Brussels Airlines in 2025

[rwandan-flyer]

It's the point to point demand. It means passengers flying either non stop (if they have non stop route from their home) or passengers flying via another airport.

Ex : Lisbon Luanda : 302 921 pax (from Nov 23 to Oct 24). It means that in this numbers you have passengers who had flown with TAP Air Portugal, Air France, Brussels Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways, TAAG Angola. But you can also fly from Lisbon to Luanda via Cairo with Egyptair then from Cairo to Luanda with Ethiopian.

About Luand Germany point to point demand i have only for the year of 2023. I have only these data:

Luanda Frankfurt : 7 656 pax
Luanda Munich : 1 609 pax
Luanda Dusseldorf : 834 pax

[JOVAN2]

It's the point to point demand. It means passengers flying either non stop (if they have non stop route from their home) or passengers flying via another airport.

Ex : Lisbon Luanda : 302 921 pax (from Nov 23 to Oct 24). It means that in this numbers you have passengers who had flown with TAP Air Portugal, Air France, Brussels Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways, TAAG Angola. But you can also fly from Lisbon to Luanda via Cairo with Egyptair then from Cairo to Luanda with Ethiopian.

About Luand Germany point to point demand i have only for the year of 2023. I have only these data:

Luanda Frankfurt : 7 656 pax
Luanda Munich : 1 609 pax
Luanda Dusseldorf : 834 pax

We know that USA has great interest in Angola.
They know Angola is the place to be in coming years. President Biden was there recently: the only black African country he visited during his term.
Trump already appointed a new US ambassador to Angola, before he choose ambassadors to many EU countries.
Angola is rich as hell: petroleum, cobalt, lithium copper diamonds..
As Houston, Tx is the world capital of energy, it is.evident there are commercial connections with Angola.
The business is expected to grow, even boom.

So what a coincidence that LH now "steals" the Luanda destination from SN.
They know traffic will grow tremendously between Houston and Luanda. You can expect more flight via FRA and MUC between both cities.
SN has no connections with Houston, but it is a big UA hub.
So flights via BRU could have been
a success
We know that petrol company.employees are well paid and mostly fly business.

Let us see what happens next. UA non stop to Luanda?

Anyway the morale of the story is that LH keeps to pie for itself. , not letting other companies of its group grow in what they are best at.

[Lux_avi]

Anyway the morale of the story is that LH keeps to pie for itself. , not letting other companies of its group grow in what they are best at.

What else did you expect?

[oldblueeyes]

Let's look to the hard facts.

Houston is a niche destination - no direct flights from MUC or ZRH, bases with 30+ long haul aircraft.
Both UA and LH focus on a twice daily connection to FRA.

For a one stop connection in Europe there is not enough traffic to fill MUC or ZRH.

So why should an additional connection to BRU work, to feed few pax towards another exotic route?

Let's be realistic, there won't be 200 Pax flying to Angola 3 times a week from Texas, regardless where the they would transit. And if such a number would be reached, UA would fly directly without any need for a partner in Europe, as they are no obliged to transit any passenger trough the JV.

[rwandan-flyer]

It's the point to point demand. It means passengers flying either non stop (if they have non stop route from their home) or passengers flying via another airport.

Ex : Lisbon Luanda : 302 921 pax (from Nov 23 to Oct 24). It means that in this numbers you have passengers who had flown with TAP Air Portugal, Air France, Brussels Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways, TAAG Angola. But you can also fly from Lisbon to Luanda via Cairo with Egyptair then from Cairo to Luanda with Ethiopian.

About Luand Germany point to point demand i have only for the year of 2023. I have only these data:

Luanda Frankfurt : 7 656 pax
Luanda Munich : 1 609 pax
Luanda Dusseldorf : 834 pax

We know that USA has great interest in Angola.
They know Angola is the place to be in coming years. President Biden was there recently: the only black African country he visited during his term.
Trump already appointed a new US ambassador to Angola, before he choose ambassadors to many EU countries.
Angola is rich as hell: petroleum, cobalt, lithium copper diamonds..
As Houston, Tx is the world capital of energy, it is.evident there are commercial connections with Angola.
The business is expected to grow, even boom.

