5th A330 for Brussels Airlines

[RoMax]

They will take the final decission for a new plane in December so I don't think that they will got a new plane than already. That this new plane will get the *A paint can be, but not yet in December.

[HighInTheSky]

I think it is quite impossible to have the 5th A330 at the cermony. Be it in SN's colours or in * Alliance livery. How on earth can we get an A330 in 45 days?

So let's stop dreaming about that date, shall we?

[RoMax]

Thats just what I mean. They will take the final decission for the plane in December, so it is indeed impossible to get that plane than already. But I think that the new plane (that will come next year I think) will get a *A paint but not on time for the ceremony on 9 December.

But the decission for the replacement of the Avro's will be taken next year. What plane can this be? Sukhoi SSJ(cheap, not to big and they can have them already in 2012/2014), Cseries of Bombardier (like Swiss, but maybe a little to big to replace the small RJ85's), Mistubishi MRJ...?

[cathay belgium]

Hi,

Sukhoi or Mitsubitshi ?????
I don't think so...
Let's stick with CRJ-EMB-A318.., as our mother LH does with her childs !
Why should they be so stupid do buy planes wich SN should be to lone customer in the whole group???
It should be nice to see them flying around once and a while but I prefer see them in Icelandair?.. colours..
Think these planes are cheap for bying but for flying and maintenance ...
Be realistic !
Replacement for AVRO I predict EMB ... the new small aircraft of europe! ( KLM-LH-LH's kids... )
CX-B

[NCB]

EI has returned 3 A330's to ILFC this year and they have immediately found a new operator. They have a few new deliveries coming in, that's why.
With actual B787 delays, short-term leases on anything in that capacity range is leasing at very hot yields, and add to the fact that Toulouse is also talking to lessors about interim capacity for eventual A350 delays, you can see where SN is at...
Without support from LH, it will not be for the next 3, maybe 5 years, except if:

-SN accepts to lease more expensive A330's or
-SN tries to look for other suitable types

I particularily like the last option because actually there are some excellent alternatives, like the A319.
I think that 4 to 6 A319's in a 108 pax, 12J/96Y with A330-style J seats would be the way to go.
Let's sum up advantages/disadvatages/ties for an African expansion with A319 vs A330:

Advantages:
-A319's aren't on high demand at this moment, they are very cheap to lease and very available
-Easier to fill capacity-wise, better suited for an efficient non-stop hub to spoke operation
-Faster turn-arounds, 90 minutes saved per turn-around -> which means higher aircraft utilisation can be reached by the added possibility to daily combine a return to Africa with a return mid-haul like TLV or to add a return shorthaul (for instance GVA) and a 3rd sector to Africa. At the moment A330's have to sit for several hours on the tarmac at BRU doing nothing... J pax on mid-haul or shorthaul sectors who happen to be on one of the African A319's will appreciate the real J seats instead of the empty seat in the middle, so SN can charge a bit more for these flights...
-Flexibility, when an aircraft goes tech it is easier to shift between aircraft when you have 8 or 10 A319's than 5 A330's, as A319's on short/mid-haul routes can be swapped for other A319's, Avro's and B737
-In-house maintenance
-More efficient for routes within their range, as average hourly fuel consumption decreases dramatically on narrowbody sectors of a range beyond 2000nm, and below that they are better anyway because horrendous for widebody operations...
-Possibility to open new destinations at lower risk and cost, such as Lagos
-Possibility to focus A330's on key markets like FIH, NBO, and JNB
-More flexibility with regards to frequency, easier to spread demand
-The A319 is alot quieter than the A330, giving the passengers a better flying experience
-Less capital and operational risk, easier to convince board of shareholders

Disadvantage:
- 3-3 configuration in Y, which is nasty for longhaul, but on 6-7 hour flights it isn't that bad
-A319 slightly less flexible on cargo but can carry good loads in the low-density 108 pax configuration

Ties:
-Fleet commonality with existing fleet, a slight advantage for A319 due to in-house maintenance
-Range, A319 can do most routes of SN's actual African network with 6850km range at typical loads
-Use of ULD's for cargo

[HighInTheSky]

The management said they were looking for 1 extra A330, not 4 to 6 extra A319's.

