Passenger wrote: ↑26 Mar 2022, 12:57
The timetable for South Africa (JNB Johannesburg and CPT Cape Town) is not encouraging for the travel trade. It’s only excellent for one group: senior (retired) citizens.
- only 2 outgoing travel days (Wed and Sun), only 3 return days (Mon, Tue, Thu).
- without codesharing, business travellers won’t book. If they miss their flight or if they want to amend their stay, ABB cannot help them.
- tourists can’t enjoy a two-weeks-holiday with two weeks off at work: there are no flights for that. Optimal use of time at location prevails to comfort of the flight schedule.
- preferential departure day for tourists is Saturday. Not possible. Preferential return days for tourists: Friday and Saturday. Not possible.
- a return flight from CPT at 15h (CPT-JNB-BRU on Thursday) means a lost day in that beautiful city (example: KLM CPT-AMS departs only at midnight, leaving a full day for leisure). Only the Tuesday return at 19h (CPT-BRU) is good.
Read on Le Soir
And we are also developing interline agreements with other airlines to develop our network or feed it, we are in the process of finalizing a dozen agreements with various airlines, particularly Scandinavian ones.
There will be other destinations to Africa, but there we cannot go into the details yet. We can only say that it will not be in direct competition with Brussels Airlines, we have no interest in it.
We will serve Cape Town and Johannesburg and there are agreements that are under discussion to offer additional destinations, not only domestic, but also regional, in South Africa but also in the southern part of Africa.
Full article
Air Belgium, saved by cargo, revives the passenger sector
New planes, new shareholders, new destinations, Niky Terzakis is particularly targeting South Africa.
The Belgian airline is coming out of the pandemic totally different. The company no longer only operates passenger flights departing from Charleroi but also from Brussels, it has extended its destinations in the Caribbean, developed a cargo flight activity, welcomed a new Chinese minority shareholder, completely renewed its fleet... And soon she will be flying to South Africa. A first direct flight since… the bankruptcy of Sabena. Niky Terzakis, its CEO, details the new life of his company.
At the end of February, the Hongyuan group took a 49% stake in Air Belgium through a capital increase, all the other non-European shareholders left the shareholding, the European shareholders (Editor's note: SRIW, Sogepa, SFPI, 3T Management and Sabena Aerospace ) remain the same with a 51% majority. Hongyuan is far from unknown in Belgium. The group already has a 14,000 m2 warehouse near Liège airport and another of 10,000 m2 directly at Brussels airport.
With them come new planes, two Boeing 747-8Fs, that is to say the largest of the 747s. In a few days, we will put the first into service. There will also be Airbus A330 freighters which will arrive in June, September and a third by the end of the year. This means that at the end of September, we will be operating eleven aircraft and our staff will increase from 450 people today to more than 500.
The shipping company CMA-CGM, for whom we have launched an air cargo activity and whom we have helped to develop its strategy in the field, has decided to refocus its activities on Paris Charles-de-Gaulle. We no longer renew our relations with them because, I repeat, our DNA is to develop activities in Belgium.
For passenger flights, this summer there will be no changes, we continue to serve Punta Cana, Mauritius, the French West Indies and Curaçao.
On the other hand, for the winter, or the fall, we are adding another destination in the Caribbean, Bonaire, which will be coupled with the service to Curaçao, while Punta Cana becomes a direct round trip.
And then, from September, we start selling South Africa, Johannesburg and Cape Town.
And we are also developing interline agreements with other airlines to develop our network or feed it, we are in the process of finalizing a dozen agreements with various airlines, particularly Scandinavian ones.
There will be other destinations to Africa, but there we cannot go into the details yet. We can only say that it will not be in direct competition with Brussels Airlines, we have no interest in it.
We will serve Cape Town and Johannesburg and there are agreements that are under discussion to offer additional destinations, not only domestic, but also regional, in South Africa but also in the southern part of Africa.
Since February, we have seen incredible growth in sales, bookings and so on. I'm not saying it's going to be rosy but we remain quite optimistic. Like the other companies, we are seeing a comeback. We are breaking sales and reservation records every week and, above all, we are seeing fewer and fewer cancellations, that is a real change.
We expect to be profitable from 2023 in passengers and cargo. In 2021, we more or less reached a balance but the end of the year ruined everything and 2021 will not be good. Fortunately, we had the cargo business to counterbalance the situation. But for the rest, you have to be careful. Rising fuel prices are another thing.
Finally, if we look at your various upcoming projects, will Brussels become your main base?
No, we have development plans for Charleroi too. For example, our new Airbus A330 neo aircraft will start operating from April 1 on departure from Charleroi, which is good news for Charleroi Airport, which is seeing the arrival of an environmentally more efficient aircraft and which will make full use of the new runway.
This type of plane, with a long range, will also play a role in your plan to go to the United States.
It's no secret that this has been part of our plans for a long time and that they are on the horizon for 2023. I will not say for which destination, but if we have A330 neo, it is not to fly to the next door.
https://www.lesoir.be/431446/article/20 ... up-voyager
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