SN long haul evening flights

[kookongsi]

In addition to the BRU infrastructure topic I was wondering why Brussels Airlines doesn’t start a real evening wave for their long haul flights. I don’t work in the industry so don’t shoot if this is a bad idea
SN is growing every year with an extra 330, mostly to destinations in Africa. They rely heavily on connections from north America and Europe. But this can’t go on like that forever: we see already today that there are already 2 flights to EWR and IAD (summer) at around the same time because capacity with one flight is insufficient. The CDG and LHR flight must become full also at one point.
If you transfer one flight of each daily destination (NBO, FIH, ABJ,…) to the evening, let’s say 21pm (monday NBO, tuesday ACC and so on), arriving in the morning in AFI, I can see already a few benefits:
- Room for a new destination in the morning
- A more equal spread for the European feeder connections (not only transfers in the morning flights)
- Technical department have more time to work on the planes and more flexibility in case of calamities
- Gate space at BRU (and cheaper slots?)
- Opportunities to get evening connections from UA, AC and obviously SN itself. Room enough for growth at this time of the day.
I suppose one evening flight each day without an initial NA connection can’t be that big problem?
BRU also would welcome this approach I believe.
What are your thoughts?

[oldblueeyes]

Well, you would need to calculate all the impact of such a move:

- tha majority of pax are coming from feeding flights - a departure at 21.00 means arriving short haul aircaft at 19.00-19.30....so how much efficiency are you loosing in the mid day wave, what additional cost for nothing would you have with overnight stays if you want your short haul fleet to perform another sector in the evening?

- arriving time? evening departure waves make sense when you can benefit from an advantage eg flying in the evening from the US East coast and arriving in the morning in Europe, or flying in the afternoon from Europe and arriving in the morning in Asia - planning a wave to arrive at 3 or 4 in the morning to the main destinations is, more than customer unfriendly before taking into consideration any airport restrictions at destination

DEspite that, how many companies witch such small fleets are having more waves per day?

[Atlantis]

From several angles there is this request indeed. Also from business side. It's even questioned to airlines who wants to start up new long haul to do it later in the morning or afternoon.

The majority of LH is during the morning with a very full airport.

The first approach is to have a second LH wave in the afternoon. A few years ago, it was like that.

If UA, AC and HU could also spread more and a second European feeder wave could be, then around 6 to 7 LH you can do.

In the very past we had the Sabena long haul to NY who was always full with almost only transfer pax who missed their connection to NY somewhere else in Europe.
That evening LH will not be for soon, but an afternoon one could be possible around 2027-2028 when SN has 13 LH planes.

[Established02]

Sabena's 747/DC10 to FIH/JNB had a scheduled departure from BRU at... 23h59. At least during the Eighties, I believe.

[nordikcam]

Sabena's 747/DC10 to FIH/JNB had a scheduled departure from BRU at... 23h59. At least during the Eighties, I believe.

And SN flights to YUL and BOS in the 80's departed around 3PM !

[oldblueeyes]

It makes no sense to make bullshit comparisons.

If one is flying to Boston in the afternoon, the approx 8:30 hours flight time are offset by 6 hours time difference. A flight departing at 3pm would arrive around 5:30 PM local time, ideal to catch an evening wave further to nowhere.

Hard facts :
- Brussels is flying to African destinations, with usually time zones between +1 /-1 hours corridor - there is no time of the day arbitrage one can gain
- the sectors are in the range of 6-8 hours flight

Anyone considering advantageous arriving times in the 3.00-5.00AM corridor? Any commercial/pricing/revenue benefits deriving from red eyes flights?

The smart planer considers always both ends on the trip.

[Stij]

If I remember well, SN had an evening rotation to JFK at 19:30 that came back around lunchtime the next day. It was technically connected to the NRT rotation, but also connected well to the afternoon wave of two flights to West Africa.

