lumumba wrote: 12 Oct 2025, 01:31
It's been a long time since I talked about this regularly, as for statistics, I can give you mine, I travel about twenty times a year to Africa when Brussels Airlines flew to Luanda I had 4 cancellations over 10 years
I flew 13 years with Air France to Bangui I had no cancellations and I'm not talking about my colleagues who are even more critical than me I have an old colleague who between 2004 and 2005 found himself twice, in a Tristar with 24 hours of delays to FIH and who since then no longer flies with Brussels Airlines.
In the Diamond industry a lot of people fly to New York, I give you a mission: call a travel agency in Antwerp around the Diamond quarter ask what they think about the Brussels Airlines flight to JFK. ( by the way it's the same for Africa)
I hope it's not noisy anymore for you!
In 2010s, AF had several times canceled flights. In 2020s at least 2 documented cancellations ( I insist on documented
https://www.google.com/search?q=air+fra ... s-wiz-serp) and now the airline has again reduced flights (from 3 to 2 flights / W) and could end BGF. They are suffering on this route since many many years !!! They put A330, then B777, then B787-9 and now again the B777. You are just lucky to not on the bad list (list of cancellations)
September 2025
Air France's Paris-Bangui route is under threat. The airline's CEO, American Benjamin Smith, and his teams are considering cancelling the route by early 2026, deeming it unprofitable. An Air France flight from Paris to Bangui can cost an average of €950 in economy class and up to nearly €4,000 in business class.
https://www.africaintelligence.com/cent ... 525897-art
nordikcam wrote: 10 Oct 2025, 22:15
Atlantis wrote: 10 Oct 2025, 21:30
Question is why Discover is still receiving A333 in 2026 and for SN it's postponed?
I would rather say that for SN is urgent seeing the difficulties thay have with their LH and the Africa hub.
I am certain of 3 things: SN is doing what it can! LH doesn't care at all and from a passenger point of view: you have to fly another way and forget, unfortunately SN on long haul!
The problem is Where you can find an airplane ? All airlines are suffering.
Order aircraft ? If you are lucky you can get ''white tail'' aircraft "quickly'..... but strong chance that aircraft won't probably wear your livery and the aircraft would have the configuration of the former previous operator (IFE, seats,...). And when you have ''the time'' you can send the aircraft to undergo overhaul (thus the aircraft will be grounded for several weeks and if you not lucky you can have delays). Austrian is in this case with their B787-9s. Some of them are former Bamboo Airlines and they were sent to Taiwan undergo overhaul (
https://www.airdatanews.com/austrian-ai ... oeing-787/) but they have to now postpone the retirement of the B767 due to the delays from Boeing to get.....B787-9s
https://www.ch-aviation.com/news/149222 ... etirements
May 2025 : Airbus Aircraft Delivery Delays Could Last 3 Years: https://simpleflying.com/airbus-deliver ... s-3-years/
Buy or lease second hand aircraft ? you have procedures to reactive aircraft. Lessor or you (if you own the aircraft) must to do some maintenance works. The problem is that, there is a lack of maintenance staff in the world (24 000 in North America
https://english.aawsat.com/business/494 ... trys-wings) and it can take long time to gate some aircraft spare parts (
https://avioninsurance.com/how-supply-c ... intenance/) and you can find bad surprises. Like for some former Cathay Pacific A330s flying for Brussels Airlines. They have found corrosion because the aircraft has operated in a salty and high humidity environment. Thus the maintenance work is longer.
Restoring Stored Aircraft to Service https://avm-mag.com/restoring-stored-ai ... to-service
Returning stored aircraft to service is a complex and painstaking process. The fact that an aircraft has been conscientiously monitored and maintained during storage doesn’t mean that it is ‘good to go’.
AMCI : i send you to the comment of Lux_Avi who explains the pros and cons of AMCI in some cases.
Lux_avi wrote: ↑17 Sep 2025, 22:08
Some of you seem to think adding a wet-lease for a short period of time can happen with a simple click on a compter.
