Brussels Airlines in 2024

[nordikcam]

Sad to see the inauguration of a new line through the cancellation of a flight...but it has become systematic, impossible to predict and clearly prevents you from making a reservation to the USA with SN! It's a lottery! Good luck on NBO

[Bracebrace]

Some "food for thought" , This trend is becoming increasingly common among Belgian Francophone customers. Feedback is reaching travel agencies, including in the African market...

Election time.

Let's start polarising so people really know who to vote for.

[rwandan-flyer]

Sad to see the inauguration of a new line through the cancellation of a flight...but it has become systematic, impossible to predict and clearly prevents you from making a reservation to the USA with SN! It's a lottery! Good luck on NBO

What is average if the cancelation of SN with others airlines ? I don't try minimize and it's frustrating and i had also several cancelations in the past with others airlines, but cancelations happen to every airlines but it's quite better to comparete.

Last week on a single day (31 May 2023), 2 Air France flights to USA were canceled : Boston (AF334 https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/af334) and Atlanta (AF32 https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/af32). On June 1, the AF12 which was supposed to leave CDG at 20h30 was delayed to 22h30 then canceled (https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/af12).

There, Brussels Airlines is not among the airlines with the highest rate of canacelation. Air France and British Airways https://www.alternativeairlines.com/blo ... ation-rate

Same thing there https://www.bestbrokers.com/2024/03/06/ ... ellations/

And it's not also a problem of a size. I m sure if you try to comperate the rate of cancelation and delays of CAA RD Congo (7 aircraft) with Brussels Airlines, the rate will be probably higher with the airline based in DR Congo.

However, Brussels Airport is among the Europe’s Airports where your flight is most likely to be delayed, but its include all airlines and it's probably the ergonomic problem and staff pbs (shortage, strikes,...) not Brussels Airlines fault. https://www.bestbrokers.com/2024/03/06/ ... ellations/

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Well back to Brussels Airlines and Africa. An interview of Dorothea von Boxberg during the Africa Ceo forum at Kigali last week.

I have a subscription, but i will put only some parts of the interview.



Dorothea von Boxberg (Brussels Airlines): “Our growth will be African”

Competition with Turkish Airlines and Gulf companies, increase in frequencies to Ouagadougou, quality of service... The general director of the Belgian pavilion answered our questions.

https://www-jeuneafrique-com.translate. ... r_pto=wapp


She says that competition is stiff in Africa and quite suprised that many people make long detour. I guess she talks about passengers using Doha (like i did to fly from Paris to Kigali in 2014) or Dubai to fly to Africa (some people fly to West Africa) from Europe or North America instead of to use a hub in Europe (London, Lisbon, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt)

Currently, the group of which we are part serves 32 destinations in Africa, 18 of which, or more than half, are operated by Brussels Airlines. Unlike other carriers, we have not built a 360° long-haul strategy, but we have specialized in this segment in Africa. We operate just a few other frequencies to New York and Washington airports in the United States, which also allows Africa-America connections. In the rest of the world, we are mainly banking on strong partnerships with other members of the Lufthansa group, as well as with Air Canada and United.

With this specialization, we have better market knowledge than most of our European peers, which makes us more efficient. We have also set up a skills center dedicated to Africa in Brussels, which is headed by [Nigerian] Kenechi Ugwoke. Its objective is to think about the prospects, the new services that we could deploy and which would make us more efficient [such as the city check-ins opened in Kinshasa, Monrovia and Kigali], the optimization of the network for the whole of the group.

I don't think we are offering less quality to our passengers, nor do we have any feedback in this direction from our customers. Sales are integrated within the group, so even from a price point of view, there is no significant price difference between group companies. The major changes come from the state of filling of the cabin.

About instability in West Africa and in Sudan. It seems that routes Niamey and Bamako were in project but coups has ended the project

For us, the impact was relatively neutral: we do not serve Niamey or Bamako. These are destinations that are still somewhat on our radar, but that was the case before these events [the coups], but we have no desire to start now. We have added a third weekly frequency, to Ouaga.

No, particularly. We changed the flight plan, as we did for Niger when the case arose. Of course, if coups d'état and airspace closures increase, it becomes difficult to work

Then no new partnership with African airline in sight. About Sustainable Aviation Fuels , the discussions with Africans countries have not yet come to fruition. She thinks that they won't be distortion between African airlines and others because this rule will apply only for flights from Europe.

