Brussels Airlines in 2024

[JOVAN2]

It doesn't matter where the fault comes from, but there is still an opportunity that was not taken here.

What opportunity?
At which cost?
Is the route profitable for Transavia?

Tuifly decided to go for a « reasonable » fleet to limit the financial risk in case of a crisis. Whether it is a mistake or not is another discussion.

Don’t forget Transavia doesn’t employ flying crew in Belgium. The costs are not the same than for SN or TUI…

Ryanair, the biggest and most punctual airline in Europe is very fast to take up opportunities:
Abolition of aviation tax in Sweden just decided, and already they will increase flight offer by 30%.

That will make them even bigger, create more jobs and make more benefits. Ambitious plan.

Meanwhile, SN will open one new destination (Fuertaventura) somewhere in in 2025; With 1 (one) flight a week.

[Boeing767copilot]

It doesn't matter where the fault comes from, but there is still an opportunity that was not taken here.

What opportunity?
At which cost?
Is the route profitable for Transavia?

Tuifly decided to go for a « reasonable » fleet to limit the financial risk in case of a crisis. Whether it is a mistake or not is another discussion.

Don’t forget Transavia doesn’t employ flying crew in Belgium. The costs are not the same than for SN or TUI…

Transavia destinations ex-BRU

[737ToHeaven]

It doesn't matter where the fault comes from, but there is still an opportunity that was not taken here.

What opportunity?
At which cost?
Is the route profitable for Transavia?

Tuifly decided to go for a « reasonable » fleet to limit the financial risk in case of a crisis. Whether it is a mistake or not is another discussion.

Don’t forget Transavia doesn’t employ flying crew in Belgium. The costs are not the same than for SN or TUI…

Loadfactors for Transavia are around 90% for each flight in BRU, it simply works for them. Also don't forget they employ crew with expensive Dutch contracts that have the Dutch laws, and under a layer of the big NL unions (VNV,FNV, etc.) ... which ultimately costs more than Belgian or Maltese/Irish employed crew. They are willing to increase the share in BRU when the Airbus is completely integrated and they will be opening a fixed base for BRU crew when reaching 4 planes.

[oldblueeyes]

It doesn't matter where the fault comes from, but there is still an opportunity that was not taken here.

What opportunity?
At which cost?
Is the route profitable for Transavia?

Tuifly decided to go for a « reasonable » fleet to limit the financial risk in case of a crisis. Whether it is a mistake or not is another discussion.

Don’t forget Transavia doesn’t employ flying crew in Belgium. The costs are not the same than for SN or TUI…

Ryanair, the biggest and most punctual airline in Europe is very fast to take up opportunities:
Abolition of aviation tax in Sweden just decided, and already they will increase flight offer by 30%.

That will make them even bigger, create more jobs and make more benefits. Ambitious plan.

Meanwhile, SN will open one new destination (Fuertaventura) somewhere in in 2025; With 1 (one) flight a week.

You copy past press releases of Ryanair.. ok... seems that your level is exactly what their target.

If you mak comparations, than do them like-for-like.

SN was choosing to bcome a network airline - thus they are not primarly a P2P anymore.

If you see Ryanairs growth, see also where they cut routes. Never became relevant in Germany, ever, thanks to Eurowings blocking them. But you didn't wanted SN to become Eurowings.

Ryanir expands always there where they have a weak local player - with SAS under reorganisation, likely to get easier market penetration there.

LH's job is Europan consolidation - ITA is safe, let's see what happens with TAP or Air Europa, in Scandinavia likely to catch Air Baltic. That's all together 250 aircraft, just to understand the dimensions.

[Lux_avi]

It doesn't matter where the fault comes from, but there is still an opportunity that was not taken here.

What opportunity?
At which cost?
Is the route profitable for Transavia?

Tuifly decided to go for a « reasonable » fleet to limit the financial risk in case of a crisis. Whether it is a mistake or not is another discussion.

Don’t forget Transavia doesn’t employ flying crew in Belgium. The costs are not the same than for SN or TUI…

Loadfactors for Transavia are around 90% for each flight in BRU, it simply works for them. Also don't forget they employ crew with expensive Dutch contracts that have the Dutch laws, and under a layer of the big NL unions (VNV,FNV, etc.) ... which ultimately costs more than Belgian or Maltese/Irish employed crew. They are willing to increase the share in BRU when the Airbus is completely integrated and they will be opening a fixed base for BRU crew when reaching 4 planes.

No doubt they're doing a good job and they certainly jumped into a gap that had to be filled.
Of course their employees are not the cheapest on earth, but the cost structure in general is lower at Transavia than at SN and TUI. There is no doubt about that.

Those 3 airlines being discussed here have different business cases, different targets. Comparing or criticizing them for not filling a small gap is nonsense.

[lumumba]

What opportunity?
At which cost?
Is the route profitable for Transavia?