So what a coincidence that LH now "steals" the Luanda destination from SN.
They know traffic will grow tremendously between Houston and Luanda. You can expect more flight via FRA and MUC between both cities.
SN has no connections with Houston, but it is a big UA hub.
So flights via BRU could have been
a success
We know that petrol company.employees are well paid and mostly fly business.

Let us see what happens next. UA non stop to Luanda?

Anyway the morale of the story is that LH keeps to pie for itself. , not letting other companies of its group grow in what they are best at.

oldblueeyes is right.

The only flight in the history between Luanda and Houston were operated by World Airways using a MD 11 (for the Angolan Airlines SonAir) then by Atlas Air using a B747-400, but flights ended in 2018.

Early 2010, Delta planned to serve Luanda via Cape Verde, but they didn't start flights.

However North American airlines and European Airlines have signed anti-trust immunized agreements to avoid a strong competition between them on North America Africa flights. More cities could be able to be linked to Africa.

So biggest threat for Brussels Airlines is not coming from LH, but North American Airlines (and currently from Turkish, Qatar, Ethiopian, Emirates) if one day this such agreement is canceled. United Airlines, Delta Airlines and Air Canada could easly open more routes to Africa, mainly in North, West, East.

Point to point market (Nov 23 - Oct 24)

Ex: top 5 us market for Nairobi

New York JFK : 51 340 pax
Minneapolis : 49 466 pax
Washington : 46 441 pax
Boston : 27 458 pax
Seattle : 27 151 pax.

Top 3 Canadian market for Nairobi

Toronto : 36 521 pax
Montréal : 13 261 pax
Vancouver : 8 324 pax

I can imagine United Airlines which wants to serve Nairobi from Washington but Brussels Airlines and Lufthansa say nope nope. Same thing with with Delta which wants to serve Nairobi from New York or Minneapolis and Air France KLM say nope nope

User avatar
B747-437B
Posts: 9424
Joined: 22 years ago

#50

2 years ago

rukundo wrote:
It seems that US Airlines are not really interested to serve alliance hubs in Africa.



Quite simply they have entered into anti-trust immunized agreements with other alliance carriers that basically carves up African traffic via the European hubs on a revenue sharing basis not dissimilar to colonial times.

[Airbus330lover]

what about south east Asian routes ?
SQ and TG have started the SIN and BKK routes, why couldn't that be profitable for SN ?
Does somebody has an idea about the respective loadfactors ?

TG is almost full every day since the launch.

Indeed BRU-BKK is full, but BKK-BRU almost empty >50% in Eco and not full in Bizz

[oldblueeyes]

Singapore is already a LH Group JV covering Malaysia and Australia as well.

[lumumba]

what about south east Asian routes ?
SQ and TG have started the SIN and BKK routes, why couldn't that be profitable for SN ?
Does somebody has an idea about the respective loadfactors ?

TG is almost full every day since the launch.

Indeed BRU-BKK is full, but BKK-BRU almost empty >50% in Eco and not full in Bizz

It seems quite logical to me knowing that the majority of passengers will leave from Brussels so after one or two weeks of operations the return should fill up too I think.

[oldblueeyes]

It is nice to have a discussion on possible new routes and i appreciate a lot the emotional input such as "we know" = i assume or "Sabena flow". I do also understand that employees have a legitimate ask that routes shall be flown by SN for obvious reasons = jobs.

But let's look towards the matrix on decision from a realistic point of view.

