SN481, codesharing as AA7809 to Entebbe and Nairobi was supposed to leave here at 10h35.
"Cancelled 12h10" says BIAC.
A330-300
www.biac.be/departures
07/03 : is today's SN481 (A333) to NBO and EBB cxld ?
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Bruspotter
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Hello
It seems a lot of those SN 330's has problems or aren't operational the last time.
Not THAT bad...sometimes there are some nice replacements of them.(except if it's just a FQ 320 or a HV 738....
). It would be really nice to see by example a LH or KLM or even an AF 747 operating that route for maybe only one day... 
But yeah...that probably want ever happen.
Best regards: Yannick
It seems a lot of those SN 330's has problems or aren't operational the last time.
Not THAT bad...sometimes there are some nice replacements of them.(except if it's just a FQ 320 or a HV 738....
). It would be really nice to see by example a LH or KLM or even an AF 747 operating that route for maybe only one day... But yeah...that probably want ever happen.
Best regards: Yannick
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tolipanebas
- Posts: 2442
- Joined: 12 May 2004, 00:00
Those A330s brake down not more than any other plane SN operates, but with only 3 of them flying in a very tight schedule (only 3 to 4 hrs at the base per 24 hrs), any minor techincal problem leads to a big mess in operations as there isn't a replacement plane available in case of serious delay like there always is on the Avro fleet.
Often, the technical problem is solved within a few hours, but by then SN has already decided to cancel the flight not to hinder next day's operations.
The fewer planes you operate in a fleet, the more vulnerable you become to this kind of unfortunate events.
A 4th plane might help on condition it is used on shorter long haul routes only, thus spending more time at the base as a possible replacement plane, but knowing SN this plane too would be operated to the limits, thus not contributing a lot to a solution. Besides, they'd have to fill that extra plane every day too then and with pax paying good prices (not flying it half empty to some US destination at average ticket prices of 400 to 500 dollars..)
I think we will see the rare A310, L1011 or whatever of a small icelandic airline operate an occasional SN flight in the future too...
Often, the technical problem is solved within a few hours, but by then SN has already decided to cancel the flight not to hinder next day's operations.
The fewer planes you operate in a fleet, the more vulnerable you become to this kind of unfortunate events.
A 4th plane might help on condition it is used on shorter long haul routes only, thus spending more time at the base as a possible replacement plane, but knowing SN this plane too would be operated to the limits, thus not contributing a lot to a solution. Besides, they'd have to fill that extra plane every day too then and with pax paying good prices (not flying it half empty to some US destination at average ticket prices of 400 to 500 dollars..)
I think we will see the rare A310, L1011 or whatever of a small icelandic airline operate an occasional SN flight in the future too...
Not that bad for you, but for the company it isn't funny. They loose a lot of money and in my opinion their corporate image suffers from such events as well.Bruspotter wrote: Not THAT bad...sometimes there are some nice replacements of them.(except if it's just a FQ 320 or a HV 738....
It's not because of one occasional technical problem that your image will suffer, but SN has had too many problems with those A330's.
The PAX won't be happy if they have to fly in a charter configured plane where you don't get the comfort of the A330 would they ?
SN really has to do something with their long hau fleet. They should either try to find 3 other A330's (maybe -200's) or lease a 4th plane as tolipanebas mentioned.
But unfortunately SN doesn't have the money to finance that....
Chris
The A 330's are indeed not really old if you consider their date of entry into service.
But an airplane's age is not measured in the number of years it is manufactured, but in the number of cycles it has flown. I suppose SN Brussels' A 330 have a (very) high number of cycles, especially as they first operated for Air Inter, and were generally flying very short sectors on the latter airline's French national network.
Since flying for Sabena and later for SN Brussels (via Birdy), they have again operated on a very tight schedules, so I would not be surprised if they are among the A 330's having the highest number of cycles flown.
SN Brussels (or Birdy) should have retained Sabena's former A 330-200's, which were much younger, and probably had a better range to operate the African routes. But I expect these planes were much more expensive to lease at that time, and some of them were already leased to VG Airlines...
But an airplane's age is not measured in the number of years it is manufactured, but in the number of cycles it has flown. I suppose SN Brussels' A 330 have a (very) high number of cycles, especially as they first operated for Air Inter, and were generally flying very short sectors on the latter airline's French national network.
Since flying for Sabena and later for SN Brussels (via Birdy), they have again operated on a very tight schedules, so I would not be surprised if they are among the A 330's having the highest number of cycles flown.
SN Brussels (or Birdy) should have retained Sabena's former A 330-200's, which were much younger, and probably had a better range to operate the African routes. But I expect these planes were much more expensive to lease at that time, and some of them were already leased to VG Airlines...