Tuifly decided to go for a « reasonable » fleet to limit the financial risk in case of a crisis. Whether it is a mistake or not is another discussion.

Don’t forget Transavia doesn’t employ flying crew in Belgium. The costs are not the same than for SN or TUI…

Loadfactors for Transavia are around 90% for each flight in BRU, it simply works for them. Also don't forget they employ crew with expensive Dutch contracts that have the Dutch laws, and under a layer of the big NL unions (VNV,FNV, etc.) ... which ultimately costs more than Belgian or Maltese/Irish employed crew. They are willing to increase the share in BRU when the Airbus is completely integrated and they will be opening a fixed base for BRU crew when reaching 4 planes.

Those 3 airlines being discussed here have different business cases, different targets. Comparing or criticizing them for not filling a small gap is nonsense.

That is a point of view....I don't share.
In my opinion Portugal from Brussels is still under served there is a market for the Brussels HUB,from there in addition we know that TAP is part of M&M so for the Portuguese it is interesting to fly via Brussels that is is something Transavia doesn’t have.

Normally United was supposed to fly from Faro directly to New York but as it did not have enough planes the 757 was redirected to Brussels because the market was more interesting nevertheless quite a few passengers go via Brussels to go to Faro via United but in the winter it's not possible anymore and even the connection is bad for the return flight again a missed opportunity....

By taking advantage of these transit passengers you increase capacity and flexibility to take over a market that normally goes to competing airports or competitors who come directly to your airport.

[jan_olieslagers]

Specifically about Portugal: it would be nice to feed into TAP's long-haul services, but those go mostly from Lisboa Airport, which is heavily saturated, mostly due to the repeated delays in deciding on the construction of a new "national" airport. The decision seems to have at last been taken now, but it will take many years, ten at least even according to the currently published planning, before the new Lisboa airport Luís de Camões is operational. Until that time, obtaining slots for more flights will be hard, to say the least.

Faro serves stupid Algarve tourists only, the best option would be to develop Porto as a secondary hub, a bit like Lufthansa did at Munich.

[oldblueeyes]

Transavia is for AF/KLM what Eurowings and Discover/Edelweiss are for the LH brands.
P2P offering including some ethno and leisure outside of the hubs and leisure from the hubs.

Eurowings does this as well, just that their new bases are PMI, Prague and a small presence in Stockholm.

If one is looking to Edelweiss and Discover, than one can see that building up a leisure division would mean around 10 planes operating separately. Questionable if for this there is a strong relation with operators in Belgium, as both brands have a certain history - Edelweiss was part of the Kuoni group and Discover is basically constinuing to a large extend operations of the former Sun Express Germany joint venture.

If we speak about Eurowings (again, we may have had the option that SN should integrated there), the master plan - public sources anyone can google nd get in 30 seconds the answer - is to have approx 150 own planes and 50 with partners ; currently we speak about around 100 owned plus 20 wetleases.

As the strategy at Eurowings is to build bases mainly in the home markets of the group, i would rather expect the next expansion waye to come
- either trough a tactical acquisition - eg Air Baltic and than build up bases in Scandiavia and Eastern Europe
- or to enlarge very selective ots presence in the new home markets - Italy ( although very though with strong LCC players) and Spain /Portugal, depending on who would land in the LH group.

To all armchair CEO's here - good strategy means to know what you are doing and deliberately not to do what other do it it does not fit into your business model. McDonalds is not selling soups and Exki is aiming on people eating as well by using forks and not their hands, only. And both are selling just products that achieve a minimum sales volume and profitability.

[Lux_avi]

Faro serves stupid Algarve tourists only

Nice, very classy

[fcw]

Transavia is for AF/KLM what Eurowings and Discover/Edelweiss are for the LH brands.
P2P offering including some ethno and leisure outside of the hubs and leisure from the hubs.

Eurowings does this as well, just that their new bases are PMI, Prague and a small presence in Stockholm.

If one is looking to Edelweiss and Discover, than one can see that building up a leisure division would mean around 10 planes operating separately. Questionable if for this there is a strong relation with operators in Belgium, as both brands have a certain history - Edelweiss was part of the Kuoni group and Discover is basically constinuing to a large extend operations of the former Sun Express Germany joint venture.

If we speak about Eurowings (again, we may have had the option that SN should integrated there), the master plan - public sources anyone can google nd get in 30 seconds the answer - is to have approx 150 own planes and 50 with partners ; currently we speak about around 100 owned plus 20 wetleases.

As the strategy at Eurowings is to build bases mainly in the home markets of the group, i would rather expect the next expansion waye to come
- either trough a tactical acquisition - eg Air Baltic and than build up bases in Scandiavia and Eastern Europe
- or to enlarge very selective ots presence in the new home markets - Italy ( although very though with strong LCC players) and Spain /Portugal, depending on who would land in the LH group.

