brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

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teddybAIR
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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by teddybAIR »

I know Sean, but it doesn't really matter, does it? Ryanair is best at what it does. Brussels Airlines is slowly recovering from it's heritage in 2001. Both business models are not comparable. I honestly don't understand the urge for some members here to keep on comparing both in what I can only describe as a multi-year pissing contest (I think my last post was about a year ago. I returned today to luchtzak and notice that the same discussions are still going on).
Personally, I would be happy seeing both the LCC model and the hybrid model succeed, because it would mean that aviation as a whole is growing.

On topic: I'm wondering how the lower yield at SN will erode the incremental revenues from increased passenger numbers. About a year ago SN presented it's unbundling strategy to further segment the Belgian market, but so far it has been quiet on how this segmentation is actually performing financially for SN.

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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by teddybAIR »

airbuske wrote:
Stij wrote:Loadfactor BRU TSF last wednesday: according to gate agent: a little over 50%... Last friday VRN BRu 100%...
Today :

FR 2933 ALC 0625 LF 85 %
FR 2985 VLC 0630 LF 79 %
FR 2935 TSF 0645 LF 49 %
FR 2925 LIS 0655 LF 87 %
FR 2917 BCN 0900 LF 78 %
FR 7010 FCO 1015 LF 82 %
FR 1453 DUB 1030 LF 75 %
FR 2921 BCN 1235 LF 72 %
FR 2915 PMI 1255 LF 87 %
FR 2923 AGP 1350 LF 94 %
FR 2928 OPO 1350 LF 85 %
FR 2983 FCO 1615 LF 56 %
FR 2938 BCN 1800 LF 62 %
Those seem pretty good figures for an october tuesday if you ask me!

Stij
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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by Stij »

sean1982 wrote:On many booking websites, when choosing BRU (all airports in Brussels area), you get flights both from BRU and CRL. Ebookers for example
On Lufthansa they offer Liège as well...

If we play the game correct, we should compare or an individual airport, or all Belgian airports... all the other comparisons aren't correct (ANR is closer to brussels then CRL, why not include them?)

But for the infamous FR SN marketshare discussion, it doesn't matter anyway.

Cheers,

Stij

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sn26567
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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by sn26567 »

Stij wrote:If we play the game correct, we should compare or an individual airport, or all Belgian airports... all the other comparisons aren't correct (ANR is closer to brussels then CRL, why not include them?)
BRU and CRL being by far the two largest Belgian airports, adding LGG, OST and ANT wouldn't change significantly the respective market shares, except perhaps for JAF.
André
ex Sabena #26567

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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by Passenger »

sean1982 wrote:
teddybAIR wrote:So if I call Oostende 'Brussels West', the 'brussels system' marketshare of Jetaifly goes up, is that how it works? While we're at it, let's call Liege Brussels East and Antwerp Brussels North, shall we?

There's a significant difference between our regional and national airports in the sense that the national airport is the only one where the traveler is offered with connections. Moreover, those connections are a very big deal of traffic at EBBR. Aggregating traffic of 2 or more airports ad random doesn't learn us anything valuable, unless you do it based on something you actually want to measure, like Belgian market share. Even that is not that simple as some airfields in northern France or Southern Netherlands would also come into play.
On many booking websites, when choosing BRU (all airports in Brussels area), you get flights both from BRU and CRL. Ebookers for example
Antwerp Airport is closer to Brussels Airport then Charleroi Airport is. So apart from Ostend (Brussels West Ostend Airport), we also should calculate Jetairfly's number of passengers at Brussels North Antwerp Airport to calculate Jetairfly's market share at Brussels then.

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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by sean1982 »

Even when you add LGG, ANR and OST together, there market share in the passenger segment is marginal vs CRL and BRU individually. Saying that the activity in CRL doesnt have impact on BRU is ridiculous

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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by airazurxtror »

Zaventem and Gosselies obviously make an entity - many Brusselaars fly from both of them, but not or very rarely from Liège, Antwerp or Ostend.
IF IT AIN'T BOEING, I'M NOT GOING.

Stij
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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by Stij »

There s a world outside Brussels as well that thinks out if the box and flies from... Say... Liege! ;-)

Seriously, as I wrote above, it s irrelevant for the SN FR market share soap series, but either you compare an airport or a (small) country, you don t cherry pick... My opinion...