[Conti764]

In addition to the BRU infrastructure topic I was wondering why Brussels Airlines doesn’t start a real evening wave for their long haul flights. I don’t work in the industry so don’t shoot if this is a bad idea
SN is growing every year with an extra 330, mostly to destinations in Africa. They rely heavily on connections from north America and Europe. But this can’t go on like that forever: we see already today that there are already 2 flights to EWR and IAD (summer) at around the same time because capacity with one flight is insufficient. The CDG and LHR flight must become full also at one point.
If you transfer one flight of each daily destination (NBO, FIH, ABJ,…) to the evening, let’s say 21pm (monday NBO, tuesday ACC and so on), arriving in the morning in AFI, I can see already a few benefits:
- Room for a new destination in the morning
- A more equal spread for the European feeder connections (not only transfers in the morning flights)
- Technical department have more time to work on the planes and more flexibility in case of calamities
- Gate space at BRU (and cheaper slots?)
- Opportunities to get evening connections from UA, AC and obviously SN itself. Room enough for growth at this time of the day.
I suppose one evening flight each day without an initial NA connection can’t be that big problem?
BRU also would welcome this approach I believe.
What are your thoughts?

Since SN longhaul is almost entirely to Africa, an evening wave is pretty useless. Would you want to arrive in the middle of the night in Kinshasa, Nairobi, Douala,...?

Their current ops to Africa are perfect. Morning departure to the further destinations (FIH, KGL, EBB,...) and a noon departure to 'shorter' destinations (BJL,...). Redeyes back to BRU, arriving in the morning.

Evening flights to Africa are completely useless for tatl feeder flights.

[longwings]

BRU needs to incentivize airlines to move some LH operations to the afternoon/evening, however Brussels' flights to Africa aren't it for all the reasons already mentioned, not to mention that connecting passengers from North America will not want to arrive two days after leaving.

I don't see United moving their second flight to an afternoon bank, and if they did, it could be temporary anyway as the plan is to go back to a daily 777 when more new widebodies join the fleet. Air Canada could be a contender with the YYZ flight to capture passengers who missed their earlier flight from throughout Europe (a la Sabena's JFK flight), but they already have a late 787 from FRA for that purpose (that I "benefited" from once or twice).

Best bet would be to incentivize Etihad, Qatar, Emirates, and Hainan to reschedule their flights, but I don't know how. Significantly lowered airport charges?

Anyone considering advantageous arriving times in the 3.00-5.00AM corridor? Any commercial/pricing/revenue benefits deriving from red eyes flights?

The arrival time in Africa is less an issue than the less-than-ideal connections with North America. Several airlines without North American feed arrive in a 1:00 - 6:00 window, such as Qatar, Saudia, RAM, Egyptair, Turkish...

[worldguesser]

Good point! An evening wave could ease BRU pressure, spread feeder flights better, and support SN’s African growth. The main question is if demand and connections would justify it daily. World Guesser

[BrightCedars]

I remember the pair of DC-10's overflying Schaerbeek in the evening 30 years ago, they were flying to East Africa, arriving there after sunrise, and returning to Europe during the day. You could say you loose a day's business on the way back, but it's exactly the same nowadays on the way going.
Also, the FIH flight at least was departing in the very late evening as well.

It all depends on the blend of connecting passengers from other long-haul flights and in premium cabins whether this is worth planning or not. It will also mean that the catering and maintenance teams will need an evening roaster as well.

Terminal B is sure much busier in the morning and noon than later in the day and it would make sense to try to spread that utilisation.

[Stij]

I'm afraid there'll only be an evening wave once they go double dailyt to certain destinations... and since we're not even daily on a lot of destinations it ain't going to happen soon.

I think you'll first see an afternoon wave to non triangular West African destinations.

[FienV]

I remember the pair of DC-10's overflying Schaerbeek in the evening 30 years ago, they were flying to East Africa, arriving there after sunrise, and returning to Europe during the day. You could say you loose a day's business on the way back, but it's exactly the same nowadays on the way going.
Also, the FIH flight at least was departing in the very late evening as well.

It all depends on the blend of connecting passengers from other long-haul flights and in premium cabins whether this is worth planning or not. It will also mean that the catering and maintenance teams will need an evening roaster as well.

Terminal B is sure much busier in the morning and noon than later in the day and it would make sense to try to spread that utilisation.

Those night departures had something special… you could almost set your watch by them

[rwandan-flyer]

Sabena's 747/DC10 to FIH/JNB had a scheduled departure from BRU at... 23h59. At least during the Eighties, I believe.

And SN flights to YUL and BOS in the 80's departed around 3PM !

I remember the pair of DC-10's overflying Schaerbeek in the evening 30 years ago, they were flying to East Africa, arriving there after sunrise, and returning to Europe during the day. You could say you loose a day's business on the way back, but it's exactly the same nowadays on the way going.
Also, the FIH flight at least was departing in the very late evening as well.

