Brussels Airlines' fleet renewal

[Poiu]

The lack of a spare aircraft is indeed the problem. Operating a tight schedule with 8 aircraft is asking for trouble.
SN should lease a spare aircraft, it would probably be cheaper than paying compensations and it would avoid a lot of bad publicity.
Another problem of the old birds is the payload restriction as soon as there are strong winds, if some enroute alternates are below minimums or when fuel has to be tankered due to no availability down route. All these things happen on a regular basis.
The impact of age on the level of comfort, safety and reliability is minor though.

[convair]

The lack of a spare aircraft is indeed the problem. Operating a tight schedule with 8 aircraft is asking for trouble.
SN should lease a spare aircraft, it would probably be cheaper than paying compensations and it would avoid a lot of bad publicity.
Another problem of the old birds is the payload restriction as soon as there are strong winds, if some enroute alternates are below minimums or when fuel has to be tankered due to no availability down route. All these things happen on a regular basis.
The impact of age on the level of comfort, safety and reliability is minor though.

Your analysis makes a lot of sense and I fully agree with it.

[Conti764]

Well, reading all the good things said here above about old aircraft (profitable, comfortable, reliable), 2-cents aviation enthusiasts like me may wonder that some airlines actually order new aircraft !
Do Ryanair, Wizz Air, Norwegian have it all wrong, with their hundreds of new aircraft ordered ?

Don't know about Wizzair or Norwegian, but wasn't it a part of FR's businessplan to buy brand new 737's and get rid of them before C-check comes around? This makes them selling off their equipment at rather high resale value, thus effectively reducing the cost of each unit...
Besides, it's not a secret FR got steep discounts from Boeing when placing their first mega-order. These discounts were so huge both Airbus and Boeing at one point stated not doing business with Ryanair at the same conditions FR got from Boeing when they ordered a sh*tload of 737's...

[teddybAIR]

Well, reading all the good things said here above about old aircraft (profitable, comfortable, reliable), 2-cents aviation enthusiasts like me may wonder that some airlines actually order new aircraft !
Do Ryanair, Wizz Air, Norwegian have it all wrong, with their hundreds of new aircraft ordered ?

No you don't have it wrong. It's a good strategy if your cash flow can support it. If it doesn't....well then it isn't

[Conti764]

The lack of a spare aircraft is indeed the problem. Operating a tight schedule with 8 aircraft is asking for trouble.
SN should lease a spare aircraft, it would probably be cheaper than paying compensations and it would avoid a lot of bad publicity.
Another problem of the old birds is the payload restriction as soon as there are strong winds, if some enroute alternates are below minimums or when fuel has to be tankered due to no availability down route. All these things happen on a regular basis.
The impact of age on the level of comfort, safety and reliability is minor though.

I guess at times when SN is struggling to get into the black, they can't really afford to pay the lease of an extra aircraft just to have it around when another one breaks down...

What I fail to understand however, are the cancellations on the JFK-route... The last thing I want is to give the impression that their African ops are inferior to the JFK ops, but JFK is SN's flagship route. Move an available aircraft to the JFK flight and replace this plane on its intended African route with what SN has been doing for years: lease (rent may be a better choice of words) an aircraft of a third party (HiFly?)...

[sean1982]

Well, reading all the good things said here above about old aircraft (profitable, comfortable, reliable), 2-cents aviation enthusiasts like me may wonder that some airlines actually order new aircraft !
Do Ryanair, Wizz Air, Norwegian have it all wrong, with their hundreds of new aircraft ordered ?

Don't know about Wizzair or Norwegian, but wasn't it a part of FR's businessplan to buy brand new 737's and get rid of them before C-check comes around? This makes them selling off their equipment at rather high resale value, thus effectively reducing the cost of each unit...
Besides, it's not a secret FR got steep discounts from Boeing when placing their first mega-order. These discounts were so huge both Airbus and Boeing at one point stated not doing business with Ryanair at the same conditions FR got from Boeing when they ordered a sh*tload of 737's...

Because FR took the risk of ordering 150 airplanes 2 months after 09/11 when the whole aviation industry was in turmoil. Later orders were higher priced but still low enough. FR sells their old airplanes at a higher price than what they paid for them new or sells the new airplane at a much higher price and leases it back.

