Brussels Airport's potential cooperation with Brussels Airlines

[Inquirer]

To shrink the fleet and number of destinations will make it more attractive for the competition. SN will lose market share. It will be much more difficult to come back and win pax for your airline.

Regular airlines and LCC will fill the gap.

This process will cost SN much more. Aviation is the mirror of how your country is performing. JV is also politics. And see there how weak everything is.

AMS is almost on lock regarding slots but KLM is still growing and making new interesting JV. LHR is so saturated but still airlines are opening new lines.

BRU is like an oase where almost nothing is moving but where are huge possibilities. Lack of ambition and too much focus on everything green

I would add to that the almost revolting obsession of protecting the very high margins by the (foreign)shareholders of the airport.

For all your pointed remarks about how Brussels Airlines's shareholder is reluctant to invest/spend big on them, I'd like to add that it could be in Brussels Airport's long term interest too to help their only home based network client grow by investing in them, albeit indirectly ... notably through slashing their fees... but such will definitely erode their margins, I admit and so it is as difficult to sign off on for them as it is for Lufthansa.

However, expecting others to come up with the cash and do all of the heavy lifting for you, so you can lean back and pocket the extra revenues streaming in from their increased activities without having done any upfront investments is not going to work, i'm afraid. Luftansa can spend its money elsewhere and get a better RoI from it; a BRU without a home based network carrier is just an overly expensive CRL: I would swallow the bitter pill today and offer them much lower fees asap, rather than having to lower them even more and for all, later...

[BrightCedars]

However, expecting others to come up with the cash and do all of the heavy lifting for you, so you can lean back and pocket the extra revenues streaming in from their increased activities without having done any upfront investments is not going to work, i'm afraid. Luftansa can spend its money elsewhere and get a better RoI from it; a BRU without a home based network carrier is just an overly expensive CRL: I would swallow the bitter pill today and offer them much lower fees asap, rather than having to lower them even more and for all, later...

It's not like they can favor SN anyway, home or principal carrier or not. It's against competition rules.

And where they can give some incentives like for jets with lower emissions or opening up new routes, SN is in no position to benefit.

[Stij]

Or... they could reduce the fees a bit for everybody... your largest customer still benefits the most... but that ain't gonna happen...

Cheers;

Stij

[sn26567]

It's not like they can favour SN anyway, home or principal carrier or not. It's against competition rules.

That's easy to circumvent: offer a generous discount for more than 100 flights per day or 500 flights per week, for example. Every airline can benefit, but only one will.

[Poiu]

It's not like they can favour SN anyway, home or principal carrier or not. It's against competition rules.

That's easy to circumvent: offer a generous discount for more than 100 flights per day or 500 flights per week, for example. Every airline can benefit, but only one will.

You have a short memory SN26567, they exactly did this a couple of years ago and the EU stated it was illegal.

Surprising you are, rightfully, condemning subsidies to Alitalia and promoting subsidies to SN at the same time.

[sn26567]

It's not like they can favour SN anyway, home or principal carrier or not. It's against competition rules.

That's easy to circumvent: offer a generous discount for more than 100 flights per day or 500 flights per week, for example. Every airline can benefit, but only one will.

You have a short memory SN26567, they exactly did this a couple of years ago and the EU stated it was illegal.

Surprising you are, rightfully, condemning subsidies to Alitalia and promoting subsidies to SN at the same time.

The circumstances are quite different.

1) There is no subsidy at all here, only a discount (like in a supermarket, when you buy large quantities, you get a discount)

2) The European Commission cancelled indeed a subsidy: the payment of security expenses for airlines having a certain number of flights, with a trick to eliminate Ryanair (year of reference). No such subsidy or trick here. One could even set a number of flights to include TUIfly, or have a different discount for different numbers of flights.

[Atlantis]

It's not like they can favour SN anyway, home or principal carrier or not. It's against competition rules.

That's easy to circumvent: offer a generous discount for more than 100 flights per day or 500 flights per week, for example. Every airline can benefit, but only one will.