The hub and spoke model started to appear in Europe between mid and late 90s. Before this many airlines operated flights at any time of the day, without a logic about flights frequencies and routings. Sometimes it was possible to see some agreements like KLM and Northwest in 1993, or Air France and Continental Airlines, but it was not a common sight at this period like today with airlines alliances, joint ventures, etc...

Air France, British Airways or of course Sabena operated some long haul flights with sometimes with 3 cities with widebodies aircraft. No possible to see this in 2025. I remember that in 1990s AF served Kigali tagged with Bujumbura and Nairobi.

It was also possible to fly from Lille, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nantes, Strasbourg to New York non stop either with AF or UTA in 1980s.

With the opening sky policies in Europe in 1990s competition started to be stiff thus airlines have started to start new model with the hub and spoke model. Furthermore some national flag carrier have merged (sometimes forced by their own government) with some others domestic airlines They didn't have the choice. Several airlines were almost to collapse, it's the case with Air France hardly hit by the 1st Gulf War, the French recession and the beginning of the air transport liberalization in Europe, early 1990s.

AF has merged with UTA and Air Inter, then has acquired several French regional airlines such as Brit Air, Regional Airlines and Airlinair and opened btw mid 90s and early 2000s, Lyons, Marseilles (called the Mediterranean gateway), Bordeaux (called the Iberian gateway), Orly and Roissy hubs. Clermont Ferrand (inhereted from Regional Airlines) was still an AF hub till they close it in mid 2000s.

[Atlantis]

To have a certain LH evening wave of SN that will not happen soon. An afternoon wave however is possible but in cooperation with other long haul airlines who agree to come later to BRU. But most has only 1 flight per day to BRU. So this is more difficult.
It's also a big exercise for SN to organize their feeder flights on a different way. You cannot do this from today on tomorrow. This needs a season the time to implement.

On the other side, it's not impossible. If we look at LOT then we can see that they have a big late afternoon wave to NA, Canada and the Far East. Most of them starts to depart around 5pm. They have 3 feeder waves a day.

Time will tell, but first more long haul planes for them. 13 is still small. If you can have between 15 and 20 LH planes, then you have a different story. But if the main LH market will be Africa, I don't think that they will have more planes and the market share at BRU will stay rather small.

[Conti764]

BRU needs to incentivize airlines to move some LH operations to the afternoon/evening, however Brussels' flights to Africa aren't it for all the reasons already mentioned, not to mention that connecting passengers from North America will not want to arrive two days after leaving.

I don't see United moving their second flight to an afternoon bank, and if they did, it could be temporary anyway as the plan is to go back to a daily 777 when more new widebodies join the fleet. Air Canada could be a contender with the YYZ flight to capture passengers who missed their earlier flight from throughout Europe (a la Sabena's JFK flight), but they already have a late 787 from FRA for that purpose (that I "benefited" from once or twice).

Best bet would be to incentivize Etihad, Qatar, Emirates, and Hainan to reschedule their flights, but I don't know how. Significantly lowered airport charges?

Anyone considering advantageous arriving times in the 3.00-5.00AM corridor? Any commercial/pricing/revenue benefits deriving from red eyes flights?

The arrival time in Africa is less an issue than the less-than-ideal connections with North America. Several airlines without North American feed arrive in a 1:00 - 6:00 window, such as Qatar, Saudia, RAM, Egyptair, Turkish...

Asian carriers without the need to connect to Africa could move their ops to the (late) afternoon. You'd basicly have the opposite of TATL ops. Leaving Asia around non, arrive at BRU in the afternoon and leave in the late afternoon/early evening. If it fits their schedule of course...

Up to BAC to give them an incentive to do so (landing fees). Apart from the already planned terminal upgrades a dedicated airside hotel without the need to enter Belgium would be benificiary as well. Even today BRU has plenty of space to offer transferpax a less bothersome stay at the airport.

[Atlantis]

BRU needs to incentivize airlines to move some LH operations to the afternoon/evening, however Brussels' flights to Africa aren't it for all the reasons already mentioned, not to mention that connecting passengers from North America will not want to arrive two days after leaving.

I don't see United moving their second flight to an afternoon bank, and if they did, it could be temporary anyway as the plan is to go back to a daily 777 when more new widebodies join the fleet. Air Canada could be a contender with the YYZ flight to capture passengers who missed their earlier flight from throughout Europe (a la Sabena's JFK flight), but they already have a late 787 from FRA for that purpose (that I "benefited" from once or twice).

