BRU winter 09-10: latest news, routes, airlines

[Atlantis]

Sevilla will be continued during winter on day 2, 6 and 7 with a B737
Copenhagen will get a 5th rotation except on sunday.

If I'm not wrong, SN is now flying 6 times a day to CPH and by the end of this month they are going to add, on Sunday, a noon flight to CPH.

[tolipanebas]

CPH is 4 times a day right now on weekdays, 3 times on sundays, and once on saturdays.

Haven't heard anything about a possible BOD route, but in theory it could be a nice addition to the SN network provided it gets linked to the AFI network and LH/LX/BD codeshares on it. Maybe the feed can make the route work, because the O&D traffic must be terrible, given the fact AF can't even make it work on EMB145!

[Atlantis]

Virgin Express was flying on BOD. Is there someone who knows what the loadfactor was in that time?

[Established02]

Ryanair schrapt verbinding Charleroi-Manchester

http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail. ... 090817_066

As from 1 October 2009.

edit: sorry, already reported in a more appropriate thread.

Anyway, FR stopping CRL-MAN will obviously have an impact on the figures of SN, BE and VG operating Manchester - Brussels(North) as well.

[sn26567]

Virgin Express was flying on BOD. Is there someone who knows what the loadfactor was in that time?

Sabena was also flying BRU-BOD. I once flew that route in the 1980es with Eddy Meeus, the founder of recreation park Walibi who was going to create Walibi-Aquitaine. The plane was a small one (I don't remember the type), which ensured a reasonable load factor.

[tolipanebas]

Historic overview:
-) Sabena flew to BOD 3 times a day (morning-noon-evening) with RJ and had nice loadfactors, but low yields as pax were mostly long haul connecting pax.
-) SN Brussels took over the route in 2002 with initially 2 daily flights as connectivity in BRU was much lower and went to once daily soon after, which IMO killed the route for them as it didn't offer any connectivity any longer.
-) Virgin Express stepped in and also flew the route on 737 hoping for success, but they failed so they pulled out again soon after.
-) Air France then started the route with a nice frequency and with a much smaller plane, but while still only aiming at O&D traffic they apparently failed too.

Conclusion:
the route must have very low O&D demand (as demontrated by AF and VEX and in the end also SN) and can thus only work if you offer good onwards connections to attract more pax.

Projection:
Within the LH/LX/OS/SN group, nobody is currently flying to BOD, so it might be worthwile to have one airline operate to BOD on behalf of the entire group (code share) and STAR.
The airline operating the route must be the one that offers the most valuable connections at its hub for pax to/from BOD. BRU might as such stand a fairly good change, given the fact it is the nearest hub and may very well have the largest offer of interesting (read: high yielding) long haul destinations to offer, notably to AFI.
Western France is currently very poorly covered by SN, which is a serious handicap for an airline hoping to steel pax away from AF, so SN might just be the most willing of all 4 to take up the opportunity.

Objection:
the airline operating to BOD would have to offer a twice daily service at least (early morning/noon) if it wants to offer long haul connectivity both ways, so it must be an airline which can start a route quite agressively. (we know LX can do: see LYS, but can SN?)
The network of SN to AFI might still be too small to support such an aggressive launch. I'd say it would greatly help SN if they had a minimum of 5 planes deployed on AFI (rather than just 4 like today) plus operate a daily Montreal. That would definitely allow for a successful launch... But now?
But then it is just a rumour launched on this site, so it doesn't matter (for now), although it is always a good excercise to think about potentially new routes and their sense for a minute.

Bottom line:
The above shows that the most important element in SN's future strategy must be a steady growth on AFI (and on other key long haul routes like Montreal) as this will help them in developing their European network and make them less vulnerable to low cost competitors like Easyjet, as these can only fight with them over point-to-point traffic alone.

How about finally making the annoucement for that 5th A330 first?

[BrightCedars]

I flew BRU-BOD-BRU on SN in 1995, going leg operated by a BAC 1-11-500 of British World, return operated by a Fokker 28 of DAT. Those were the days...

I can concur that more Africa flights and a Montreal link would make BRU an attractive connecting point overnight for many French cities. I have doubts about the yield aspect. But such traffic could support offering the Montreal-Africa connection with a decent enough frequency and so make some business sense. 2 more A330s or the first two other types of what will replace the existing fleet should come as soon as this crisis fades, which it seems may already be the case. Also, it's better to position yourself now while the competitors have other worries than someone adding a single jet or two on Africa.

[Atlantis]

Transavia is going to fly again this winter out of BRU: Innsbruck and Salzburg.

Salzburg: 2 flights a week on Tuesday and Saturday from 19 December till 3 April
Innsbruck: 3 flights a week on Monday/Wednesday and Saturday from 18 December till 26 March.

