Troubles at Brussels Airlines ?

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dodo.the.eagle
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Troubles at Brussels Airlines ?

Post by dodo.the.eagle »

Hey,

Read this morning in 'De Standaard' and also heard on the radio : employee organisations thinking about actions on sunday, 25 th of march, the ba launching day.

Looks like the bubble is to burst !

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itami
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Re: Troubles at Brussels Airlines ?

Post by itami »

dodo.the.eagle wrote:Looks like the bubble is to burst !
What's inside that bubble ? Salary ? Labour conditions ?

EBBR
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Post by EBBR »

Strike will contain:

no blfex bligth service
cabin crew will be asked to wear the old uniform iso the new one
10' delay on every 30'rotation

Good action by the unions! At least the passengers are not to be kept hostage!

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Avro
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Post by Avro »

EBBR wrote: Good action by the unions! At least the passengers are not to be kept hostage!
They are maybe not taken hostage, but it's certainly not a good advert for the first day of operations !!!

I hope they'll be able to quickly sort out the issues...

Chris

B737229
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Post by B737229 »

Avro wrote:
EBBR wrote: Good action by the unions! At least the passengers are not to be kept hostage!
They are maybe not taken hostage, but it's certainly not a good advert for the first day of operations !!!

I hope they'll be able to quickly sort out the issues...

Chris
Haha!
The airline not even exists and there are already social problems!
Good advertisement.. sounds Belgian !

website-info
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Post by website-info »

EBBR wrote:Strike will contain:

no blfex bligth service
cabin crew will be asked to wear the old uniform iso the new one
10' delay on every 30'rotation

Good action by the unions! At least the passengers are not to be kept hostage!
so if there is no service do I assume the pax will get a full refund, and I kinda guess that if flight start to be delayed, ATC slots will be missed and further delays will occur so by the evening pax will have to be put up in hotel at DAT costs...................... should look good on a balance sheet

T

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babolat-blast
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Post by babolat-blast »

Too bad the company has to start in this way. I think the CA should be aware of the fact that Brussels Airlines is a young and fragile airline company that doesn't need a lot of troubles to go down again... Do those 10 minutes really bother? If you lose your job, you've got plenty of time...

website-info
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Post by website-info »

babolat-blast wrote:Too bad the company has to start in this way. I think the CA should be aware of the fact that Brussels Airlines is a young and fragile airline company that doesn't need a lot of troubles to go down again... Do those 10 minutes really bother? If you lose your job, you've got plenty of time...
well said babolat, lets face it if DAT want to become a new player they need to play by the new rules. If they want to make a proper profit with 40+ aircraft they need better productivity, the 'old' staff need to realise this before it's too late. They should take a leaf out of the VEX crew manual to see how it can be done and forget about being damn arrogant.

Just heard a story from a guy trying to book a Buisness Class long haul ticket to YYZ, he was told that the DAT allocation is full, but if HE wants to contact Etihad and ask them to contact DAT they might be able to sell a seat. The person didn't even bother to give him the number to call - guess what the guy did, walked 10m from one ticket des to another and bought a ticket on BA ( thats the real BA - British Airways)

keep going like that to your premium passengers and you'll soon have lots of seats to sell

Come on DAT, get you act together and start behaving like a real airline

T

FlightMate
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Post by FlightMate »

website-info wrote: They should take a leaf out of the VEX crew manual to see how it can be done and forget about being damn arrogant.
You're right, let's do like VEX, fly full and lose money!

EBBR
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Post by EBBR »

I have serious doubts that the management really wanted to have only 1 AOC.

Divide et impera:
In politics and sociology, divide and rule (also known as divide and conquer) is a combination political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. In reality, it often refers to a strategy where small power groups are prevented from linking up and becoming more powerful, since it is difficult to break up existing power structures.

I hope everybody realises why Burrows only stayed 1 year as CEO: he implemented the new concept, now the new CEO VDP will wash his hands in innocence!

And of course everyone at SN BRU / VEX will remember this: http://www.whomovedmycheese.com/

Image

Just another dirty (and expensive) trick to bring bad news to the employees!