Then again you will have airlines who will be against this and saying anyway that it is a hidden subsidy.
For sure you will have Ryanair and Easyjet against you. Look at what happened between AMS and Easyjet a few years ago.

To have a benefit for everybody, bcs all airlines are customers, you can lower the fees which they have to pay. This is legal and common practice. SN can benefit more as they are the home carrier.
Others can also benefit more if they fly with more fuel efficient planes like United, Thai, ANA, Ethiopian, Hainan, etc
On this way you keep everybody satisfied

But like we could read here like BRU has to invest more in SN is not possible bcs LH is the main share holder.

BRU was doing much better work behind the scenes. BRU was absolutely not happy with the fact that LH wanted to bring SN under in this EW story. There was a lot of lobbying in this. Today we still have a full service carrier instead of a LCC

[Inquirer]

But like we could read here like BRU has to invest more in SN is not possible bcs LH is the main share holder.

It's a bit easy to say investment must come from the shareholder; in today's world, we speek about 'stakeholders' and this includes ALL beneficiaries, also those who do not OWN the company but definitly benefit from it: Brussels Airport most certainly is.
I'd go further and say they are even Brussels Airlines main stakeholder, more so than Lufthansa proper, so if I were them, I'd take a far more supportive attitude: not just through cost-free lobbying like you refer to, but also through indirect investments in supporting their operations.
It will invariably be noticed by Lufthansa which will immediately see the impact of any such actions on the ballance sheet of B.air and thus start to act accordingly as they have repeatedly said they are mostly brand neutral and basing their network and fleet decisions purely on the ROI.
It's a bit rich to be complaining about BRU and B.air being stepmotherly treated, when it's by far the most expensive airport of all the Lufthansa group hubs: do something about the price setting of the airport and you might be surprised how quickly certain things could be coming your way, especially those who'd have a natural place here. I'm thinking about certain routes from FRA/MUC/ZRH to places in Africa. If you expect the full driver (i.e. the cost difference) for any such moves to be delived by the airline itself however, you're just being lazy in fact.
I'm not one of those believers who think there's a cultural or personal dislike of Brussels or Belgium by the Germans; IMHO it's entirely because of the poor business case, to which Brussels Airport isn't exactly contributing positively (on top of the poor political backing).
If Brussels Airport truely wants to grow globally, it needs a strong home carrier so it can lure others to tap into their network: it can only do so if it is willing to sacreficy some of its high margins: a profit margin of 20% should have left ample room for that, I'd say...

[Wohowbagger]

This discussion has nothing to do with SN’s fleet. Stay on topic please

[sn26567]

This discussion has nothing to do with SN’s fleet. Stay on topic please

Sorry to have deviated from the topic, but the discussions are related: SN will be able to renew its fleet only if it can show a healthy profit, and BRU can and should help SN make a profit. It's in everybody's interest!

[Wohowbagger]

Ah, I see, you’re talking about the 7 steps to the White House game; where everyone in the world can relate to someone in the White House in 7 steps.

[HQ_BRU_Lover]

This discussion has nothing to do with SN’s fleet. Stay on topic please

Sorry to have deviated from the topic, but the discussions are related: SN will be able to renew its fleet only if it can show a healthy profit, and BRU can and should help SN make a profit. It's in everybody's interest!

Complete nonsense. BRU shouldn’t do anything for SN. It’s up to SN to become healthy/profitable/whatever...

Exactly, at least some people not ignoring the truth. Oh and please don't start to cry we hate SN, we all want the best for Belgian aviation but in a normal way without cheating.

[Inquirer]

This discussion has nothing to do with SN’s fleet. Stay on topic please

Sorry to have deviated from the topic, but the discussions are related: SN will be able to renew its fleet only if it can show a healthy profit, and BRU can and should help SN make a profit. It's in everybody's interest!

Indeed.

Although not directly related, it became relevant the moment some members -who are positively involved with Brussels Airport- started expressing some frustration on the lack of investment by the shareholder of Brussels Airlines as this prevent them to grow and BRU to reap benefits from that growth; I merely pointed out that rather than remain passive in all of this and only complain about the lack of results by your main customer, BRU -as major stakeholder- could actively try to steer the process at their main customer and get some more favourable decisions by its shareholder: it would be in their long term interest too, but indeed: it requires a financial commitment upfront, and whereas it is obviously easy to blame others for not willing to make it, it clearly is far more difficult to commit to something similar oneself.