You have to think of crew rest, crew positioning, aircraft availability, EU penalties have to be paid in delays as well on top of wet-lease costs.
It simply makes no sense to charter a wet-lease in most of these cases. If a Hi-Fly crew (for example) flies empty to an African destination, they also need to have a crew to fly back. Or the same crew with 12-14 hours rest.
No you can't use your own crew. Not at all. Not the pilots; neither the cabin crew.
The cabin crew from SN would be there for commercial reasons only and do not replace the required "safety" crew on the leased aircraft.
If you want a wet-lease to help a stranded aircraft somewhere, you need to take crew rest or crew positioning into account.
On long haul this is obviously more complicated and not necessarily faster than getting the aircraft repaired or rebook the pax on other flights
Air France has a fleet of 50 medium haul aircraft, but they are currently leasing two ASL France B737-800s since early September 2025, while early 2025 they leased an Amelia A319. Last year btw April 2024 and Oct 2024, they leased 4 Amelia A320s and 1 Amelia A319 and the previous year, Amelia A319 and A320, Danish Air Transport A320 and A321 and ASL France B737.
50 aircraft is bigger that the whole fleet of Brussels Airlines !! But during some periods they struggle to keep operations at the normal rate. They will operate less flights than planned on some routes (meaning preventive cancellations
that you can't see on FR24 ) to bring more capacities on others route where the demand is high during some periods.
Out 36, they have 11 A220s grounded mainly due to engine issues, they are retiring A318s (only 5 left) and A319s (only 5 left) and they have some aircraft in maintenance but some of them spend probably more time than expected due long waiting to get aircraft spare parts. 2 A320s are parked, 2 A321s parked, 1 A318 and 1 A319. So almost 20 aircraft not active out 50 aircraft. It's huge !!
About the long haul aircraft. They are retiring A330s, but they have 4 grounded out 10, almost 50% of the fleet !!!
They are also retiring B777-200ER, but for the whole fleet (63) they have only 6 B777s grounded: Maintenance or new seat configuration
https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Air-France
About the B787-9, they have one in maintenance. They are saved by the fact not many B777s are grounded and all A350 are active. So this summer they didn't lease long haul aircraft, while last year they leased an Euro Atlantic B777 to operate flights to Abidjan, Delhi and Nairobi because around 10 long haul aircraft were grounded at the same time.
https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2024/ ... i-flights/
Ok you flight is there (and not canceled like SN), but you have paid to fly on Air France aircraft. Flying on A320 with 174 seats and on ASL Boeing 737-800 with 189 seats not the same thing. You were supposed to fly to Abidjan with AF (one of few African destinations served by La Premiere) and no you fly on Euro Atlantic B777 without 1st class and not the same configuration so probably some people in Premium eco wil fly on Eco and some people in Biz class will fly on Premium eco. You will get of course furious passengers that will tell you, my last time i fly with AF, never again !!
And i m just talking about Air France. Air Canada was forced to reactivate old B767-300ERs in 2025 (
https://www.airdatanews.com/air-canada- ... n-storage/) whom the last one was retired in 2020!!!! (
https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/hom ... tml/1000#/) We can't even talk that "temporary stored aircraft" in desert for few months, but almost decommissioned aircraft. It's due to the delays to get new aircraft. And as i have already said some airline have suspended some routes, because they don't have enough aircraft. AC is lucky, because they still flying the B767F and thus they didn't close the B767 department for the ops.
Air Canada has a fleet of over 200 aircraft....incld 85 long haul aircraft. Again it's not a "mini" fleet like SN.
When you have troubles with the fleet there are not good solutions. If you cancel flights pax will be furious, if you lease an aircraft from others airlines to reduce cancellations passengers will be furious, if you make AMCI lease it will cost you lots of money. You have to find a good balance to reduce troubles on your operations. But ALL Airlines will cancel flights either on the day of the operation or either long time before the flight.
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