To all armchair CEO's here - good strategy means to know what you are doing and deliberately not to do what other do it it does not fit into your business model. McDonalds is not selling soups and Exki is aiming on people eating as well by using forks and not their hands, only. And both are selling just products that achieve a minimum sales volume and profitability.

Very nice management speak, but in reality there’s only one reason for those multiple, fancy sounding, brands and that’s lowering the working conditions!

[oldblueeyes]

Of course.

But as you can't build a Dacia with Swiss cost and sell it at a budget price, the choices you have are rather beung in a market segment or not.

It should be clear to everyone that Ryanair and Wizz prices are manageable with lower salaries bases pay, free recruitment at the lower end of the pilots market, subsidies from the taxi payer for routes etc.

If all T Shirts are made cost effective in Bangladesh and nobody is asking if the Western tailors are happy, mass cars are produced in Eastern Europe and Turkey to be cost competitive and so on, why would airlines be blamed to do the same?

[Lux_avi]

Of course.

But as you can't build a Dacia with Swiss cost and sell it at a budget price, the choices you have are rather beung in a market segment or not.

It should be clear to everyone that Ryanair and Wizz prices are manageable with lower salaries bases pay, free recruitment at the lower end of the pilots market, subsidies from the taxi payer for routes etc.

If all T Shirts are made cost effective in Bangladesh and nobody is asking if the Western tailors are happy, mass cars are produced in Eastern Europe and Turkey to be cost competitive and so on, why would airlines be blamed to do the same?

That's what a Belgian management would tell you, yes.
But keep in mind Transavia France has all its pilots under Air France contracts (terms & conditions included). Just saying

[oldblueeyes]

Everyone is free to choose it's workplace.

If other companies offer better package, no one is obliged to work for a lower wage.

But as long as this does not happen massively, it means that all in things are acceptable.

Of course by argumenting via cherry picking any European Player would loose by benchmarking US gross to Emirates tax level and quality of life on living around one owns relatives.

[longwings]

Ryanair, the biggest and most punctual airline in Europe is very fast to take up opportunities:

Comparisons between Ryanair and Brussels are not relevant. They both fly planes. The similarities stop there. For the most part, they serve different markets with different expectations. It is true that Ryanair is far more profitable in its market than Brussels is in its own, but that absolutely does not mean that either would be successful in the other's market.

In comparison, AF-KL is fast and efficient to integrate SAS in their alliance.

Besides adding flights to their new partners' hubs - and canceling flights or reducing frequencies to their old partners' - how is AF/KL integrating SAS so "efficiently" in Skyteam?

[Lux_avi]

Everyone is free to choose it's workplace.

If other companies offer better package, no one is obliged to work for a lower wage.

But as long as this does not happen massively, it means that all in things are acceptable.

Of course by argumenting via cherry picking any European Player would loose by benchmarking US gross to Emirates tax level and quality of life on living around one owns relatives.

Oh yes, of course! When you are a 747 Captain kicked out by CX during covid, you have pleeeenty of opportunities!
What a (too) simplistic post showing 0 knowledge of what working in flying functions really is.

Talking about "massive" exodus, do you have a clue of how many young (and less young) pilots have left and still are leaving the Belgian market?

[oldblueeyes]

All of us are choosing freely our profession - including rewards, including risks.

Becoming a pilot comes along with the readiness to have a certain geographical mobility and assume risks /cacth opportunities in a very cyclical industry.

For an employer it is important to have it's needs and pipeline secured, as well as maintaining a healthy mix in terms of age/cost. Nothing else matters.

Risk of personal life choices such as profession, country/region choosen to work, family limitations eg profession of wife etc are entirely personal and not subject of emplyoer responsibility.

[Lux_avi]

All of us are choosing freely our profession - including rewards, including risks.

Becoming a pilot comes along with the readiness to have a certain geographical mobility and assume risks /cacth opportunities in a very cyclical industry.

For an employer it is important to have it's needs and pipeline secured, as well as maintaining a healthy mix in terms of age/cost. Nothing else matters.

Risk of personal life choices such as profession, country/region choosen to work, family limitations eg profession of wife etc are entirely personal and not subject of emplyoer responsibility.

Yeah. Sure. But that's still not the point.
Uncover your old blue eyes

[Darjeeling]

Isn't the Pope supposed to fly back to FCO with brussels airlines ?

I see EI-INE of ITA is scheduled to do so, the protocol says he gets back to Rome with the host country flag carrier. Am I wrong ?

[SN501]

Isn't the Pope supposed to fly back to FCO with brussels airlines ?

I see EI-INE of ITA is scheduled to do so, the protocol says he gets back to Rome with the host country flag carrier. Am I wrong ?

The Pope was in OO-SBE operated by SN.

[convair]

On Sept 30, OO-SFF was flown to QPG (Singapore) as SN9901. Maintenance?