Mind you: I'm not suggesting BRU should cheat, nor saying they should provide legal subsidies: just saying that they could easily become an active stakeholder iso being a very passive one like they are today, and only then would they be entitled to criticize the shareholder of their main customer for not being more active.

[JOVAN]

But like we could read here like BRU has to invest more in SN is not possible bcs LH is the main share holder.

It's a bit easy to say investment must come from the shareholder; in today's world, we speek about 'stakeholders' and this includes ALL beneficiaries, also those who do not OWN the company but definitly benefit from it: Brussels Airport most certainly is.
I'd go further and say they are even Brussels Airlines main stakeholder, more so than Lufthansa proper, so if I were them, I'd take a far more supportive attitude: not just through cost-free lobbying like you refer to, but also through indirect investments in supporting their operations.
It will invariably be noticed by Lufthansa which will immediately see the impact of any such actions on the ballance sheet of B.air and thus start to act accordingly as they have repeatedly said they are mostly brand neutral and basing their network and fleet decisions purely on the ROI.
It's a bit rich to be complaining about BRU and B.air being stepmotherly treated, when it's by far the most expensive airport of all the Lufthansa group hubs: do something about the price setting of the airport and you might be surprised how quickly certain things could be coming your way, especially those who'd have a natural place here. I'm thinking about certain routes from FRA/MUC/ZRH to places in Africa. If you expect the full driver (i.e. the cost difference) for any such moves to be delived by the airline itself however, you're just being lazy in fact.
I'm not one of those believers who think there's a cultural or personal dislike of Brussels or Belgium by the Germans; IMHO it's entirely because of the poor business case, to which Brussels Airport isn't exactly contributing positively (on top of the poor political backing).
If Brussels Airport truely wants to grow globally, it needs a strong home carrier so it can lure others to tap into their network: it can only do so if it is willing to sacreficy some of its high margins: a profit margin of 20% should have left ample room for that, I'd say...

BRU is led by an auditor.
These people generally are purely financial oriented and commercially incompetent.
everything for the Shareholder,....and for their bonus.
They certainly do not think long term. And customers are a necessary evil.

Mr. Faust is a 100% Auditor.
And his mandate is extended for another 6 years.....

Impossible to compete with commercial airports.
Even CRL grows and will grow faster than BRU. Wait and see when CRL runway-extension will be ready.

[Atlantis]

But like we could read here like BRU has to invest more in SN is not possible bcs LH is the main share holder.

It's a bit easy to say investment must come from the shareholder; in today's world, we speek about 'stakeholders' and this includes ALL beneficiaries, also those who do not OWN the company but definitly benefit from it: Brussels Airport most certainly is.
I'd go further and say they are even Brussels Airlines main stakeholder, more so than Lufthansa proper, so if I were them, I'd take a far more supportive attitude: not just through cost-free lobbying like you refer to, but also through indirect investments in supporting their operations.
It will invariably be noticed by Lufthansa which will immediately see the impact of any such actions on the ballance sheet of B.air and thus start to act accordingly as they have repeatedly said they are mostly brand neutral and basing their network and fleet decisions purely on the ROI.
It's a bit rich to be complaining about BRU and B.air being stepmotherly treated, when it's by far the most expensive airport of all the Lufthansa group hubs: do something about the price setting of the airport and you might be surprised how quickly certain things could be coming your way, especially those who'd have a natural place here. I'm thinking about certain routes from FRA/MUC/ZRH to places in Africa. If you expect the full driver (i.e. the cost difference) for any such moves to be delived by the airline itself however, you're just being lazy in fact.
I'm not one of those believers who think there's a cultural or personal dislike of Brussels or Belgium by the Germans; IMHO it's entirely because of the poor business case, to which Brussels Airport isn't exactly contributing positively (on top of the poor political backing).
If Brussels Airport truely wants to grow globally, it needs a strong home carrier so it can lure others to tap into their network: it can only do so if it is willing to sacreficy some of its high margins: a profit margin of 20% should have left ample room for that, I'd say...

