Brussels Airlines in 2024

[oldblueeyes]

Reliance on wet leases as a strategy concerns me not a little. This is not a strategy shared by the other (so-called) full-service carriers Brussels wants to compete with, and for a reason: pretty hard to maintain consistent hard/soft product standards. If wet leases are not strategically deployed, this could cost them frequent fliers.

Mmmh, most of « full service carriers » go for wet leases. SAS long term agreement with CityJet. Lufthansa uses them as well this summer.

Swiss wet leases Air Baltic aircraft, and quite a lot of them.

Air France signed an agreement for wet lease with ASL and Amelia. As they did last year with DAT.

British Airways will also use multiple operators on some of their services.

And the list goes on and on, probably.

Most of the wet leases agreements you are mentioning are caused by engine issues (mostly on the A220/E2/320-321NEO), late delivery of new aircraft & so on. Basically those wet leases are to cover the planned scheduled of those main carriers. Not to create extra capacity, unlike SN.

On the other hand, Eurowings - the brand you all don't like but which is closer to the short haul reality of SN than many would like to accept, has over 20 planes leased for the summer schedule.

Let's see things pragmatically - the business model fo the airline follows the customer demand. You can catch up some seasonality via maintenance, but not if peaks/lows are extreme.
Thus, there are two options :
- you design your own business model so that you have part time employees working mainly in the summer season or adjust the working schedules towards peaks in the summer season
- or you rent extra capacity from 3rd party which is able to place it's planes globally somewhere else in winter or simply puts them into storage

Whatever brings you better economics and less union troubles wins.

And there are of course permanent wet leases at the lower end of the market where you don't want to serve a certain segment - Swiss is using since ages Helvetic for 100 seaters.

[Lux_avi]

Let's see things pragmatically - the business model fo the airline follows the customer demand. You can catch up some seasonality via maintenance, but not if peaks/lows are extreme.
Thus, there are two options :
- you design your own business model so that you have part time employees working mainly in the summer season or adjust the working schedules towards peaks in the summer season
- or you rent extra capacity from 3rd party which is able to place it's planes globally somewhere else in winter or simply puts them into storage

Whatever brings you better economics and less union troubles wins.

It's much more complex than this.

Part-time employees are still fixed employees with fixed costs. You're not saving anything with this, on the contrary...

Extra capacity from 3rd party carriers is expensive (especially nowadays), more expensive than operating the flight with your own airline. The win comes only from the fact that you get rid of that extra capacity when you don't need it. The question is then; how reliable are wet-lease airlines? Luxair got rid of German airways, TUI is starting up its own third party carrier Fly4 together with EnterAir, there are endless stories with poor quality third party carriers in the EU.

[oldblueeyes]

On the other hand you have large airlines veing created in the past 3-4 years...

[Homo Aeroportus]

I thought that the service to JFK was daily but there is no SN501 planned today.
Too bad because the flights to the US usually provide the reserve aircraft as these flights are cancelled when needed to support the ops to Africa.

In the absence of a disposable SN501 today and no other a/c available, SN319 to ABJ and ACC had to be cancelled.

Tomorrow 15MAY is back to normal ; SN501 is cancelled as Xray is in bed since last Friday.


H.A.

[lumumba]

I have just had confirmation that Luanda is downgraded from 3 flights to 1 flight except in the summer when there will be 2 flights per week.

[rwandan-flyer]

Here is an overview of United's loads (all winter Atlantic routes included) on Dec23 and Jan24. 2 busy periods which follow a period of low demand (November) or which before a period of low demand (February).

Obviously, you will need to have the yield. Oh wait Brussels was ahead London, Paris and Amsterdam (Ok it's only on 2 months). Can you imagine with the new UA SN parterneship

On each market see there we are in competitive markets where there are several airlines offer non-stop flights to the USA and others via their hubs.

No one would have thought that Amman and Lagos are in the top 3 and Amsterdam, London or Paris so low

https://crankyflier-com.translate.goog/ ... r_pto=wapp

[theeuropean]

I don’t have a subscription but does anyone have access to this article by any chance and what does it say? Or is it the usual United/Air Canada/Brussels Airlines hub that was mentioned a few weeks ago?

https://www.ch-aviation.com/news/138636 ... can-growth

[theflyingonion]

Here is an overview of United's loads (all winter Atlantic routes included) on Dec23 and Jan24. 2 busy periods which follow a period of low demand (November) or which before a period of low demand (February).

Obviously, you will need to have the yield. Oh wait Brussels was ahead London, Paris and Amsterdam (Ok it's only on 2 months). Can you imagine with the new UA SN parterneship

On each market see there we are in competitive markets where there are several airlines offer non-stop flights to the USA and others via their hubs.