I think it is unrealistic to expect a A330 by 9th December, but I'm sure that they will find one before the summer season of 2010.
LH has enough influence to speed up things. What about those A330's at BMI (LH Group!)

Also, there must be some slots free for new A330's at Airbus in Toulouse (altough I'm pretty sure we won't recieve a factory fresh A330 anytime soon )

I don't think that A319's, or any other plane for that matter, will be bought for SN's African network. This wouldn't be good for the passengers, the crew and more important the company's image (Sure, they fly to several African destinations, but they don't have the money to buy suited planes!).

[taz001]

I think it is quite impossible to have the 5th A330 at the cermony. Be it in SN's colours or in * Alliance livery. How on earth can we get an A330 in 45 days?

So let's stop dreaming about that date, shall we?

OK, I will stop dreaming Let's go to number 6!


About the *A livery, it is ofcourse quite dull, but nevertheless I think it would create a feeling for Brussels Airlines they really are a member of this alliance.

[NCB]

Also, there must be some slots free for new A330's at Airbus in Toulouse (altough I'm pretty sure we won't recieve a factory fresh A330 anytime soon )

I don't think that A319's, or any other plane for that matter, will be bought for SN's African network. This wouldn't be good for the passengers, the crew and more important the company's image (Sure, they fly to several African destinations, but they don't have the money to buy suited planes!).

There are no slots until 2012 for new A330, and for 2012 it's getting pretty dense too.
As you say, if SN could afford to buy brand new A330's then they would have had 20 by now.

LH is trying to sell BD to VS and without its high-yielding A330 routes to the Middle-East it's worth nothing.
BD has some A332's on order but these are brand new ones.

I don't see why an A319 operation to Africa is not good for the passengers and crews.
The company's image seen by a customer's perspective will not include an analysis of the type of aircraft they are going to fly on. What matters to the passengers is comfort (environment and service), convenience (frequency, timing and connections) and fares. Safety too is important, but there is no difference between A319 and A330.
The A319 can offer all of these as much as the A330 minus the 3-3 configuration (but many airlines have 3-3-3 and 3-4-3 on some of their types) plus the benefit of a more quiet cabin compared to the A330.
Basically, the average passenger will not see any difference, some will be more comfortable, and many more will love the added convenience.
A319LR's with the 8500km range are being used in an special configurations by Air France and by QR for longer haul travel, so saying that A319's are not adequate for 6-7 hours medium-haul travel, is not so fair.

LH will not supply any A330's from their own operation until they have full control of SN, nor will they try to help them too much.
The earliest date for LH's full control to materialise is 2011, but what shareholders really want is money. They already announced that 2009 will probably be a loss-making year, 2010 doesn't look too bright either.

The fact that the board approved the 5th A330 before they actually found an aircraft, means that everything is open yet. The finding a 5th aircraft part is going to be very tough... Let's not forget also, there is a world cup in South Africa in 2010, and many European airlines are going to hold on to their A330's for charters.

By the way, I read that Air Comet has a hard time paying their maintenance bills to Iberia, and that the latter made a very low bid for their A332's, that was rejected by Air Comet. Iberia now refuse to do furter maintenance on Air Comet aircraft. They have 3 older acft stored and returned to lessor according to airfleets.net, but the lessor (ILFC?) is probably waiting for a rather high bid unless the aircraft are in poor condition...

[tolipanebas]

I don't see why an A319 operation to Africa is not good for the passengers and crews.

People keep forgetting a key aspect of SN's operations to AFI: CARGO.

As said before: the board has given the green light for an additional A330-300, not for some adventure with a few A319LRs and for some very good reasons, the most important one I've mentioned above.

