlines : 88 aircraft : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Int ... _Air_Lines

Niche Markets : America, Europe and Asia.

Switzerland hosts several hosts the headquarters or offices of most major international institutions. Zurich is a financial hub. The Economy of Switzerland is one of the world's most advanced and a highly-developed free market
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Switzerland

Swiss people havs one highest revenue in the world and can easly fly, and you have a decent tourism market (https://www.google.com/search?q=switzer ... -serp#ip=1) and an important diaspora (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demograph ... witzerland)/ .

Main hub : Zurich Airport : 28,885,506 pax in 2023 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurich_Airport)

If you see airlines in this list, like SN they operate on niche markets they don't have a strong global network. Their main hub has the same size that Brussels Airport about passengers trafic. They have less than 100 aircraft. Their size is based on the market that they serve. Most of them have domestic markets and operate from others airports in the country. It's not the case of Brussels Airlines.

About the long haul aircraft some of them have in deed more aircraft than Brussels Airlines (despte they don't have a big long haul network). But some of these airlines operate on market where the demand is bigger than Africa. You will be need more aircraft because you fly 2 times a day to Bangkok, Boston or New York or Miami.

However some airlines have a weak network in Africa or in Asia. It's not because they are not ambitious. It's because they think that they won't be able to make profits. Point to point market is not high and the addition of connecing passsengers will not be enough to make profits because competitors are too big : Emirates, Qatar Airways, Air France, Turkish Airlines have strong network and huge frequencies on many markets.and thus provide good capacities via their hubs.

A Dublin Johannesburg or Vienna Nairobi will probably fail like the Brussels Airlines route to Mumbai. No market, no profits.

KLM is an expectation (SAS has a specific status) they were able to built a strong long haul and medium haul (i have given reason above) and the airline has capacity to open few routes on some markets where the demand is not high.

[oldblueeyes]

Not only counting aircraft would lead to some conclusions, but also taking into considerations country characteristics leading to certain infrastructure needs.

The Scandinavian countries are dominated by huge distances, nearly no full train coverage and no motorways. It takes 2 days by car from North of Norway or Sweden to reach Oslo or Malmö. Air traffic is there partially a PSO thing, as alternative to travelling 2 days by car or in the past one week with a Hurtigrouten ship.

Meanwhile you can reach from any point in Belgium BRU airport within 2 hours, which is considered a normal European catchement area.

This is obvioulsy leading to a need to adjust simple gross aircraft figures from 3 countries in need for strong domestic routes vs one not having any similar needs.

One good example to me is Austrian Airlines and their long way to transform themselves from a previous self understanding to the current way.

In the 90s Austria was seeing itsfel as the leading market towards Central and Eastern Europe. Austrian Airlines opened in this understanding a huge network for regional connections (they were at peak over 100 aircraft). In the trial to build a national champion they acquired the already struggling Lauda Air , a company focused more on long haul leisure at that time (the 767 and 777 long haul fleet is more or less that legacy). And LH having in the 90s an Austrian CEO (Mayrhuber) acuqired initially 25% but leaving the leadership to the locals.
The result was a disaster: the markets were changing with the LCC coming up so basically for many routes a hub in between was not needed (or not at the cost Austrian had), the company accumulated losses in bn and the Austrian state had to cut off a lot of debt owned to the state so that LH was willing to take over in 2009.
Nevertheless, at that time Mayrhuber was still in the supervisory board, thus management was kept local and evenreduced continued to performed on looking after local things first, such as small bases at tiny local airports to please local politics etc. Financial results never jumped significantly even with adding 2 new 772.
Things would become better only - and this is the result of a long prcess with similar statements and frustrations in VIE as i read here - LH imposed a group centric approach:

- Austrian decided previously to get rid of the 737 (right decision , LH was exiting their subfleet as well) but keeping the 767 and 777 (financed with local banks) , a bad decision as the models stayed exotic in the group, but they served other local interest
- the first clean up was done by LH as they transferred some relatively young E195 replacing 27 F70 and F100 with 17 E195 - same seat capacity, but forcing to rationalise
- at the same time LH was ending up all small regional airports JV's Austrain had with locak brands and transferred pax flow to MUC; but to be honest, Austrain had in these route 10-15 pax/day

The real change came 4 years ago as the "bad German" manegement of LH decided to get rid of the Q400 fleet, closed the bases in small cities, consolidated transfer pax to the large hubs and cutting off the inefficiencies of tiny routes to Vienna. Of course there were a lot of emotions, local airport initiatives, but none emerged into meaninfull routes offering although LH's decisions were seen as bad.

Witht eh 319 exiting as subfleet as well, they cleaned up further the complexity and let's see what with the A321 would happen (they are due for repalcement approx 2026).

Is there any deja vu vs SN decisions in the past 15 years?

[rwandan-flyer]

The problem is between 2004 and 2014, Austrian post only 3 years of profits so even before LH comes in 2009-2010.

With only three years of positive operating profit in the decade, Austrian has consistently been the least profitable Lufthansa Group airline.

Austrian's FY2015 financial results have not yet been reported, but its revenue performance over the past decade has been even weaker than its performance on passenger numbers. From 2006 to 2014, its total operating revenue fell by 18.7%.

(2014): https://centreforaviation.com/analysis/ ... 015-262180

The competition in Europe is very stiff with Low Cost, High Speed trains and outside Europe with Middle East airlines. In 2010s majors airlines such as Air France (during seven years for AF from 2008 to 2015!!** https://centreforaviation.com/analysis/ ... ror-248600), British Airways (https://www.google.com/search?q=british ... s-wiz-serp) or Lufthansa posted heavies losses (https://www.google.com/search?q=lufthan ... s-wiz-serp).


**AF still lossing money on their domestic flights (both from Paris and between majors French Cities). After covid they closed many routes from Paris Orly and routes between French Cities even routes operated under PSO (Public Service Obligations). In 2026, Air France will end all domestic flights from Orly ((Corsica flights are not included because they are PSO routes)). Flights will be operated by Transavia.

The domestic network suffered a loss of 200 million euros in 2019, including 80 million attributed to Hop! A situation further aggravated by the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 epidemic. https://www-rfi-fr.translate.goog/fr/po ... r_pto=wapp

Criticisms against Air France are "violent" in France.

It's can be hard for everyone.

I don't know if to be acquired by LH Group is a good thing for Brussels Airlines or Asutrian. But when you see many small carrier like Austrian, Aer Lingus, Brussels Airlines struggeld in 2000s and early 2010s maybe without to join a group (IAG or Lufthansa) some of these airlines will would surely have known an Alitalia or Air Berlin fate. Both have posted heavies losses, no one wanted them, Etihad came and we know the end of history.

[Vic Diesel]

I usually agree with your analyses and find them well-reasoned - however, I have to correct some factual (historical) errors:

In the trial to build a national champion they acquired the already struggling Lauda Air , a company focused more on long haul leisure at that time (the 767 and 777 long haul fleet is more or less that legacy).

Being a state-owned carrier back in the 1990s, the order to take over the financially struggling Lauda Air came not from within Austrian "to build a national champion", but was a political decision and went against common sense of the market - however, politicians wanting to avoid seeing a (for Austrian taste) "bigger" airline going bust and people jobless, this decision was made nonetheless. I agree on what you say about the disastrous result.

- Austrian decided previously to get rid of the 737 (right decision , LH was exiting their subfleet as well) but keeping the 767 and 777 (financed with local banks) , a bad decision as the models stayed exotic in the group, but they served other local interest

It's factually wrong what you say about keeping the 767 and 777: they were kept because as legacy of Niki Lauda's "financial genius", the leasing contracts were so bad that ending the lease would have been more more expensive than keeping them (and thus rather pulling the still quite young subfleet of 330/340s that were delivered around 2000.[/quote]

- the first clean up was done by LH as they transferred some relatively young E195 replacing 27 F70 and F100 with 17 E195 - same seat capacity, but forcing to rationalise

"Transferring" sounds like a good Samaritarian - but in fact, Austrian had to purchase them on orders by the LH HQ. Of course that helped in getting a younger regional fleet (instead of the Fokkers "inherited" from Tyrolean), but was for sure aggravating the financial loss for the airline. It added to LH's profits nicely, on the other hand.