BRU is led by an auditor.
These people generally are purely financial oriented and commercially incompetent.
everything for the Shareholder,....and for their bonus.
They certainly do not think long term. And customers are a necessary evil.

Mr. Faust is a 100% Auditor.
And his mandate is extended for another 6 years.....

Impossible to compete with commercial airports.
Even CRL grows and will grow faster than BRU. Wait and see when CRL runway-extension will be ready.

Off topic but most of the people also forget that the shareholder of BRU also invested already more then 1 billion euro in BRU. And the investments for the future are already approved.

So it is very short mind thinking that shareholders don't mind about pax or that customers are a necessary evil. Let me remind you that without pax, airlines and companies at the airport there would be no shareholder. The shareholder and the whole community are doing everything they can to please the client. But to be perfect is not excisting. Not at BRU, AMS, BER, FRA and many others

[Bel33]

Don't forget that in a ranking, BRU is considered as one of the most friendly airport in his category ...

[sn26567]

This discussion has nothing to do with SN’s fleet. Stay on topic please

Sorry to have deviated from the topic, but the discussions are related: SN will be able to renew its fleet only if it can show a healthy profit, and BRU can and should help SN make a profit. It's in everybody's interest!

Complete nonsense. BRU shouldn’t do anything for SN. It’s up to SN to become healthy/profitable/whatever...

No nonsense at all. Look at our northern neighbour: KLM and AMS are working hand in hand, even to the point that competitors are complaining that KLM is favoured by Royal Schiphol. But to no avail: apparently everything is done according to the rules, and both KLM and AMS are thriving.

[Inquirer]

Off topic but most of the people also forget that the shareholder of BRU also invested already more then 1 billion euro in BRU. And the investments for the future are already approved.

I didn't forget, but the fact remains BRU is solely investing in itself really: it's investing in hard infrastructure which it keeps full ownership and thus total control of. Nothing wrong with that, but it gives away the kind of old school thinking and it perfectly matches your previous comments in which you show you very much think financial commitments -whether it's in an airline or other- need to be made ONLY by shareholders, whereas stakeholders are only supposed to provide some non-financial support, even if they'd be the first to benefit from a massive financial commitment by the shareholder, often faster and more so than that shareholder himself even!

As I've tried to explain, a more modern way to look at businesses so interwoven as airports and (hub/home bases) airlines is to have them work far more closely together to the point that fiancial commitments are ideally mutually taken up to the benefit of both: that is something largely missing in BRU and it's (one of) the reasons why things are not moving as fast as they do at other places. If Brussels wants to become a true hub within the Lufthansa universe (and be on a par with at least VIE for instance), it will have to start to behave differently: it can not keep charging what it charges now per passenger, nor actively undercut the regional network of home based airlines by attracting new airlines on existing routes. BRU will have to make a choice: it currently bets on 2 horses and the horse's owner sees this too you know, so he's not putting his best jockey in the race at BRU. Complaining about their horse never going all the way is thus a bit rich if you understand the context.

[Jetter]

I’m very sorry, but if you really compare KLM/AMS with SN/BRU, I think it’s pretty obvious that you refuse to accept what aviation really is in Belgium.

Nonsense doesn’t mean you cannot dream, but reality is something else.

Indeed, looking at ownership says it all. AMS is owned by the Dutch government and BRU by Canadian teachers. Only logical that BRU is more concerned about profits, why would Canadian teachers care about SN or the other aspects?

[sn26567]

Brussels Airport is also partly owned by the Belgian government, but who cares?

Just for information:

Royal Schiphol Group has four owners: the State of the Netherlands (69.77%), Amsterdam (20.03%), Rotterdam (2.20%) and Groupe ADP (8.0%; the company also operates several Parisian airports).

Brussels Airport has been owned by the Toronto-based Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (39%), Macquarie Group (Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund I and Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund III) (36%) and the Belgian State (25%).