[RoMax]

That looks like this are succesfull winter routes. And is there something nown about the used planes? 737-700 or -800 or both?

Is Brussels Airlines still flying daily to Kinshasa? And would this stay during the winter?

[Boeing767copilot]

Air Canada announce the start-up of a direct service from Montréal to Brussels effective 12 June 2010!!!

[sn26567]

Air Canada announce the start-up of a direct service from Montréal to Brussels effective 12 June 2010!!!

I have just posted the official annoucement: viewtopic.php?p=220442#p220442

[RoMax]

Not yet extra flights of SN to France? If they want to beat Air France and that is what they want to do, they need more flights to France, with good connections to their AFI network. And extra flights to Tel Aviv are welcome to, a lot of airliners operate this airport with big aircrafts, SN need their A330's for AFI but they can fly more times a day to Tel Aviv. But the Israeli goverment alows more flights?

[Air Key West]

True. I's a pitty b.air hasn't understood that they should not only operate a second (earlier) flight to CDG when demand is high, but they should offer it all year round. If you want to attract pax, you need to create demand by offering something, not wait for pax to be on the WL before you offer a service. Some of my colleagues in Paris would like to fly to AFI with b.air but they are not prepared to wait some five hours in transit in BRU to be able to get back to Paris. Actually, it would be faster, when arriving between 5 and 6 o'clock at BRU, to collect baggage, take a train to Brussels Midi/Zuid and then a Thalys to Paris. They would be in Paris-Nord (not CDG) before the 09.40 am flight to CDG takes off from BRU ! But that is too cumbersome. There may be a problem with slots at CDG, but the present 06.45 departure to CDG is, I think, too early. I would rather opt for a +- 7.45 am departure with the flight back in BRU around 10.20 am in time for the flights to AFI leaving after 11 am and offering a better connection to PEK (which we tend to forget because it seems a bit to be a "marginal" operation by HU). A 10.20 am arrival back in BRU would offer better connections for the AFI flights leaving around 11.20-12.00 o'clock. The flight arriving at 8.40 am in BRU makes pax wait sometimes for more than 3 hours for their connections, which is too much if you want to compete with a heavy-weight like AF. Pax and travel agents also look at the total travel time. The 07.45 am flight to CDG could pick up most of the early arrivals from AFI (and if a flight is delayed, probably the pax could be transferred to the 9.40 am flight which is still, I have heard, an interesting connecting flight for 9W to/from CDG).
And there should be a morning flight from NCE (+- NCE 07.00 - 08.50 BRU).

[RoMax]

You are absolutly correct and if there is a problem with the slots in Paris, they can fly to Orly also a major airport for Air France. Sabena fly to Charles de gaulle and Orly in the past so why SN doesn't do this?

[Air Key West]

Yes, but ORY should remain a second option in last resort because the distance between BRU and ORY is longer than BRU CDG. So, it would make operations last longer and they would be more expansive because of longer flights and more fuel consumption. And I also think Star Alliance has (or is going to have) its own satellite terminal at CDG1.

[RoMax]

Yes but I ment Orly also only as a plan if CDG isn't possible. I think that LH will change a lot by SN, the German company's has most of the time wonderfull management and if you look at LH and Swiss this is absolutly correct. So LH nows how they need to "beat" Air France and I am sure they will change a lot by SN before the new winter season starts and they will change more before next sumer season. I trust them.

[airbuske]

As from the 25th of october Brussels Airlines will introduce two daily flights to Milano Linate!
A morning and an afternoon flight.
So now their will be 7 daily flights to Milano?

This will be in cooperation with Lufthansa Italia who will put their code on the flight

[tolipanebas]

LIN is located downtown in Milan, so it is much more convenient than MXP for those heading to the centre of Milan itself; it has been a top-yielding destination for those able to serve it, but has been very difficult to win access to.

Would be interesting to see confirmation on how SN got the pair of slots, although the fact it will code-share with LH (Italia) actually gives it away already: some underused slots from the LH/LX group were probably put to better use by first shifting them to BRU and subsequently give them to SN to be used.

AZ will definitely not like this, as currently they are the only one serving LIN from BRU (trice daily, in codeshare with SN) and its a real money maker to them!

[RoMax]

Again a sign of the entry of SN into *A at the end of this year, because the codeshare with Alitalia need to end and they want to back up this with an own route. Alitalia will lose the codeshare and gone have problems with this route I think.
Is there something nown about the hours of the flights and the used airplane?

[airbuske]

These are the hours:

SN 3147 BRU 09:40 LIN 11:20 123456 SN 3148 LIN 13:20 BRU 14:55 123456
SN 3149 BRU 16:15 LIN 17:55 12345.7 SN 3150 LIN 18:50 BRU 20:25 12345.7