- the ressources arthe e given - 1 more long haul aircraft per year in the coming 3 years
- objective is to add profit to the business - thus any new move shall be rather low risk, high reward type
- you need to fill approx 250 seats per leg at a decent yield - so twice weekly all year operations means you have to carry 25.000 pax each way, thus a clear need to enough O&D demand or an appropriate hub and spoke spread - this applies to any destination selected

[Deejay]

It is nice to have a discussion on possible new routes and i appreciate a lot the emotional input such as "we know" = i assume or "Sabena flow". I do also understand that employees have a legitimate ask that routes shall be flown by SN for obvious reasons = jobs.

But let's look towards the matrix on decision from a realistic point of view.

- the ressources arthe e given - 1 more long haul aircraft per year in the coming 3 years
- objective is to add profit to the business - thus any new move shall be rather low risk, high reward type
- you need to fill approx 250 seats per leg at a decent yield - so twice weekly all year operations means you have to carry 25.000 pax each way, thus a clear need to enough O&D demand or an appropriate hub and spoke spread - this applies to any destination selected

totally clear, aviation is a business, not charity
but as SQ and TG are both also Star-Alliance partners, SN could also code-share to have access to their regional asian network to fill up.
The name of the game is to help filling also the european routes for SN, isn'it ??
and if it's profitable for them, why wouldn't it be profitable for SN ?

[oldblueeyes]

Singapore Airlines and LH have already a Joint Venture in place , thus no reason to complain. SN is part of the game, even if it's not obvious for everyone.

If Thai flies currently profitable or just re accumulating loses with a larger scope - tourism promotion in the country - nobody knows. Short term they are in the profits again, however this is not speaking for any particular route.

[longwings]

and if it's profitable for them, why wouldn't it be profitable for SN ?

Because cost structures are not the same? Because the opportunity cost (next best use of the aircraft) is not the same?

If Thai flies currently profitable or just re accumulating loses with a larger scope - tourism promotion in the country - nobody knows.

Didn't look long enough to check whether it is profitable, but Thai is certainly expected to make a profit. Public institutions own less than 50%, and foreign shareholders own 30%, including investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley and Northern Trust.

[Atlantis]

Congratulations to SN with their 8th place in being punctual airline with 77,77%

[Boeing767copilot]

Brussels Airlines announces that 50% of flights on Monday will be cancelled

[Homo Aeroportus]

Difficult start of the year.

This morning SN501 JFK was cancelled. OO-SFC.

OO-SFF operating SN345 to COO/ACC returning to base at this time.

Same OO-SFF that was to run SN307 ROB/ABJ yesterday, was also cancelled.

Room for improvement.


H.A.

[nordikcam]

Sadness ! As I said: credible on the European network, absolutely not credible on the intercontinental.

[rwandan-flyer]

Do you prefer to see a Brussels Airlines grounded in the middle of nowhere in Africa, where you don't have hotels for stranded passengers ? You will need to bring another plane to make the second part of the trip ?

[nordikcam]

Do you prefer to see a Brussels Airlines grounded in the middle of nowhere in Africa, where you don't have hotels for stranded passengers ? You will need to bring another plane to make the second part of the trip ?

Obviously not. What I'm saying is that it is "dangerous" to book an intercontinental flight with SN because for various reasons one long-haul flight has been cancelled every day for almost a month! It's better to fly with a company that can substitute one plane for another, which is absolutely not the case with SN... that's unfortunately all I'm saying.

[Boavida]

Solution: just speed up the process of renewing the long haul fleet by A350's

[lumumba]

Do you prefer to see a Brussels Airlines grounded in the middle of nowhere in Africa, where you don't have hotels for stranded passengers ? You will need to bring another plane to make the second part of the trip ?

Obviously not. What I'm saying is that it is "dangerous" to book an intercontinental flight with SN because for various reasons one long-haul flight has been cancelled every day for almost a month! It's better to fly with a company that can substitute one plane for another, which is absolutely not the case with SN... that's unfortunately all I'm saying.

Exactly it's obvious but not for everyone I would think,we consider Brussels Airlines has our brand we are proud of it and use it,make it work properly!!