Air Belgium: a rebirth?

[Boeing767copilot]

From the CEO: Part of @airbelgium_off Team is currently on a 3 day hiring mission in Hong Kong. They are looking for up to 100 Cabin Attendants to complement our Belgian based flying staff

[SLM]

Great news!

[TLspotting]

Any news ?
Because the article about the 10 weeks left before the delivery of the aircraft looks like outdated...
If you count well, we're already at the 12 or 13th week after the article and still no AB...

[Bralo20]

News or not so news :

After seeing the picture above with the wrong Belgian flag AGAIN (sorry it just annoys the hell out of me ) I jumped over to Twitter and and said that I hoped it would be rectified now:

Hello Sir, we never intended to use the fuselage as a flag representation. The BE flag is next to the aircraft reg. The design scheme balances on either side of the fuselage (unlike AF scheme) The livery is fixed but thank you for your input.

Guess it's just a coincidence that the livery resembles our national flag flying against the wind instead of flying with the wind like it should be.

Oh well, I had to try it for a last time I guess, it's just plain stupid.

[nordikcam]

I see - but look at their history on Airfleets.net:
http://www.airfleets.net/flottecie/Finn ... d-a340.htm
OH-LQB - Stored 07/2016 - To Air Belgium
OH-LQC - Stored 07/2016 - as F-WXAG - To AIr Belgium
OH-LQD - Stored 10/2016 - to Air Belgium
OH-LQE - Stored 01/2017 - To Air Belgium

L'Echo writes: Plusieurs éléments expliquent le retard dans le démarrage des opérations de la nouvelle compagnie. Il y a d’une part la livraison des avions qui a pris du retard, de même que les procédures d’obtention du droit de trafic (le fameux AOC), qu’Air Belgium n’a toujours pas encore. Les discussions avec Airbus se sont favorablement clôturées et le premier appareil, un A340-300, devrait être livré à Air Belgium à la mi-novembre...

Translated: one of the two reasons why the startup has been delayed, is because of the late delivery of the aircraft... Negociations with Airbus have now been ended successfull and the first A340-300 will be delivered mid November 2017.

Do we have to believe that it took 15 months to negociate the lease of a stored A340-300? No: the only reason why the startup is delayed, is because of the Belgian Civil Aviation Authority, refusing to approve a fair AOC request. Just like they did 15 years ago, with the delay for the AOC for VG Airlines. But Air Belgium can't publicly blame the CAA, because that would lead to even more delay. Hence the "late delivery... Airbus...". And Air Belgium doesn't has an escape route like SHS Aviation / VLM Airlines has via Slovenia.

The first A340 will be delivered mid november. December is next week ...Will an aircraft arrive soon ? Maybe an AOC ? Or all this is wind ?

[Yuqu12]

I'm not sure whether AB can even let their A340 come to Belgium without their AOC.

[luchtzak]

The first A340 will be delivered mid november. December is next week ...Will an aircraft arrive soon ? Maybe an AOC ? Or all this is wind ?

Start-up foreseen in January 2018

Aircraft decision next week.

Pilot recruitment on-going
Cabin crew selection completed

[KriVa]

I'm not sure whether AB can even let their A340 come to Belgium without their AOC.

Sure they could. Just because the aircraft is in Belgium, doesn't mean it has to be on the AOC of Air Belgium, or even on the Belgian register.
Whether or not it would make sense to do so is an other question.

[Desert Rat]

You don't need an AOC to ferry flight one A/C from one place to the other.

[JustPlanes]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I keep on reading this thread hoping to finally see a confirmation/official start and opening of their bookings and all I see is delay after delay without seeing anything about a reason why...
Meanwhile you got Hainan adding flights, Cathay starting HKG etc... it would have been one thing if AB would have been first to launch a campaign, open bookings and start service... now they will have to come on the market and compete with Cathay... one of the large airlines in Asia also part of a large alliance.. and no doubt Cathay will not be flying an old A340 on the route... but perhaps more likely a new A350?
The thing an airline makes the most money on is First & Business and you know the majority of that will go to Cathay if nothing else for their reputation, frequent flyer program, connection all over Asia etc...
I don't like sounding negative but when are they finally going to be cleared to fly... I can't imagine the amount of money they are spending every week just waiting...