[NCB]

I object Tulip.
SN can't serve most destinations in Africa non-stop on a daily basis because of their limited amount of aircraft.
This is why most of their African flights are one-stop, which is not very efficient.
I believe SN's African cargo network is limited to 3 or 4 key operations of their African network where they do alot of cargo (DKR/FIH,??), and most of the other destinations should be more passive.
Basically, in a combined A319/A330 operation, if needed, you can send the A330's where you need the passenger and cargo capacity, the A319's where it's passengers mainly, with some cargo.

A319's able to do 3 sectors per day to Africa and can haul more cargo than one single A333 doing one-stop operation. Also, if you think that instead of doing 2 cities one-stop with one A330 on 3-4 times weekly basis, they could go daily or almost daily with A319 capacity to both cities, cargo will be served alot better. Perishables now also get more flexibility and the tonnage of a daily A319 to A and to B from BRU would come out better than a 3-4 weekly A333 flying to A and B on the same run.
On a full flight, with all the heavy luggage and fuel, the A333 can't have more than 15 ton of spare capacity for freight.

Also, don't forget that A319's can do some smaller airports where widebodies can't land and that SN could have a reason to kick out all the ex-VEX B737's to make narrowbody, RJ and Airbus only.

I'm not saying A319 is the way to go, scrap the A330.
I'm saying that since it's not very likely that a A330 could be found at reasonable rates, why not consider A319's in the meanwhile or even if the A330 comes, combine them with A319's?
A319 lease rates are going to pick up soon as traffic increases and fuel prices go up (because airlines will park their old B737G's for newer A320's, a bit like UA did last year), so there's no better moment...

[tolipanebas]

I object Tulip.

That's your right, but you're wrong, because in all your assumptions above, I can see you're underestimating the importance of CARGO to SN's operations to AFI. Here's, one occasion for instance.

I believe SN's African cargo network is limited to 3 or 4 key operations of their African network where they do alot of cargo (DKR/FIH?), and most of the other destinations should be more passive.

Nope. It's actually the other way round: cargo is king on all but a few of our destinations...
Without cargo, some of our destinations would have been closed already even!

Basically, in a combined A319/A330 operation, if needed, you can send the A330's where you need the passenger and cargo capacity, the A319's where it's passengers mainly, with some cargo.
A319's able to do 3 sectors per day to Africa and can haul more cargo than one single A333 doing one-stop operation.

Cargo is carried on ALL our flights, so I'd love to know where you'd send the A319LR to then, given the fact you can't carry any cargo at all on an A319LR, especially not with pax carrying 60kg of luggage....

On a full flight, with all the heavy luggage and fuel, the A333 can't have more than 15 ton of spare capacity for freight.

But do you know for sure pax have priority over cargo?
You may assume it to be that way, because that's what is common practice under normal conditions, but what if I were to tell you here that to and from Africa normal conditions do not prevail and as such that on occasions, seats are even blocked in the booking system in order to allow for more highly lucrative cargo as payload? In the end, whatever makes more money, has priority, and this happens to be cargo in some places. How are you going to do that in a volume limited narrow body plane?

I'm saying that since it's not very likely that a A330 could be found at reasonable rates, why not consider A319's in the meanwhile or even if the A330 comes, combine them with A319's?
A319 lease rates are going to pick up soon as traffic increases and fuel prices go up, so there's no better moment...

The idea you have here is only nice in theory, in practice it is not very efficient at all.
Apart from the all important issue of its cargo limitations, there's the issue of what A319 you're talking about? Are you talking about a standard A319? This could be added quite easily to the fleet indeed, but can't be used operationally to AFI, or are you talking about an A319LR? This could be used operationally indeed (although not very efficient), but operating a single plane can cause great disturbances to the company in case of a technical breakdown of this plane...
And adding a few A319LRs at once (including a spare plane) is not really a realistic option, I must say and neither is it a cheap alternative, which was the starting point of your idea...

I know where you got the idea from: Air France, but you can't compare their operations to SN's.
Besides, AF is only using the A319LR to a few isolated destinations where it doesn't carry any cargo, just high yielding oil workers. AF are flying A330 (or bigger) elsewhere too and under pretty much identical yield management rules as SN, and for a very good reason as well, because they need the cargo capabilities of their widebody planes!

