Brussels Airlines loses daily flight to Kinshasa

[Atlantis]

http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail. ... d=3A26P6MF

[sdbelgium]

We reported this two days ago on our website and were halted by Mr. Sciot himself. He sent us a mail, in which he asked - almost demanded - to delete this information from our website and publish excuses on the homepage because the info was not correct.

I quote his e-mail from 19/2 (translated):

1) Brussels Airlines has not taken the decision to lower her weekly flights to Kinshasa to 5 in stead of 7 per week. Our booking engines still offer 7 weekly flights.

2) There has been nog communication about the end of airDC. The BAe planes for airDC are not being sold.

I read the article in De Standaard and again asked him for an explanation. If they knew this several weeks ago, why did they deny this in the e-mail sent to us only 2 days ago?

His answer was as follows (translated):

Please wait for the right for answer in De Standaard before jumping to conclusions.

Do you really think Brussels Airlines would offer 7 weekly flights today knowing that starting in April we could only fly five times? This would be crazy. We are not a company that misleads her costumers. Brussels Airlines has a solution to maintain 7 weekly flights but for the moment we can not explain further on this matter.

The 2 planes for airDC are not being sold but they are in storage and can be activated at all times.

So, I'm waiting for an right for answer in De Standaard from Brussels Airlines...

[airazurxtror]

In "L'Echo" :

http://www.lecho.be/actualite/belgique/ ... 04-589.art

"Nous avons reçu, il y a quelques semaines, une lettre annonçant la fin de la collaboration", confirme Michel Meyfroidt, managing director de Brussels Airlines aux quotidiens flamands.

[Atlantis]

Below the reaction of Brussels Airlines. Sorry, no time at the moment for a small translation.

http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail. ... 022009_020

[sn26567]

See also RTLinfo

short translation from French

Flights to Kinshasa: Brussels Airlines tries to find a solution

Brussels Airlines has rights for 5 weekly flights to Kinshasa. "To tell that our company will lose its Congo route is wrong. Our customers wanting to travel to Congo should be reassured", explained Geert Sciot, spokesman Brussels Airlines. De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad said Saturday that Brussels Airlines was going to lose its daily flight to Kinshasa. According to these newspapers there are problems between Brussels Airlines and Hewa Bora Airways, which would like to exercise their rights from 1 April to fly Brussels-Kinshasa, ending their cooperation with Brussels Airlines.

[TCAS_climb]

Mmmmmh, wouldn't Hewa Bora be just playing with BruAir's feet to get more money without doing nothing more ?

Although ICAO said DRC was improving its safety oversight, the country is far from being deleted from the EU Black List. On the other hand would Hewa Bora's interests be better served if they were doing the route by themselves ? Hard to believe, isn't it ?

[tolipanebas]

Regardless what Mister Pravda says, it is clear SN has to go from 7 weekly to 5 weekly on Kinshasa: its only the logic consequence of the end of the agreement between SN and HBA and the application of the Belgo-Congolese bilateral... With bookings still going very strong, one of the solutions (amongst others) being looked at for the moment is to operate 2 flights per week to Brazaville now...

AIrDC is dead and burried: the team working on it behind the scenes has been dissolved almost completely and there is a stop on any further funding for the project. People who had been identified to help start up the company have been notified. The only thing SN will NOT do is officially communicate the official end: as such: it isn't cancelled indeed, but rather permanently delayed!

You don't have to believe me, but my track record seems pretty good so far.
Have a look at the BRU summer 2009 topic: I've reported this already more than a week ago...
Mister (wannabe) CEO must have missed that particular post, otherwise he's certainly have asked for deletion of it too...

[JOVAN]

Whoever choose the title of this news item must be poorly informed or has bad intentions.

Title should read " SN to reduce flights to Kinshasa (to 5 weekly) ?? " or something.

Only so-called "journalists", who know a very little thing about everything, can invent such un-correct titles.

Hope we soon can read in other newspapers (of lesser quality) :"De Standaard loses it's daily newspaper".

[TCAS_climb]

A-ha, makes a lot more sense now !

(By the way, would it be possible to know from insiders at BruAir how the Belgian CAA reacted to the project of setting up AirDC with a Belgian AOC ? I suppose the look on their face must have been worth a million euro picture...)

[tolipanebas]

Whoever choose the title of this news item must be poorly informed or has bad intentions.

Title should read " SN to reduce flights to Kinshasa (to 5 weekly) ?? " or something.

Only so-called "journalists", who know a very little thing about everything, can invent such un-correct titles.

Hope we soon can read in other newspapers (of lesser quality) :"De Standaard loses it's daily newspaper".

'De Standaard' title indeed makes it sound as if SN won't serve FIH anymore, whereas they (just) have to reduce the frequency to 5 from 7 (and thus daily). Although technically speeking it is a correct title as SN won't be serving FIH on a daily basis any longer, it shows the journalist is not an industry insider, because the wording he used here is only used in reference with route closures really.

[airazurxtror]

If Mister Pravda is not kept informed by his employer, he should read "Le Soir" this morning, page 4 :
Title : "Le projet AirDC au frigo"
According to a Hewa Bora manager speaking from Kinshasa, the two weekly frequencies will be :
- wednesday/saturday on Kinshasa - Brussels
- thursday / sunday on Brussels - Kinshasa
- with possible extensions to Lubumbashi, Luanda and Brazzaville on the African side
- and to Paris on the European side
Hewa Bora has a Boeing 767-200 ER, fit to fly but still lacking the necessary documents and authorizations to fly in the European air space.
Hewa Bora has cancelled its agreement with SN because of the Air DC project being indefinitely delayed.