Let us look forward to the start of the new airline next sunday, congratulations to the management for the perfect launch!

foxtrot_lima_yankee
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Post by foxtrot_lima_yankee »

The Blight en Bflex is a very good concept I think.
They ve got all the ingredients to make a great thing out of it!!!
I m sure there will be no strikes on the opening day, the unions aren t that stupid you know. They just want to put some pressure on the airline from its start, in order to remember them that they ll have to cooperate if they want their crews to give the customers a smile.

On the other hand, I m sure a few are scared of losing their jobs:
Imagin you got at a certain time on a certain day 20 crews for SN and 20 for VEX at the check-ins. Being the same airline and to cut costs BS could cut check-in crews to a total of 25 to 30 to do the same job they used to do until now with 40.

And if I were an employee at SN, I wouldn t open my mouth too big, as seen there very high average age, they should worry about the young flowers hungry to get a job in the kerosine smelling world.

Virgin Express has got a great concept, dear, it' s the marketing on the International plan that doesn t follow. What is the use of using 90% of your marketing budget to advertise in a small country of just 10 million inhabitants?

The same for SN. I haven t ever seen one single advertisement on foreign airports....??? Thats what Ryanair is strong at!!

SN30952
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Post by SN30952 »

B737229 wrote:Haha!
The airline not even exists and there are already social problems!
Good advertisement.. sounds Belgian !
Why Haha!
Shouldn't it be Hoho!
And why Belgian !
Social problems are not 'Belgian', unless you consider one part of the federation as the whole federation,(exactly as some think in that part.)
When this happens in the USA, how do you call it?

JAFflyer
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Post by JAFflyer »

So there is a possibility Brussels Airlines starts with what Sabena ended with...union actions. Sad....
Don't tell me you can't do 30min turnarounds in an aircraft with max 100 pax when VEX can do it with 168 pax.

summersso
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Post by summersso »

SN30952 wrote:And why Belgian !
Social problems are not 'Belgian', unless you consider one part of the federation as the whole federation,(exactly as some think in that part.)
When this happens in the USA, how do you call it?
You still call it a strike. But in England (where I'm from) Thatcher introduced reforms in the '80's forcing unions to ballot members before calling a strike in an attempt to prevent wildcat strikes which seem rife here on le continent! Does that happen here? :?:

I know very little about the Belgian airline unions, but as a passenger, and a supporter of SNBA (I hope they do well) I think it's a very bad move by these unions. Instead of seeing positive headlines on March 26 on the successful launch of the latest Belgian national airline, we'll see negative publicity as the papers reflect on unions ruining SNBA's launch. :(

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euroflyer
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Post by euroflyer »

This would be a disaster in my eyes :!: Some people in Belgium might just see it as a normal :shock: way of doing things. But as it had been written here before in many other European Countries (Scandinavia, UK, Germany, Central and Eastern Europe, ...) it is not. There you need some proper justification to go on strike including you have to try to negotiate before for quite some time, follow the rules of the negotiations :insult: and than have a real ballot of your union members and in many countries you cannot go on strike simply because you do not like a new marketing strategy of your company.

The passengers will not be taken hostage :?: :shock: :?: Of course they will be :!: :!: They pay the company to receive a certain product including on board service, on-time departure, friendly staff, etc. etc. If they do not get what they pay for - what do you call this than ? :oops: :oops:

I can only tell you I for my travel plans have just rebooked my flight next Tuesday Berlin-Brussels to be with LH now instead of b-a, I cannot afford the risk of any delay (which is usually higher with LH I have to say, but now ...) and I do not want to face the risk of unfriendly staff and long political explanations why I do not get a drink as usual on Board :evil:

If you go on like this at the new b-a, Congratulations, you will go the same way as Sabena so sadly had to go some years ago (some people here of course will again not believe it :dammit: , but the impression many many customers of Sabena from outside of Belgium had in its final years was not positive). With the new open skies deal the competition in the sky will even increase and smaller airlines will have to look harder than before for their piece of the cake. With a strike (or 'mouvement social' if you prefer that nice expression ...) you will not attract any passengers :roll:

And do not get me wrong > I do not mind if employees act for their rights, ask for propor salaries and decent working conditions. And if a company does not want to give this, ok, than a strike might be needed. But I can really not see anything like a justification of that kind for this action which might now be taken at b-a.