[AirDupont]

NCB,

Cargo is and will always be important, to any carrier. That's why to SN, the 333 is a better option then the 767.
Don't forget Cameroon as a very important cargo destination, as well as NBO and EBB.

[Conti764]

NCB,

Cargo is and will always be important, to any carrier. That's why to SN, the 333 is a better option then the 767.
Don't forget Cameroon as a very important cargo destination, as well as NBO and EBB.

Well, the 767 is obviously out of the question, but since A330's are difficult to purchase and expensive, why not consider the 777-200? The oldest 772 is younger then SN's A330's, offer enough cargo and pax capacity to cater SN's needs and with a max payload range of 3.250 NM they can easily reach the more northern African destinations of SN.

And many companies are laying their 772's off, so I assume they are way cheaper then 330's...

Key issue though, is the fact LH has no single T7 in it's fleet, nor does LX... So I can imagine SN wouldn't be all to eager to use T7's, although they could be a good interim solution for the time being, as long as SN can't afford to buy more (and newer) 333's...

[AirDupont]

I think the key issue is the high training costs due to conversion...

[NCB]

I was going to mention LAD, DLA and NBO but I didn't want to speculate on something I don't know for sure.

There is alot of confusion as to actual A330 lease rates. I don't know who is making airlines "believe" this non-sense:

Lafosse says, adding he believes lease rates for A330s have come down 50% over the last two years and are now about $350,000 per month.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... a340s.html

Lessors are NGO's now? I believe Mr. Lafosse thinks he is in 2005 when everyone thought that the 787 would be a miracle plane flying in 2008 and values went down to 450 000 per month for A332.
In reality, lease rates today are north of 500k for older A332's, for older A333's, count 600k.
This is because lessors are looking for mid-term contracts of around 5 years and shorter 2-3 year contracts for desperate airlines needing to bridge the gap with the 787. This is also why Boeing has to pay expensive compensations for the 787 delays. These shorter contracts are on the expensive side.
Of course you can always get cheaper, but then you get aircraft that cost you more money than you make on them.

Typical lease rates for A319 is in the 200k range now, so maybe that gives you a better image of the situation...

A330-200 EASA-compliant aircraft available for lease Mar10. PW4168A engines. Manf. 2000. Fresh C-check. 48C/182Y pax configuration. Contact information

A330-200 Two aircraft available for short or medium-term wet lease. PW4168A engines. Manf. 2008. 24C/259Y pax configuration. Contact information

A330-200 Aircraft available for lease 10Q2. RR Trent 772B-60 engines. Manf. 2001. Contact information

A330-200 Two aircraft available for immediate sale or long-term lease. PW4168A/4170 engines. MTOW=233t. Contact information

Source: Airfax

For the rest,
Air Comet is leasing out MSN943 and 970, both A332
Monarch has MSN265 available, eventually also 261, both A332

Not a single A333 available on the market, unfortunately...

I think the key issue is the high training costs due to conversion...

The key issue is always maintenance and operations.
Training costs are one small part of that, only a significant factor if we're talking 10 or 20 aircraft.
Because the crew for the added A330 would cost about the same to train anyway...
Parts inventories, maintenance programs and contracts, reduced operational flexibility, etc... could be more obvious reasons for not having a B772. There are several B772's available.

[NCB]

The idea you have here is only nice in theory, in practice it is not very efficient at all.
Apart from the all important issue of its cargo limitations, there's the issue of what A319 you're talking about? Are you talking about a standard A319? This could be added quite easily to the fleet indeed, but can't be used operationally to AFI, or are you talking about an A319LR? This could be used operationally indeed (although not very efficient), but operating a single plane can cause great disturbances to the company in case of a technical breakdown of this plane...

