What are the plans of SNBA ?

[Avro]

Ahh ok, sorry

[Sabena_690]

But who would make a connection when there are direct flights available at suitable times?

I would

A connection = visit another airport = a bigger chance to see new registrations.

The more stops the better!

Regards
Frederic

[Avro]

Frederic,

You've frogotten to mention : A connection=2 landings and 2 Takeoffs

Greetz
Chris
8)

[sn26567]

But who would make a connection when there are direct flights available at suitable times?

I would

A connection = visit another airport = a bigger chance to see new registrations.

The more stops the better!

If you have a lot of time to spend, if you are on vacation, yes, fine!

But when you travel for business and your time is counted (this is the case for most people - most of them are not spotters), definitely No.

Another factor is sometimes considered: the possibility to accumulate FF miles. Then sometimes people prefer connections to earn more miles. But only if it does not cost more and does not take too much additonal time.

[cyriusvirus]

Hi all,

Yes you're right Kenny, the Tokyo route was not profitable for Sabena and the loadfactor was very low (less than 50%).
And for the mastermind game i think that the two new destinations are Istanbul and Athens

See you

[leon]

Load Factors on the Tokyo route were well above 80%.
May I ask you where you got that "less than 50%" figure, Nicolas ?

[Sabena_690]

Also for me the 'less than 50%' is new.

I always heard: high loads, low yields.

Regards
Frederic

[liebensd]

In a code share agreement, would Tokio maybe a good destination?


Greetz,

Dave

[sn26567]

Load Factors on the Tokyo route were well above 80%.
May I ask you where you got that "less than 50%" figure, Nicolas ?

I flew three times to Tokyo with Sabena. Load factors on those flights were between the two figures you quote. But yes, I too believe tyey were quite high. And since the prices were also sky-high, why was the Tokyo route one of the first to be cancelled when Sabena was asked to save money?

By the way, at one moment the route was code-shared with ANA. They withdrew their support. Also because of insufficient profitability?

By the other way, the first time I flew the route, it was usually flown via Anchorage on a DC10. However, that time, all the DC10s of the world had been grounded because of an incident with one of them, so Sabena brought back a B707. Nice experience nevertheless. Mount McKinley in Alaska is fabulous!

[Avro]

In a code share agreement, would Tokio maybe a good destination?

I would also think that it would be a good option. Even if you don't make much money or loose a bit of money with that destination, you could gain many connection pax. And that's very important. What do you guys think of that

Greetz
Chris
8)

[SN207]

From what I understood Sabena flight from Tokyo to Brussels was marketed to Japanese customers flying to Europe. Because yen became weak, the revenues fell along and the route became unprofitable at a time when Sabena was starving for cash, so there was no other choice than to axe it. There many parameters intervening in the calculation of the profitability of a route, or even many ways of measuring a route profitability (it depends how what is your cost-driver) and it is very often difficult to infer from load factors whether a flight is profitable or not (unless these are structurally low). I have flown often to Japan, either for business and for leisure, in both cases I transferred - CPH, FRA and LHR - beacuse it was cheaper and that it only added 1h30 to my flight duration. In all 3 flights, I found several other passengers also in NRT-transit-BRU. There is I think too much competition in Europe-Japan routes to expect one day a direct flight. By the way, JAL has a daily bus from Brussels to Schipol.

[luchtzak]

I think that the Brussel to Tokyo flight was mainly for the Royal family, they had good connections between each other. Remember that the Royal family asked (insisted) SN BA to re-start flights to Tokyo ? I do...

ciao,

Bart

[Lyulka]

Wasn't the tokyo flight stopped because Swissair stole it from Sabena? In my opinion Swissair forced Sabena to stop the route, and took it over in an attempt to kill sabena and make some profit an a route! But perhaps swiss has to let it go due to their financial situation?

[Comet]

Are there good destinations of Sabena that are still not served by SNBA? Maybe some East European destinations or to the North of Africa?

Greetz,

Dave

There are some destinations in the UK which were served by Sabena but not by SNBA. These are Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast and Leeds. They either have FlyBE :finger: or British Airways :finger: or British Midland :finger:
Another route that SNBA did not get was London City, they did this in code share with VLM (with VLM operating) but that agreement has now ended (but at least VLM are Belgian, more than can be said for the other rubbish I've mentioned!!)

[SN30952]

I think that the Brussel to Tokyo flight was mainly for the Royal family....Bart

Yes Bart, I remember Mr Pleasents, hesitating to delay the departure of the flight out of ANC onto TYO, because the Belgian King B. was still relishing dutch cheese, @ het meisje dutch cheese display @ANC.
It is well known that not so many Belgians travelled on that line -originally a BRU-ANC-TYO later a TS-flight.
The gross of the traffic came from travel agents in Japan, and one agent in OSA was us very favourable.
In order to keep his clientele, SN had to make big concessions on grp-bookings for these japanese tourists. One of their favourite destinations was CAS, so they combined Europe AND Africa.
This "side trips" plus the feeder to TYO and back had to be deducted to calculate the real revenue on the TYO. People of the fare department know the Japan tariff's structure is based on group fares, because of course japanese people travel in group.
You say group you say volume, but also low yield. That's why it was decided to have the B747-300 doing the TYO: more capacity.

One will also notice that this TYO link once was operated in coop with ANA, and that there was ANA cabine crew on all these flights.
ANA to learn it was not useful to fly into BRU, as nearby DUS, with the largest japanese community in Europe, could serve the tourism industry even better. What is it for an incoming TO to combine the Koelner Dom, and at that time Bonn, the capital of Germany, into the tour that led the tourist via Madurodam, GrandPlace of Bru, Brugge to Paris?
That was the beginning of the end of SN to TYO....