Best bet would be to incentivize Etihad, Qatar, Emirates, and Hainan to reschedule their flights, but I don't know how. Significantly lowered airport charges?

Anyone considering advantageous arriving times in the 3.00-5.00AM corridor? Any commercial/pricing/revenue benefits deriving from red eyes flights?

The arrival time in Africa is less an issue than the less-than-ideal connections with North America. Several airlines without North American feed arrive in a 1:00 - 6:00 window, such as Qatar, Saudia, RAM, Egyptair, Turkish...

Asian carriers without the need to connect to Africa could move their ops to the (late) afternoon. You'd basicly have the opposite of TATL ops. Leaving Asia around non, arrive at BRU in the afternoon and leave in the late afternoon/early evening. If it fits their schedule of course...

Up to BAC to give them an incentive to do so (landing fees). Apart from the already planned terminal upgrades a dedicated airside hotel without the need to enter Belgium would be benificiary as well. Even today BRU has plenty of space to offer transferpax a less bothersome stay at the airport.

Thai, ANA, Cathay don't codeshare with SN on the Africa flights. Thai is pure leisure and could be moved to later hours, ANA has usually late arrival.

To give an incentive is only when you start up a new route, or using a new airplane or increasing drastically your nr of pax.
To give them a benefit to arrive later is not in it. But it can be discussed when changing the slot.

[oldblueeyes]

Let's look to the real world situation, not "AirlineX is doing .... in other circumstances" or " Economically collapsed airline was doing this and that in the 80s or 90s".

The whole matrix is a little bit more complicated, as typically 60-70% of a long haul flight are transfer pax, either at one or the other end.

Hard facts applying to Brussels Airlines:
- long haul within the Lufthansa Group is centrally coordinated - thus as well some benefits such as no competition of other brands on certain routes
- short haul within the hub airlines was not coordinated up to now, but this starts to be implemented
- LH Group is part of JV's meaning that on some sectors cost/revenue sharing applies - but than as well interests of the partner airlines need to be considered
- last but not least, for all aircraft an optimal utilisation rate needs to be achieved, and this goes by minimizing gorund time - here the largest inefficiency comes from the short haul waves

[lumumba]

BRU needs to incentivize airlines to move some LH operations to the afternoon/evening, however Brussels' flights to Africa aren't it for all the reasons already mentioned, not to mention that connecting passengers from North America will not want to arrive two days after leaving.

I don't see United moving their second flight to an afternoon bank, and if they did, it could be temporary anyway as the plan is to go back to a daily 777 when more new widebodies join the fleet. Air Canada could be a contender with the YYZ flight to capture passengers who missed their earlier flight from throughout Europe (a la Sabena's JFK flight), but they already have a late 787 from FRA for that purpose (that I "benefited" from once or twice).

Best bet would be to incentivize Etihad, Qatar, Emirates, and Hainan to reschedule their flights, but I don't know how. Significantly lowered airport charges?


The arrival time in Africa is less an issue than the less-than-ideal connections with North America. Several airlines without North American feed arrive in a 1:00 - 6:00 window, such as Qatar, Saudia, RAM, Egyptair, Turkish...

Asian carriers without the need to connect to Africa could move their ops to the (late) afternoon. You'd basicly have the opposite of TATL ops. Leaving Asia around non, arrive at BRU in the afternoon and leave in the late afternoon/early evening. If it fits their schedule of course...

Up to BAC to give them an incentive to do so (landing fees). Apart from the already planned terminal upgrades a dedicated airside hotel without the need to enter Belgium would be benificiary as well. Even today BRU has plenty of space to offer transferpax a less bothersome stay at the airport.

Thai, ANA, Cathay don't codeshare with SN on the Africa flights. Thai is pure leisure and could be moved to later hours, ANA has usually late arrival.

To give an incentive is only when you start up a new route, or using a new airplane or increasing drastically your nr of pax.
To give them a benefit to arrive later is not in it. But it can be discussed when changing the slot.

Thai is not pure leisure or company is using Thai very often to Japan because they have good connection to secondary city’s there and Osaka and Tokyo.

[longwings]

To give an incentive is only when you start up a new route, or using a new airplane or increasing drastically your nr of pax. To give them a benefit to arrive later is not in it. But it can be discussed when changing the slot.

Are you reporting incentives to move to the afternoon don't currentky exist, or are not allowed?