No one would have thought that Amman and Lagos are in the top 3 and Amsterdam, London or Paris so low

https://crankyflier-com.translate.goog/ ... r_pto=wapp

I don't know why UA doesn't shift some of it's AMS operations to BRU. Given these numbers, they must be losing money there. IAH, or LAX, or SFO (or all 3)... why not....

[longwings]

I don't know why UA doesn't shift some of it's AMS operations to BRU. Given these numbers, they must be losing money there. IAH, or LAX, or SFO (or all 3)... why not....

As the OP pointed out, load factor does not equate to yield. If the front of the AMS flights are full of fare-paying passengers, the flights will be very profitable even if the back is half empty...

[rwandan-flyer]

Ok it's not a new route Boston, Los Angeles or Bangkok or an order of 5 brand new A321LRs.

This is the only airline to do this in Rwanda (if i m right)


Today our ED @sandbergrwanda attended @FlyingBrussels official reopening of their City Check-in, following approval from the Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority. The event was held during the visit of their CEO, Ms. Dorothea Von Boxberg at Hotel Des Mille Collines. @BelgiumRwanda

https://x.com/EBC_Rwanda/status/1791760392454041957

2nd visit in less 2 years of a Brussels Airlines CEO in Rwanda https://www.ktpress.rw/2022/11/kagame-r ... rd-member/

[Homo Aeroportus]

Today May 24th is the Aviation Maintenance Technician Day.

SN has posted this video on LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brussels ... er_desktop

The post contains an invitation to visit the SN Jobs web page : https://brusselsairlines.cvw.io/?lang=e ... 9b303d3acf


Thank you Flying Spanners and all others who work hard to keep SN flying.

H.A.

[Darjeeling]

Some "food for thought" , This trend is becoming increasingly common among Belgian Francophone customers. Feedback is reaching travel agencies, including in the African market...

[fcw]

Some "food for thought" , This trend is becoming increasingly common among Belgian Francophone customers. Feedback is reaching travel agencies, including in the African market...

The article fails to point out the real problem: language skills of Francophone candidates for the position of cabin crew are problematic!

[Lux_avi]

Some "food for thought" , This trend is becoming increasingly common among Belgian Francophone customers. Feedback is reaching travel agencies, including in the African market...

The article fails to point out the real problem: language skills of Francophone candidates for the position of cabin crew are problematic!

How is the French level of the Flemish candidates?

[TimTam]

A colleague of mine flew SN in C class à few days ago MAD BRU. Catering was bad. Service a disaster. Apparently, the very young purser could not speak Dutch. Is the latter possible ?

[fcw]

The article fails to point out the real problem: language skills of Francophone candidates for the position of cabin crew are problematic!

How is the French level of the Flemish candidates?

Getting worse and worse, if you pay peanuts….
It isn’t solely the level of French/Dutch, it’s also the level of English which is worse amongst Francophone candidates.

[crew1990]

Some "food for thought" , This trend is becoming increasingly common among Belgian Francophone customers. Feedback is reaching travel agencies, including in the African market...

The article fails to point out the real problem: language skills of Francophone candidates for the position of cabin crew are problematic!

what is dramatic, is that a Francophone at Brussels Airlines can speak dutch but not the other way around. This is what we call discrimination

[luchtzak]

Aviation24.be decided to refrain from comments given the sensitive feeling of language, especially in this country. Please also refrain from A vs B stories and vv. There is no such need for allegations and attacks. The more important item about the article is the management of Lufthansa.

[fcw]

Aviation24.be decided to refrain from comments given the sensitive feeling of language, especially in this country. Please also refrain from A vs B stories and vv. There is no such need for allegations and attacks. The more important item about the article is the management of Lufthansa.

The article is making it A vs B, but it’s not A vs B, it’s A and B!
Language skills are decreasing on both sides, finding trilingual people, willing to work for a Brussels Airlines salary is impossible.
Even suitable bilingual candidates are scarce, so it’s not A vs B, it’s whatever you can find A or B and there’s a lot more As than Bs on the market.
As for the bashing of Lufthansa, it suffices to look at the results. They were catastrophic when SN was a stand alone and, although far from brilliant, are significantly better now that Luftie decides the strategy.

[Boavida]

I don't think the Flemish have any lessons to receive when it comes to language skills.

Some facts: today in Walloon schools, Dutch is not even mandatory and most students choose English as second language (and don't bother to learn Dutch), while in Flanders, French is mandatory as second language for every single student. Reminder: we're 2024, almost 200(!) years after the creation of Belgium and Dutch is still not respected or treated as equal by a large amount of francophones.

So don't be surprised if 'national' companies don't find enough bilingual francophones, it's the direct result of their own actions and behavior.