Cheers,

Stij

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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by sean1982 »

No-one on this forum does. Capa does

teddybAIR
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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by teddybAIR »

sean1982 wrote: Saying that the activity in CRL doesnt have impact on BRU is ridiculous
You're right. I'm not saying it does not have impact. On the other hand, we cannot be blind for the fact that Ryanair simply grows the cake when it enters a market. It's not a zero-sum game where the cake is a given and the market shares simply shift between airlines. BRU is actually a very relevant example. Ryanair has proven to be succesfull in on very short notice, but we also see that they simply grew the pie: more pax are flying from BRU, CRL or any other base compared to the traffic figures before RYR entered the market.

The irony is that the arrival of RYR at BRU might even be one of the key success factors for SN. Granted: the downside of the increased pax figures for SN is the lower yield but the trick for airlines with high pax figures and low yields is to maximize ancillary revenues and thereby compensate for lower yields. That is according to me the real challenge: let RYR focus on it's business model and don't be tempted to simply compare the amount of carried passengers. Ultimately, what counts is your P&L statement. SN is on the right track there, but we have to admit that a number of environmental factors are extremely favourable today (eg: fuel prices) and they will not remain so favourable eternally.

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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by sean1982 »

I totally agree, thats what I have been saying for a few months now. In order for SN to make these lower fares work for them, they are going to have to increase their ancillary revenues, which in my opinion is quite risky for them given their old customer base.

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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by Inquirer »

Just to remind us all once more of the topic's title: we' re discussing market share(s) here, NOT the financial performance: there is a separate topic for that too, which is equally interesting.

As to the justified comments and remarks about the methodology used here, I think everybody has a point.
There's certainly a meaningful degree of cross commerce between BRU and CRL to the point some sort of adding up can be done, but they are not exactly part of 'a city airport system' like CAPA pretends either. Such systems certainly do exist at places where several airports serve only the same isolated catchment areas, but here its a bit hard to argue CRL and BRU share exactly the same overlapping catchment area.
One could easily solve this issue by looking not just at the do called 'Brussels airport system' like they did now, but rather enlarge the scope a little bit to the Belgian one: adding OST, ANT and LGG will not really change the overall picture, but it will then relate to something meaningful, although a look at it purely from a country perspective is somehow artificial too. I think the problem is our region is just too small and densely populated to start segmenting it further: It's either just one airport, or the whole regio; anything in between is rather artificial and hard to statistically defend.

Finally a small question for airbuske:
Where did you get those detailed load figures from, if I may ask?
They show an interesting picture, not exactly falling in line with the often read grandtalk of "all our planes are always nearly full" from ryanair. This small sample shows an average load factor of just 3/4th that day.
Definitely not bad, far from any such, but definitely nothing really exceptional either that day.
In view of the discussions about ryanair's market share at BRU in which "seats offered" are fairly easily assimilated to "number of passengers" by many members around here, it could be interesting to help us get a better idea of their real average loadfactors from BRU alone, keeping in mind there may be good reasons to start assuming those may be significantly lower than the very high almost charter-a-like loadfactors they enjoy at their traditional bases due to the nature of their operations there.

brusselsairlinesfan
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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by brusselsairlinesfan »

Just to compare, what was SABENA s market share @ BRU in 2000/2001 ?

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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by teddybAIR »

Hi Brusselsairlinesfan,

I don't know what the Sabena marketshare was back then, but it is likely to have been significantly higher simply looking at the fleet and the fact that they carried over 10 million passengers a year through BRU. But I can't help but asking myself "what does it matter?". The market share was indeed higher, but apparently the business model was not viable. What's the point of having an 80% market share in any market if you are not able to translate that business into a profit.

I'm convinced we are all to addicted to figures such as passenger numbers, market shares, amount of city pairs served. We convinced ourselves that those are the KPI's that matter. Reality is that they are just a means to an end in an economic reality where a business is expected to turn a profit.

Brussels Airlines market share is low, granted. But they have been flirting with break-even for quite some time now. Is that good enough? Absolutely not when you look at it without an historic perspective. But if you realistically look at what has happened the past decades and you understand that brussels airlines carries a great heritage from sabena, then it is indeed quite an achievement to turn break-even.

My priority in today's situation would be to turn the current business profitable. Not focussing on growth for a while, but simply on getting the financials right. As a matter of fact, I'm convinced that is exactly what BA management is trying to do in a very difficult environment.

Looking forward to what the coming years will bring for SN/BRU.

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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by brusselsairlinesfan »

Does anyone know the current SN market share @ BRU ?

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Re: brussels airlines (SN) market share @ Brussels airport (BRU)

Post by sn26567 »

brusselsairlinesfan wrote: 01 Jul 2022, 08:07 Does anyone know the current SN market share @ BRU ?
Yesterday I heard Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport, say that SN is operating 1 out of every 3 flights in Brussels.
André
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