However she's worried by the unfair competition with airlines based in Midde East or Turkish Airlines but also airlines from North America and China because rules are not the same for everyone.

About Boeing troubles

She really hopes that Boeing will manage to turn things around, even if Brussels Airlines is an exclusively Airbus company. From an industry perspective, it is very important that we have at least two major manufacturers. Monopoly is not desirable.

The figure: 10%

This is the share of Brussels Airlines’ revenues generated by freight. “From Africa, it is mainly perishable products: fruits, vegetables, flowers… In the other direction, it goes from electronic devices to medicines, including spare parts,” explains Dorothea von Boxberg .

[Boavida]

The situation at the airport itself is far worse with some security and staff in stores only addressing you in French and switching to English when you reply in Dutch.

Very true. The staff in the airport shops (Delhaize, Quick, duty free, Exki,......) is basically 100% French-speaking. They greet all customers with a unilingual "Bonjour", and mostly completely ignore you if you reply in Dutch.

Is it really such a horror for a francophone Belgian to speak a few words of Dutch in Flanders?

Yes, it is pure horror and mostly unthinkable for them. As a young guy I had a 'summer job' at the coast (selling ice creams) for many years. Maybe 5% of french-speaking customers made the effort to try to oder in Dutch. 95% of them just spoke French. The basic courtesy of trying to speak the language of the region/country they were in was totally absent. Just imagine Flemish tourists in the Ardennes speaking Dutch to local businesses. Unthinkable. But the other way around is considered 'normal', it never even occurs to them how disrespectful it is. (it's exactly this behavior that is at the root of the Belgian desintegration)

[nordikcam]

The situation at the airport itself is far worse with some security and staff in stores only addressing you in French and switching to English when you reply in Dutch.

Very true. The staff in the airport shops (Delhaize, Quick, duty free, Exki,......) is basically 100% French-speaking. They greet all customers with a unilingual "Bonjour", and mostly completely ignore you if you reply in Dutch.

Is it really such a horror for a francophone Belgian to speak a few words of Dutch in Flanders?

Yes, it is pure horror and mostly unthinkable for them. As a young guy I had a 'summer job' at the coast (selling ice creams) for many years. Maybe 5% of french-speaking customers made the effort to try to oder in Dutch. 95% of them just spoke French. The basic courtesy of trying to speak the language of the region/country they were in was totally absent. Just imagine Flemish tourists in the Ardennes speaking Dutch to local businesses. Unthinkable. But the other way around is considered 'normal', it never even occurs to them how disrespectful it is. (it's exactly this behavior that is at the root of the Belgian desintegration)

This is a topic about BRUSSELS AIRLINES in 2024. Please open an other one about "History of Belgium" ! Nice afternoon

[TimTam]

I agree. Time to stop this language discussion. I was lucky to have been born into a bilingual Brussels family.
However, please allow me
1. to make a remark : apparently nobody seems to be offended because safety demonstrations are made in English only. It seems that "sign" language is OK. Or is it (more likely) that nobody cares about safety demonstrations, but everyone want their coffee served in their own language ?
2. to ask a question : since I have never flown with Ryanair, what is the lingua franca on board ?
Thanks !

[TimTam]

Brussels Airlines in 2024 : the new uniforms are really a disgrace (just like the new aircraft livery). How can one have such bad taste !

[thesnflyingman]

an acquaintance who has the opportunity to travel eco from France with Airfrance, Brussels and Corsair, tells me after his last trip a few days ago with SN, that he prefers the latter to AF and SS.

[Homo Aeroportus]

What a nice picture that screenshot of yesterday, showing seven (7) SN long haul flights to African destinations, including the new NBO !

OK the reserve aircraft, one flying to the USA unless called in to fill a gap, had to be taken out of its mission to achieve this but it is the price to pay to demonstrate that SN is really the Africa specialist and even now “Leader” in the Lufthansa Group.

Too bad for SN501 especially after having had to cancel the service on 12APR, 13APR, 18APR, 24APR, 05MAY, 07MAY, 10MAY, 12MAY, 15MAY, 03JUN and 05JUN (if my trainee counted it correctly with the help of FR24).