[Conti764]

Because FR took the risk of ordering 150 airplanes 2 months after 09/11 when the whole aviation industry was in turmoil. Later orders were higher priced but still low enough. FR sells their old airplanes at a higher price than what they paid for them new or sells the new airplane at a much higher price and leases it back.

I'm not criticizing Ryanair for doing so... It was a bold and smart move which allowed FR to grow as it did. Ryanair also decided to stick with Boeing when the 737 was falling compared to the considered superior A320...

Besides, I honestly don't think Ryanair takes any riskes. You can say about MoL what you want, but he and is his team know what they are doing...

[sean1982]

now not anymore no back then ... it was probably a calculated risk, but a risk nonetheless

[RoMax]

What I fail to understand however, are the cancellations on the JFK-route... The last thing I want is to give the impression that their African ops are inferior to the JFK ops, but JFK is SN's flagship route. Move an available aircraft to the JFK flight and replace this plane on its intended African route with what SN has been doing for years: lease (rent may be a better choice of words) an aircraft of a third party (HiFly?)...

Such leases as those from HiFly can be expensive, seriously lacking in service quality and not always available. Sometimes cancelling a flight is simply 'better' and in that case it might be strange to say, but it can be better to cancel JFK. Contrary to most of their African services, it is a lot easier to transfer those passengers on other flights (not only those of partner airlines, but in such cases also interline agreements with other carriers are very handy) or in the worst case put them on a flight the next day. That's all a lot more difficult when talking about their African operations.

[Avroflyer]

I guess at times when SN is struggling to get into the black, they can't really afford to pay the lease of an extra aircraft just to have it around when another one breaks down...

What I fail to understand however, are the cancellations on the JFK-route... The last thing I want is to give the impression that their African ops are inferior to the JFK ops, but JFK is SN's flagship route. Move an available aircraft to the JFK flight and replace this plane on its intended African route with what SN has been doing for years: lease (rent may be a better choice of words) an aircraft of a third party (HiFly?)...

First of all we are talking about 1 cancellation on JFK... secondly you bring on a theoreticaly good idea indeed but allow me to bring in some operational restrictions on it.

(I'm not exactly sure at what point in time the cancellation of JFK was made so it's pure a hypothesis)

First of all a fact is that on that particular day no wetlease aircraft was available to cover for this cancellation otherwise I guess that indeed if it was operationally possible they would operate JFK on SN metal and an AFI flight with a wetlease carrier.

Now the bulk of the long haul flights leave within the same timeframe so that makes last minute swaps very difficult because IF the flight was cancelled last minute that would imply that the other long haul flights are almost ready to leave which would make an A/C swap an absolute no-go.

If the cancellation was done before any crewboarding etc. there might indeed be a possibility to do an A/C swap however they would probably first look at the pax loads... my guess would be in that scenario that the loads on JFK were lower than the AFI loads thus making it smarter both commercially and economically to cancel the JFK flight as that is in my opinion the best option according to the given circumstances.

[Avroflyer]

Such leases as those from HiFly can be expensive, seriously lacking in service quality and not always available. Sometimes cancelling a flight is simply 'better' and in that case it might be strange to say, but it can be better to cancel JFK. Contrary to most of their African services, it is a lot easier to transfer those passengers on other flights (not only those of partner airlines, but in such cases also interline agreements with other carriers are very handy) or in the worst case put them on a flight the next day. That's all a lot more difficult when talking about their African operations.

As a matter of fact RoMax SN puts 3 of it's Cabin Crew Members on those wetlease flights in order to maintain the SN standard of service however indeed there may be a lack of the same on board comfort, IFE,...

and indeed the pax of the JFK flight were rebooked on DL's JFK flights,... so I guess most of them did leave the same day which would be indeed lots more difficult in case of a cancellation on the African sector

[Conti764]

First of all we are talking about 1 cancellation on JFK... secondly you bring on a theoreticaly good idea indeed but allow me to bring in some operational restrictions on it.

Two cancellations, if I'm not mistaken...