- at the same time LH was ending up all small regional airports JV's Austrain had with locak brands and transferred pax flow to MUC; but to be honest, Austrain had in these route 10-15 pax/day

Those pax numbers are grossly underestimated. Even on shorter routes like GRZ-VIE, the F70 were more than half full. Have seen them, so please stick to reality (also known as truth).

The real change came 4 years ago as the "bad German" manegement of LH decided to get rid of the Q400 fleet, closed the bases in small cities, consolidated transfer pax to the large hubs and cutting off the inefficiencies of tiny routes to Vienna. Of course there were a lot of emotions, local airport initiatives, but none emerged into meaninfull routes offering although LH's decisions were seen as bad.

LH of course tries to "fan" all the regional pax to their own longhaul hubs FRA and MUC instead of VIE, thus the axing of regional routes. While some of these transfer pax can switch to trains to reach VIE from Linz or Graz, the South of Austria remains largely unserved as with a lenghty train-ride being not a viable alternative, the thinning out of KLU-VIE connections could not be understood other than as another sign of Spohr's well-known grudge against OS and VIE in general.

How the fleet development will further proceed remains to be seen (the replacement of the ageing longhaul fleet by B789 is a first good step), as well as the role that LH will allow OS to play within the family. My bet: as long as Spohr remains at the helm, OS will stay the same tolerated but despised stepchild as SN within the LH Group.

[oldblueeyes]

I think we are not far away from each other, but we need to clarify some things:

- with tiny routes i was thinking of useless approaches eg flying into Baia Mare or not fucntioning JV's eg, not being able to fill together an AT42 on various regional routes op by Tarom - feeding moved there to MUC
- the 767/777 story is the less costly choice historically, nevertheless, it brought Austrian in the position of never being able to grow on the long haul incrementally by accessing group resources; if this was good or bad, who knows? but there was no renewal on long haul until LH decided to buy the 789
- of course they have to pay for the E195 - but, the point here is that the available seats are the same in number; if you recall some statements here, there is always a claim on less long haul aircraft at SN 332 vs 333, but the measure for the company are the sold seat miles and not number of jobs created

I agree with you that Austrian and Brussels would be positioned in a lower tier than Swiss and Lufthansa - somehow similar to Aer Lingus in the IAG. Not good or bad despite of pride, this may be the right move as eg Africa is more price sensitive and Austrian's best earning class is the premium economy.

[Vic Diesel]

I think we are not far away from each other

Neither do I think. I just merely clarified/corrected some historical facts.

- with tiny routes i was thinking of useless approaches eg flying into Baia Mare or not fucntioning JV's eg, not being able to fill together an AT42 on various regional routes op by Tarom - feeding moved there to MUC

With that I can fully agree.

- the 767/777 story is the less costly choice historically, nevertheless, it brought Austrian in the position of never being able to grow on the long haul incrementally by accessing group resources; if this was good or bad, who knows? but there was no renewal on long haul until LH decided to buy the 789

I genuinely think that the acquisition of Lauda Air was a bad choice - not only the 767/777 fleet but also the huge debts as such...

- of course they have to pay for the E195 - but, the point here is that the available seats are the same in number; if you recall some statements here, there is always a claim on less long haul aircraft at SN 332 vs 333, but the measure for the company are the sold seat miles and not number of jobs

I don't have the financial insight here, but at least it seems to me that the Q400 could have been used for those few domestic routes more efficiently than the E195. But of course if you want to avoid a way too diverse fleet, it would make sense to employ only the Embraers both on domestic and regional routes.