[LX-LGX]

...
"Le Soir" this morning, page 4 :
...
According to a Hewa Bora manager speaking from Kinshasa, ...
...
Hewa Bora has a Boeing 767-200 ER, fit to fly but still lacking the necessary documents and authorizations to fly in the European air space.

It seems to me that Hewa Bora doens't understand that Europe requires more then just a "fill in some forms and fax them to us". The Directorate-General for Energy and Transport from the European Union regularly publishes a no-fly list, and the situation for Hewa Bora is not improving. Hewa Bora says that it's 767 (9Q-CHC) is fit to fly, but that's not what the EU thinks about it: 9Q-CHC had a green light from the EU from 28 Nov 2007 till 24 July 2008, but is banned since then.

list 22 03 2006 : all ALX-aircraft banned, except 9Q-CHC (L-1011 TriStar)
list 28 11 2007 : all ALX-aircraft banned, except 9Q-CJD (767-200ER)
list 24 07 2008 : all ALX-aircraft banned - no exceptions
list 14 11 2008 : all ALX-aircraft banned - no exceptions

Hewa Bora is allowed to use a wet lease a/c that is not banned (ex. A330 from AF or SN or KLM or LH), but their 767 remains forbitten in Europe, at least till the next EU blacklist appears.

The EU says: "Air carriers listed in Annex B could be permitted to exercise traffic rights by using wet-leased aircraft of an air carrier which is not subject to an operating ban, provided that the relevant safety standards are complied with."

[tolipanebas]

Guys, Guys!

Forget about that 767-2ER from the past...
Insiders from FIH know HBA has already signed a 767-3ER in wetlease and have been planning this project for some time.

Let me give you some insight on the real reasons of the brake-up between HBA and SN which you'll probably won't read in the press.

When SN and HBA teamed up over a year ago, SN was looking at some ways to make good use of what would otherwise be redundant planes in their very lucrative niche market: central Africa, whereas HBA was at the edge of bankruptcy and could thus easily be persuaded to integrate their domestic pax operations into a joint-venture with SN, under the AirDC flag...

However, since then, several domestic competitors of HBA have gone out of business as such HBA saw the chance to once again make big money on the internal routes which they had kept open on their own untill AirDC would be ready to fly.

As time went by and things improved for them again, they must have felt they no longer needed SN to save them and the diplomatic row between Belgium and RDC was an unexpectedly great gift to them, as it allowed them to get from under the contract by lobbying the authorities in Kinshasa to make the project stall and see give them extra time to see how things would evolve if they'd continue on their own.

Last month, the diplomatic skies finally cleared up and thus theoretically the AirDC project could finally start, yet HBA doesn't feel the need for it any longer, so they have finally announced their decision to pull the plug and continue on their own (relaunching FIH-BRU twice weekly on the 2 traffic rights which belong to them).
But to say that the decision was taken recently is not correct: they have made their mind up at least half a year ago already and have thus planned for it in advance, and anybody thinking otherwise is simply naive.

SN must have learnt about HBA's plans through their local network too around that period, as they've stopped investing in AirDC (e.g. renting houses in FIH for consultants, hiring local staff, setting up IT systems and offices etc) and insourcing everybody they had already hired in Europe for the African project around that period too...

But as it goes so often, what the Pravda writes, is not what the politburo really thinks so don't expect this to be confirmed officially.

[loginas]

Insiders from FIH know HBA has already signed a 767-3ER in wetlease and have been planning this project for some time.

Will it be a YL-LCZ from SmartLynx?

[Atlantis]

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/1901/reisnieuw ... egen.dhtml

[tolipanebas]

The bilateral between Belgium and RDC gives 5 weekly trafic rights for the designated Belgian carrier (which is undoubtably SN) and 2 for the designated carrier from RDC....
There are now 2 companies claiming they own these 2 trafic rights for the RDC:
-) Hewa Bora (which intends to make use of them via a wetleased plane) and
-) LAC (which has rented them out to SN)....

I don't know who has the correct legal claim to these 2 rights, but they can't logically be owned/used by 2 companies simultaneously, since that is in violation of the bilateral. I hope SN has done its homework well this time and only pays their congolese partners when they can actually fly on the route...
Too much money has already been lost in the RDC recently (Air DC ) and Hewa Bora seems to have a lot of influence on the government of the RDC.

As such, I fear we will soon hear about an SN plane being grounded in FIH for administrative/legal reasons like happened a few years ago in KGL over an expired revision lable on a cockpit safety belt, at the time when there was a diplomatic dispute between Belgium and Rwanda about the Silverback DC-8 which was stuck in BRU since that company was on the blacklist.
SN is reportedly checking over every little administrative detail before each and every flight to FIH, knowing what they can expect upon arrival....

[TCAS_climb]

As far as I know, Hewa Bora belongs to the Kabila family. Wimbi Dira Airways too, but I heard that it has been shut down (anyone can confirm ?).

[FLYAIR10]

How dramatic would it be for SN to loose eventually 2 flights and go to 5 a week instead of "daily"?
Maybe they can offer the same total capacity(both PAX & cargo) by introducing B747-400 (fmLH?) on the route.

Grtz.

[DannyVDB]

Dear all,

Is Hewa Bora not intending to fly through Paris? I think they will then use traffic rights between France and Congo instead of Belgium-Congo, or is this not correct?

Greetings,
Danny

[jan_olieslagers]

ISTR it is the other way round: they plan Kinshasa-Brussels-Paris - which looks funny to me, but I'm not an airline manager.