As a compensation, and in order for SN to appear as a real airline with a real flight schedule, OO-SFX is operating SN501 today. This is important since the service was cancelled this week already on Monday and Wednesday. And it will be cancelled again tomorrow 07JUN. But fingers crossed, if all goes well SN501 will have been operating more than 50% of the time this week.

Of course, to enable the SN501 to operate, SN357 to FIH had to be cancelled today but this was known since Tuesday evening so there was plenty of time to put these few passengers on another flight of the Group to reach Kin,
or not.

Congrats to the guys and gals at Ops and Mx to continuously shuffle the planning and try to make it work but hang on, help is on the way. More planes are coming soon !
Come on, remember in 2017 how you had to manage when SN had only ten (10) A330s at the time Lufthansa took over the remaining 65%. See all what has been accomplished in only seven years.
No reason to be pessimistic, just be patient.

H.A.

[b720]

Brussels Airlines in 2024 : the new uniforms are really a disgrace (just like the new aircraft livery). How can one have such bad taste !

I agree.. the new uniforms aren’t nice at all.. specially the ugly scarves and ties..and the all black attire isn’t the hit either, and the turtle necks!!!

[rwandan-flyer]

What a nice picture that screenshot of yesterday, showing seven (7) SN long haul flights to African destinations, including the new NBO !


SN Long Haul AFI 05JUN24.png


OK the reserve aircraft, one flying to the USA unless called in to fill a gap, had to be taken out of its mission to achieve this but it is the price to pay to demonstrate that SN is really the Africa specialist and even now “Leader” in the Lufthansa Group.

Too bad for SN501 especially after having had to cancel the service on 12APR, 13APR, 18APR, 24APR, 05MAY, 07MAY, 10MAY, 12MAY, 15MAY, 03JUN and 05JUN (if my trainee counted it correctly with the help of FR24).

As a compensation, and in order for SN to appear as a real airline with a real flight schedule, OO-SFX is operating SN501 today. This is important since the service was cancelled this week already on Monday and Wednesday. And it will be cancelled again tomorrow 07JUN. But fingers crossed, if all goes well SN501 will have been operating more than 50% of the time this week.

Of course, to enable the SN501 to operate, SN357 to FIH had to be cancelled today but this was known since Tuesday evening so there was plenty of time to put these few passengers on another flight of the Group to reach Kin,
or not.

Congrats to the guys and gals at Ops and Mx to continuously shuffle the planning and try to make it work but hang on, help is on the way. More planes are coming soon !
Come on, remember in 2017 how you had to manage when SN had only ten (10) A330s at the time Lufthansa took over the remaining 65%. See all what has been accomplished in only seven years.
No reason to be pessimistic, just be patient.

H.A.

Yes a good comment about Brussels Airlines. Pretty cool to see yesterday once again 2 A333s in East Africa. One A330 was flying from Bujumbura to Entebbe and another one was flying from Kigali to Nairobi.

More info about Nairobi from various articles. They plan to add another A330 in 2025.


The importance of the African Network for Brussels Airlines and Brussels Airport. Brussels Airport long haul network to North America wouldn't be that important ( if im right up to 8 fights a day during the summer to Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, Washington, New York) and many Brussels Airlines long haul flights (US & Africa) wouldn't be profitable

Arnaud Feist likes the new long-haul routes. The CEO of Brussels Airport tells us this on every occasion and he is not missing this Monday for the launch of the link to Nairobi.

“The point-to-point local market is not enough,” he tells us. Its goal is to have the most extensive network of destinations. A new flight to Africa allows for more passengers in transit. “Without these types of flights, we wouldn’t have, for example, two flights a day to Newark,” he says.

He explains that on certain flights to Brussels, more than 50% of passengers will be transferring. They pay half compared to an arriving passenger, but "twice".