(I'm not exactly sure at what point in time the cancellation of JFK was made so it's pure a hypothesis)

First of all a fact is that on that particular day no wetlease aircraft was available to cover for this cancellation otherwise I guess that indeed if it was operationally possible they would operate JFK on SN metal and an AFI flight with a wetlease carrier.

Now the bulk of the long haul flights leave within the same timeframe so that makes last minute swaps very difficult because IF the flight was cancelled last minute that would imply that the other long haul flights are almost ready to leave which would make an A/C swap an absolute no-go.

If the cancellation was done before any crewboarding etc. there might indeed be a possibility to do an A/C swap however they would probably first look at the pax loads... my guess would be in that scenario that the loads on JFK were lower than the AFI loads thus making it smarter both commercially and economically to cancel the JFK flight as that is in my opinion the best option according to the given circumstances.

Apart from the operational viewpoint, which is the most important of course, I highly doubt it is commercially wise to cancel the JFK route... It's far easier to find an alternative BRU-JFK then an alternative BRU-Africa flight. When cancelling the JFK route chances are bigger you lose a customer then on an African cancellation...

[Conti764]

Such leases as those from HiFly can be expensive, seriously lacking in service quality and not always available. Sometimes cancelling a flight is simply 'better' and in that case it might be strange to say, but it can be better to cancel JFK. Contrary to most of their African services, it is a lot easier to transfer those passengers on other flights (not only those of partner airlines, but in such cases also interline agreements with other carriers are very handy) or in the worst case put them on a flight the next day. That's all a lot more difficult when talking about their African operations.

As a matter of fact RoMax SN puts 3 of it's Cabin Crew Members on those wetlease flights in order to maintain the SN standard of service however indeed there may be a lack of the same on board comfort, IFE,...

and indeed the pax of the JFK flight were rebooked on DL's JFK flights,... so I guess most of them did leave the same day which would be indeed lots more difficult in case of a cancellation on the African sector

In my humble opinion, rebooking passengers from SN to any American carrier always results in lower service quality since no US carrier can give the same quality SN does... But that is subject to ones personal opinion of course...

Secondly, you hand these passengers over to a competitor from a different alliance. Rebooking them to UA and keeping them in the same alliance and even the same joint venture wasn't an option since UA flies to EWR...

[Avroflyer]

Apart from the operational viewpoint, which is the most important of course, I highly doubt it is commercially wise to cancel the JFK route... It's far easier to find an alternative BRU-JFK then an alternative BRU-Africa flight. When cancelling the JFK route chances are bigger you lose a customer then on an African cancellation...

In my humble opinion, rebooking passengers from SN to any American carrier always results in lower service quality since no US carrier can give the same quality SN does... But that is subject to ones personal opinion of course...

Secondly, you hand these passengers over to a competitor from a different alliance. Rebooking them to UA and keeping them in the same alliance and even the same joint venture wasn't an option since UA flies to EWR...

It could be 2 indeed I'll let that aside

I guess that would be a huge struggle for the company since they really value the African market and JFK is indeed a very important one too so one has to make choices on such moments...

As RoMax has pointed out aswell rerouting pax to Africa is a whole lot more difficult than rebooking pax to JFK so that would perhaps also be a deciding factor in the cancellations.

I absolutely share your opinion... rebooking on US carriers is indeed a lowering of the service standard but it's better than staying stranded isn't it?

I wish I could tell if pax were also rebooked onto UA's EWR flight since I guess it might have been but I only have knowledge of rebookings on DL's JFK flight

[Boeing767copilot]

It looks like OO-SFM is back in BRU.

[CTBke]

OO-SSP has left the company

[convair]

OO-SSP has left the company

When is the replacement due?

[Airbus A330]

OO-SSP has left the company

Still parked at BRU?

I read it will become N644AG once returned to ACG Acquisitions.

[Anonymous320]

It is now confirmed that a 9th a330 will enter the fleet and start operations by june 2016. It will facilitate the increased frequencies on Africa next summer, and as of winter 16/17 used for the new destinations Lagos and Libreville.

Not yet confirmed, but under review, is the further expansion of the LH-fleet in 2016 (I presume 1 extra a330) in the light of 9W's departure. Language is a bit vague about possible destinations; some clues about opening up the Canadian Market and strenghtening US-market. No word about India.

[crew1990]

can be deleted