[JOVAN]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I keep on reading this thread hoping to finally see a confirmation/official start and opening of their bookings and all I see is delay after delay without seeing anything about a reason why...
Meanwhile you got Hainan adding flights, Cathay starting HKG etc... it would have been one thing if AB would have been first to launch a campaign, open bookings and start service... now they will have to come on the market and compete with Cathay... one of the large airlines in Asia also part of a large alliance.. and no doubt Cathay will not be flying an old A340 on the route... but perhaps more likely a new A350?
The thing an airline makes the most money on is First & Business and you know the majority of that will go to Cathay if nothing else for their reputation, frequent flyer program, connection all over Asia etc...
I don't like sounding negative but when are they finally going to be cleared to fly... I can't imagine the amount of money they are spending every week just waiting...

I think AB is aiming at a Chinese public first.
120 million Chinese travel abroad every year.

Millions come to Europe.

So it is not unrealistic for AB to try to take a part of that giant pie.

[Yuqu12]

Plus they already have made some sort of name for themselves as they went recruiting cabin crew in China, so it isn't really the case that they are completely anonymous.

[PttU]

I always expected the AOC's for both VLM and AirBelgium would be deliverd semi-simultaneous regarding the political circumstances in Belgium. VLM already received their AOC (for their F50 as well as the A320 from TC), but what about the AOC for AB?

[luchtzak]

[convair]

Now that pilots and cabin crew have been hired, why not start dealing with the easy part, find a GM?

[JustPlanes]

If they're looking for the Chinese market, hiring Chinese flight attendants... wouldn't it have been a lot faster to get an AOC in China.. I have no clue, maybe its even harder
but that makes sense if they're looking perhaps for Chinese tourists who want to come to Europe...

[Desert Rat]

If they're looking for the Chinese market, hiring Chinese flight attendants... wouldn't it have been a lot faster to get an AOC in China.. I have no clue, maybe its even harder
but that makes sense if they're looking perhaps for Chinese tourists who want to come to Europe...

I guess you have no experience dealing with CAAC...

[Inquirer]

If they're looking for the Chinese market, hiring Chinese flight attendants... wouldn't it have been a lot faster to get an AOC in China.. I have no clue, maybe its even harder
but that makes sense if they're looking perhaps for Chinese tourists who want to come to Europe...

That's a good point I've been wondering about too!

This airline is increasingly revealing to be Chinese in all but it's name it seems, so why is it so stubbornly perusing a Belgian license?

Going by the notion that in case of sudden default, the Belgian government and thus ultimately its taxpayers will have to step in to clean up the operational problems (see Germany with Air Berlin only recently, which was effectively a UAE company) and foot the sky high bills for that, I can very well understand the reluctance of our very rightfully prudent administration to allow this company to start its intended operations under our country's flag: maybe the more common sense approach would be to operate as a Chinese airline, given that's where the majority of their capital, customers, routes and apparently also staff and middle management will be coming from?

If the only reason is the Chinese don't want to issue such a license like some say, than that's another clear sign something may be wrong with this project and we should be even more reluctant to grant it our authorization as it effectively means we take on a significant potential liability should these fears become true one day.

When lots of taxpayers money is put on the line, one should not be guided by just bold ambitions or big dreams from a handful of aviation enthusiasts alone.

[Yuqu12]

I really think that such pessimism isn't necessary or that there'll be bad management. Terzakis probably knows what he's doing and how to run an airline. It's not that he'll start an airline when he already knows from the beginning that the project will fail.

[Inquirer]

Surely not, but the fact still remains that they are effectively asking Belgian taxpayers to be taking up the potential liability to help foot the quite hefty bills to fly many thousands of stranded passengers back home to the other half of the globe should the unexpected happen to them nevertheless, all while they do not seem to be particularly rooted in our country in fact, although -and maybe it's not so incidental they do this- they very explicitly try to display being very Belgian...