I'm talking standard A319-100.
It has a 6850km range with 124 pax in 2-class configuration with reserves according to Airbus website.
Which means that operationally, it could fly to any destinations in Africa within 6350km great circle range from BRU. Which means that anything North of Kin can be served, including Kin.
The A319 in a 108 pax configuration has spare room for cargo, about 3 to 6 tons depending on the destination range. 6 tons would be no problem for a fully oboked flight to DKR.
Volume is not so much of an issue as perishables are often high density.
I think that you're underestimating the A319

I think that pax would have priority over cargo, no matter whether Africa or anywhere else, but especially in high yeilds Africa.
Revenue on a 100kg pax+luggage to Africa is 500EUR at SN fares, or 5EUR/kg. At that rate, we would be paying our mango's at 8EUR a piece in the supermarket, and our flowers at 20EUR the basic 10 flowers bouquet.
The only freight that you can transport at higher yields than human cargo is nuclear warheads, weapons,(but that would be under an illegal operation) or diamonds... Anything else non-perishable would be done by ship.

Actually SN has to make-up alot of revenue with cargo on their A333's. A333's aren't exactly used in an optimal way with the one-stop operation, so they have to try to fill the aircraft the best they can. And probably sometimes that includes doing cargo customers a favor by keeping some seats empty to make their perishables fit on the flight to keep the customer...

Of course, it would be optimal if SN could avail of a fleet of 10 or 20 A330's to fly non-stops to Africa.
But adding an A330 every 3 years is not going to help long-term.
I'd rather see them use A319's as a stop-gap for say about 5 years, to generate more revenue and earnings so that they can grow their African network alot faster, so that they ultimately can afford to add a whole range of A330's, later on A350XWB's.
In the AF and QR example I was illustrating by giving examples of longhaul operational capabilities of A319 operations, that show that the A319 is not only suited for mid-haul to Africa, but is even being used by airlines to serve longhaul in special configurations. The purpose is not to compare SN ops with AF ops, but to give an extreme example to prove that less extreme operations are within the A319's scope.

Actually if you think that SN could shift their 15 strong 11 x B737/ 4x A319 fleet towards an Africa capable 20-strong A319 fleet, it would be an ideal expansion plan for their African network. They could serve many African routes as red-eyes and use the fleet for short/mid-haul during the day, making it a 24 hour operation.
For example an A319 could fly BRU-ABJ-BRU BRU-MXP-BRU BRU-FCO-BRU daily while receiving necessary ground times for maintenance. Aircraft utilisation would be 20 hours per day...optimal!
The cost of expansion will be minimal (of course some bilaterals will need to be negotiated) but the revenue generation would be huge. That would mean that SN could increase lucrative capacity to Africa by up to 80% without even affecting their loss-making European operation. That would also help the loss-making European operation be more lucrative thanks to more feeding needed to cater for the increased longhaul capacity.
That would not only help generate the revenue necessary to add more widebodies in the future, but it will also help to build a market for them, to avoid that every new widebody adds capacity to compromise profitability per operated aircraft. In other words, if only condsidering African ops, it would avoid that a 25% capacity increase as SN is pursuing now with the 5th A330, would result in only a small 10% profit increase in that operation.

[TUB023]

note that the 5th is NOT 100% agreed yet. they are looking into the possibilities of buying one, and not saying that they ARE gonna buy one.
i suggest we wait a bit for it:)

[TUB023]

Most probably a naive thought, but is there any chance we would see this 'new' bird at the Ceremony when SN enters the *Alliance? As in another forum was stated, it would be nice to see such at bird in *Alliance colours that day.
Btw, I heard that an Airline that is part of the *Alliance needs a certain percentage of its fleet in *Alliance colours. Is this correct? And if so, what percentage are we talking about?

from what i have heard, star alliance request that you paint 1 plane of each (so 1boeing, 1 airbus1 i Avro)
in the star alliance colours.

