Brussels Airlines' third US destination

[tolipanebas]

The opportunity is opening up as LH downgraded their DEN route from daily to twice weekly B744. This is normal as they are reducing many TATL routes, including JFK as part of the restructuring.

Where do you get that idea from? Not from Airliners.net again, by any chance?
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forum ... 78/#menu27

FWIW - The guy who spread this rumour simply misread the online timetable: DEN stays very much daily and almost all other capacity reductions he thought to have discovered on LH's TATL services, are wrong too...

I've told you before: you often base your ideas on wrong assumptions which you just happen to find online, without ever cross checking them... better try to get hold of factual data first.

For the record: Lufthansa are not "reducing many TATL routes" like you seem to be convinced of based on wrong information, they just happen to cut in their multiple daily FRA-NY route in agreement with the EU in order to let the all important joint venture with UA get final approval from BRU...

BTW- It's exactly this transatlantic JV which you completely fail to take into account in your route proposal, because whatever small advantages DEN might (not) have over any other STAR hub in North America, it is key for a connecting route to make those premium advantages available to as much passengers as possible by having the Euro carrier offering the most connections operate on the route and that carrier definitely is Lufthansa (FRA) by far...
If after that, according to A++ the route ever needs more capacity - which BTW doesn't seem to be the case right now, so clearly DEN isn't such a brilliant place to go to after all then, as you were even convinced LH dropped it to just twice weekly- I can pretty much already earmark which A++ carrier will be next to add DEN to its US network and let me tell you it won't be SN, for sure: think about LX rather....

[SN1203]

I've told you before: you often base your ideas on wrong assumptions which you just happen to find online, without ever cross checking them... better try to get hold of factual data first.

You can also add that - even with the slightest clue on route economics - you just know that a direct BRU-DEN flight could never be operated in an economical (read: profitable) way out of Brussels.

[tolipanebas]

So the consensus here is that the next US destination will be EWR

FWIW-

Two separate discussions got tangled up here:
- the plan to add a 3rd US destination
- SN's reaction to 9W moving their cissor hub.

Depending the ambitions, the 2 needn't automatically be one and the same move, however.

[Av24.be]

Let's start a poll!!

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=50534

[Flanker2]

You are right indeed Tolipanebas, I checked it out and it seems like it was a rumour. I didn't get it from airliners, it was a friend of mine who told me. I guess that that is where he read it.
Apologies for the confusion.

Anyway, the rest of the argument stands and DEN has great yield potential.

I think that the 3rd will be ORD though.

[convair]

Two separate discussions got tangled up here:
- the plan to add a 3rd US destination
- SN's reaction to 9W moving their cissor hub.

Depending the ambitions, the 2 needn't automatically be one and the same move, however.

Maybe not, but if the 9W move is confirmed, it will make the EWR case even stronger I guess.

BTW, does anyone know how the IAD bookings are doing?

[Vinnie-Winnie]

Anyway, the rest of the argument stands and DEN has great yield potential.

I think that the 3rd will be ORD though.

Avance Consulting
DEN has no great yield potential. As told by Tolipanebas there just no way SN could make it successful. Your arguments about high yields is baseless, your comfortable connection arguments are poor (if I really want to go to Denver and hate the hassle of connecting through the US, I have a BA, Icelandair or a LH flight, and your assumptions on the market are pretty weak)

If there had to be one destination on the west coast, it would be SFO in partnership with LH, UA and Swiss. it would fit right into Star alliance in a complementary fashion to existing services from the EU to SFO...

[b720]

I think that there will be 2 factors that will determine the choice of the 3rd destination:
1. demand BRU- to that specific destination
2. Potential connections to AFRICA to and from that destination through BRU

if those two factors are not strong, service will not be launched.

[Conti764]

On a.net I've read that one of the main reasons of DL holding on to its BRU-JFK flight, is them having some nice juicy corporate contracts.

If SN would set up a second daily flight to JFK, with roughly the same business friendly hours like IAD, might they lure away some of those contracts from DL maybe resulting in DL dropping BRU-JFK in the longer run?

[Conti764]

We're going around in circles on this.

See this topic: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=49424&start=20#p273389

In short: Any UA hub would probably make some sort of sense, but I'd go from top to bottom then, not the other way round; there's really nothing served through DEN that can't also be reached via bigger STAR hubs like ORD, IAD etc, so it's not such a smart move to pick the hub with the lowest O&D traffic of all.
The route would have to focus almost entirely on connecting pax, but don't forget transatlantic flights are not just SN, LH or UA, but are all coordinated through A++, so unless there's extra capacity needed from DEN to Europe, there's no solid case for a DEN - BRU and beyond, as it would effectively just compete with the existing A++ flight to FRA over the very same bunch of connecting pax.
None of the partners is rightfully ever going to sign off on such an insane business plan because it's a self destructive one when taking the bigger picture in mind. Remember SN is no stand alone airline, so whatever they do must make sense to their A++ partners too and a DEN-BRU just makes no sense to any of them.

OK, I can agree with you... However, one of the reasons why it might work in my very humble opinion is the fact that you'd rather spend more hours in SN's great long haul product then in UA's less attractive domestic product.

In 'my' case you'd also funnel all possible BRU bound traffic of some of the more important West-US airports through DEN. I can't imagine any of those airports mentioned in the above map could warrant a direct connection with BRU and most of those destionations would require two transfers: FRA and DEN or SFO with the latter having some backtracking too.

[convair]

Maybe these corporate customers would be as happy with an evening flight to EWR.

Btw, it would be interesting to know if it will be a third "US destination" or "US flight". Third "destination" could mean not JFK and maybe even not EWR (=NYC destination).

[Conti764]

If there had to be one destination on the west coast, it would be SFO in partnership with LH, UA and Swiss. it would fit right into Star alliance in a complementary fashion to existing services from the EU to SFO...

A daily flight to SFO would require 2 long haul planes to fly it comfortably.

But maybe the West Coast is just a no-go area for SN...

[Stij]

Couldn;t you combine it with the JFK rotation?

BRU - JFK - BRU - SFO - BRU

Cheers,

Stij

[RoMax]

Couldn;t you combine it with the JFK rotation?

BRU - JFK - BRU - SFO - BRU

Cheers,

Stij

Or simply with a short African rotation? Didn't Sabena operate certain flights like that?

[convair]

SFO could be easily combined with any of the current West AFI coast flights.

[cnc]

any reason why you people prefere SFO over LAX?

[b-west]

I think SFO is a larger UA hub than LAX?

[cnc]

depends on what your criteria are, i'd call LAX the larger one

[RoMax]

I believe LAX is bigger in OD traffic, but SFO has a higher percentage of high yield traffic (from Belgium) and I believe it's the prefered transfer hub in case of Star Alliance.

But as you see, a lot of "I believe", so maybe someone with more exact knowledge about SFO/LAX should react

[cnc]

perhaps something to consider, both SFO and LAX are also server by LH (from MUC and FRA) and LX + UA does FRA out of SFO so the bigger O&D market has the best chance in needing more seats/flights. i can't see much destinations out of either of them for connecting pax, asia is best served going east out of BRU and you'll lose less time for most USA destinations connecting via the hubs in the east (ORD, EWR, IAD)