These flights to Africa therefore make it possible to make a series of others profitable.https://www.lecho.be/entreprises/aviati ... 49659.html

"The two largest markets for bookings on the flight [to Nairobi] are actually the Belgians and US passengers. So US is very important and it helps that we offer connections with Air Canada and United feeding across the transatlantic market." https://simpleflying.com/brussels-airli ... s-nairobi/

The aircraft operating the first flight is registered OO-SFH, an 18-year-old Airbus A330-300. The aircraft was nearly 100% full, and boarding took much longer to complete than anticipated, resulting in a slight delay in departure. https://simpleflying.com/brussels-airli ... s-nairobi/

Kenyan press reports 288 pax on board from Brussels (5 seats left empty)

Belgian airline resumes flights to Nairobi in boost to tourism. The Belgium flag carrier and a member of Lufthansa Group and Star Alliance touched down at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on Monday night with 288 travelers https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/busines ... to-tourism.

Brussels Airlines has experienced a strong demand for its flights to Nairobi, with 50 000 tickets already booked prior to the launch of the six-times weekly service between Brussels and the Kenyan capital on June 3. https://www.tourismupdate.co.za/article ... ying-start

This represents 40% of revenue. We hope to have a new plane next year for long-haul in addition to our current ten. Africa is the fastest growing market for air travel https://www.lecho.be/entreprises/aviati ... 49659.html.

In the African market, Kenya is one of the most business markets. Most of our African markets are primarily for visiting friends and relatives. Here we will also have that, but in addition to tourists and business travelers. It will be a good mix of passengers and if we reach 20% business it will be good. https://www.lecho.be/entreprises/aviati ... 49659.html

Africa is the fastest growing market for air travel.https://www.lecho.be/entreprises/aviati ... 49659.html

[fcw]

Come on, remember in 2017 how you had to manage when SN had only ten (10) A330s at the time Lufthansa took over the remaining 65%. See all what has been accomplished in only seven years.
No reason to be pessimistic, just be patient.

H.A.

Yes a good comment about Brussels Airlines. Pretty cool to see yesterday once again 2 A333s in East Africa. One A330 was flying from Bujumbura to Entebbe and another one was flying from Kigali to Nairobi.

Someone clearly missed the sarcasm…

[theeuropean]

The A330 that will come in 2025 is it on top of the one originally planned? Or am I mistaken?

[Miqvell]

The A330 that will come in 2025 is it on top of the one originally planned? Or am I mistaken?

This is the same one, that'll be the 11th, which will be used to increase frequencies and make direct routes.

[theeuropean]

Thanks for the info

[convair]

The A330 that will come in 2025 is it on top of the one originally planned? Or am I mistaken?

This is the same one, that'll be the 11th, which will be used to increase frequencies and make direct routes.

Not so fast! The # 10 that was announced months ago is still at BRU, waiting for a "SN Brussels Airlines" sticker.

[TimTam]

If what you way is indeed the current situation, it shows how competent current management is.

[oldblueeyes]

If what you way is indeed the current situation, it shows how competent current management is.

So what would you do better?

The queue is at Boeing and Airbus and as long as they are delayed with deliveries all carousell for the other brands getting used aircraft is stopped.

Austrian was lucky to find 2 right fit 789 in the market and expansion approved, but this was more luck than plan.

Just to realize the Dimension- we speak about 7-8 Boeing 789 which would have been delivered before the summer plan and are not and 15 until end of 2025.

If you count on top the average 6 months of the Airbuses, than you"ll get easily to 1,5 Times the size of SN's fleet.

What would be your management solution in such a situation, having in mindestens that SN needs to earn more money than 2023 and it can't simply lease short term at any rate a 330?

[Miqvell]

The A330 that will come in 2025 is it on top of the one originally planned? Or am I mistaken?

This is the same one, that'll be the 11th, which will be used to increase frequencies and make direct routes.

Not so fast! The # 10 that was announced months ago is still at BRU, waiting for a "SN Brussels Airlines" sticker.

Not so fast what ? That's what was announced, I'm not making up things... The time it'll take is another story.
If you're talking about OO-SFP, there's a picture posted in Fleet-Renewal topic.

[convair]

This is the same one, that'll be the 11th, which will be used to increase frequencies and make direct routes.

Not so fast! The # 10 that was announced months ago is still at BRU, waiting for a "SN Brussels Airlines" sticker.

Not so fast what ? That's what was announced, I'm not making up things... The time it'll take is another story.
If you're talking about OO-SFP, there's a picture posted in Fleet-Renewal topic.

I was indeed hinting at the time these things take for implementation. Don't take it personnally.