[tolipanebas]

I'm talking standard A319-100.
It has a 6850km range with 124 pax in 2-class configuration with reserves according to Airbus website.
Which means that operationally, it could fly to any destinations in Africa within 6350km great circle range from BRU. Which means that anything North of Kin can be served, including Kin.
The A319 in a 108 pax configuration has spare room for cargo, about 3 to 6 tons depending on the destination range. 6 tons would be no problem for a fully oboked flight to DKR.
Volume is not so much of an issue as perishables are often high density.
I think that you're underestimating the A319

No wonder you defend your idea so vehemently.
Let me say you that the Airbus website takes into account quite some favourable considerations to present their planes to the public, making their quoted range figures rather... how shall I put it, 'optimistic'.

On several occasions, SN has had the privilege (or shall I say lack of choice?) to dispatch an A319 to AFI in the past and they coudn't even make it non-stop to CNY!

How do I explain this huge difference in range, you'll ask?

Take into account the massive alternate fuel allowances which are in force in AFI.
Indeed, don't forget that some alternates of SN's AFI destinations are a full 2 hours flying time away from the destination, whereas Airbus systematically presents their A319 with the minimum legal fuel allowance of just 30 min! A difference of 1.5 hours makes your maximum range figures go down dramatically, thus cutting the theoretical range of the A319 from somewhere around ABJ back to something around DKR, fully in line with what I've seen done in real world operations...

I think that pax would have priority over cargo, no matter whether Africa or anywhere else, but especially in high yeilds Africa.
Revenue on a 100kg pax+luggage to Africa is 500EUR at SN fares, or 5EUR/kg. At that rate, we would be paying our mango's at 8EUR a piece in the supermarket, and our flowers at 20EUR the basic 10 flowers bouquet.
The only freight that you can transport at higher yields than human cargo is nuclear warheads, weapons,(but that would be under an illegal operation) or diamonds... Anything else non-perishable would be done by ship.

We're not just carrying mango or grapefruits, my friend.
Huge loads of fresh premium fish are carried from EBB for instance and its only one example of high yield cargo we haul back to Europe...
As you certainly know as a regular visitor of this site, I know our flight operations quite well and I can assure you it's an error discarting our cargo operations and their revenues as easily as you seem to be doing here.
Any plane not able to haul back double digit cargo tonnages is basically out of the question for SNs long haul ops to AFI. It's why even the 767 was found to be unsuitable in the past....

I'd rather see them use A319's as a stop-gap for say about 5 years, to generate more revenue and earnings so that they can grow their African network alot faster, so that they ultimately can afford to add a whole range of A330's, later on A350XWB's.

As I've explained to you, the only place SN could send an A319 to in real world operations is DKR, yet this is exactly one of their few destinations where they send an A330 to on a daily basis, so it woudn't make much sense to downgrade to an A319 then.

In the AF and QR example I was illustrating by giving examples of longhaul operational capabilities of A319 operations, that show that the A319 is not only suited for mid-haul to Africa, but is even being used by airlines to serve longhaul in special configurations. The purpose is not to compare SN ops with AF ops, but to give an extreme example to prove that less extreme operations are within the A319's scope.

AF are using A319LRs, maybe you should look up just what the differences are with the standard A319.
An A319LR is not just an A319 with less seats installed....
Adding such a heavily modified plane to the standard A319 fleet is not going to be as flexible as you think it will be, quite on the contrary even; it would be an odd bird actually which can't be substituted with a regular A319.

Besides, with no catering facilities available at some destinations, I'd really like to see how you are going to stow 4 full hot meal services on board a standard A319....

For example an A319 could fly BRU-ABJ-BRU BRU-MXP-BRU BRU-FCO-BRU daily while receiving necessary ground times for maintenance. Aircraft utilisation would be 20 hours per day...optimal!

An A319 can't make it to ABJ.... at least not in an operational way, despite what you think.
Anything south of the Sahara is basically out of the question for this plane in real world operations, which is why you won't see anybody do it. AF uses A319LR, which are quite a different bird actually.

The conclusion is obvious: a standard A319 for AFI doesn't make any sense. An A319LR would, but an A330 is even better and SN is right in going after this type over anything else.

[cnc]

this may sound like a stupid question but since cargo is so important on SN's africa network why don't they consider a narrow body (like the A319) full freigther plane? or a convertible a/c atleast