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Post by EBAW_flyer »

Don't tell me you can't do 30min turnarounds in an aircraft with max 100 pax when VEX can do it with 168 pax.
Do those 10 minutes really bother? If you lose your job, you've got plenty of time...
Just to make some things very clear: a turnaround is not just a "break" for the crew, there is lots to be done. Deboarding, fueling, catering, cleaning, boarding,... . I think this is underestimated. Also the comment of the 100 pax vs. 168: the operations by SNBA and VEX are different. SNBA had business class and extensive catering on board (Y and C) and a real "service". Virgin sells items on board, but if they're out of stock, they're out of stock. Second, SNBA has connection passengers. This is critical in 2 ways: boarding takes more time, and you sometimes have to wait for pax, luggage. And it is important that the planes fly on time. If, with a 30 minute turnaround, just 1 small thing goes wrong, it is very difficult to catch up the delay. It is possible to do a 25min. turnaround: no seat reservations, no catering, quick (I mean very quick) cleaning by the crew. This is how Easyjet and Ryanair do it, but not the way a national airline should do it.

b-west

Post by b-west »

EBAW_flyer wrote: Just to make some things very clear: a turnaround is not just a "break" for the crew, there is lots to be done. Deboarding, fueling, catering, cleaning, boarding,... . I think this is underestimated. Also the comment of the 100 pax vs. 168: the operations by SNBA and VEX are different. SNBA had business class and extensive catering on board (Y and C) and a real "service". Virgin sells items on board, but if they're out of stock, they're out of stock. Second, SNBA has connection passengers. This is critical in 2 ways: boarding takes more time, and you sometimes have to wait for pax, luggage. And it is important that the planes fly on time. If, with a 30 minute turnaround, just 1 small thing goes wrong, it is very difficult to catch up the delay. It is possible to do a 25min. turnaround: no seat reservations, no catering, quick (I mean very quick) cleaning by the crew. This is how Easyjet and Ryanair do it, but not the way a national airline should do it.
True, but I heard in the news the 30 minutes turnaround is not for Brussels, but for the places SN flies to from BRU. So I suppose connecting passengers and even catering are not really an issue there?

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Post by b720 »

Unacceptable behavior on the airline's first day of operations...indeed as someone earlier said, maybe they need to loose their jobs this way they will have plenty of time..no sympathy what so ever for those taking part in this 'ludicrous' action

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euroflyer
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Post by euroflyer »

EBAW_flyer wrote:
Just to make some things very clear: a turnaround is not just a "break" for the crew, there is lots to be done. Deboarding, fueling, catering, cleaning, boarding,... . I think this is underestimated.
Nobody wants to underestimate the - so far - very good and customer friendly work done at SNBA by the Crews. :wink:

However, I do fly often - very often :roll: - across Europe with all different kind of Airlines and believe me: If possible I always took SNBA because already during Boarding everything was so relaxed, the planes are usually far from being full, the Cabin Crew has plenty of time for service, they nearly always leave on time, far less problems with late arriving conecting pasengers and their baggage etc. (all statements in relation to other major European Airlines). Taking 10 minutes out of the turn around times at certain airports really should not be the problem! :roll:

I do think the problem might be less connected to this real changes and more to the principal question, if there should be any changes or not and who decides about what and I am sorry, but that is quite Belgian and the same mentality which brought big problems to Sabena as well. :evil:

Best Regards and good luck to b-a
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SN30952
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Post by SN30952 »

JAFflyer wrote:Don't tell me you can't do 30min turnarounds in an aircraft with max 100 pax when VEX can do it with 168 pax.
Well I once did a turn around of a mixed B707 in Entebbe in about 15 minutes. Including unloading cargo pallets (from the upper deck that is).
But to manage that 2 SN-station managers and myself where needed.
So, it is possible, under exceptional conditions....
But one doesn't do that for money (economical reasons), there were other reasons.

I still feel, the passenger should get what he paid for.
If one pays 39Euros, I can understand he is entitled only safe transport.
But business people expect more... And more means, that time is needed. Time to care, for the passenger, his belongings, his well being, including catering and comfort.

eg, rushing their luggage in and out in less than 30 minutes, will not guarantee them all the luggages will arrive in arrivals intact.
The aircraft will rotate faster, indeed, but the passenger will lose time at the luggage claim. And that's only one example.

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