Brussels Airlines - July figures

[diminbru]

July 2011
total amount of pax : 568.000
increase in pax EU : 21%
increase in pax AFI : 4,7%
loadfactor : 78.7%

very good figures indeed

source : http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/996/Econom ... juli.dhtml (dutch)

[sn26567]

Good figures, indeed, especially since the load factor also increased by 5.9%.

[DannyVDB]

Hi all,

I was already surprised by the full flights I took first half of July to MXP to go to EC-JRC in Ispra. And while I bought a light ticket, I was twice upgraded to flex and the flight was almost completely full, even with 4 and 5 persons in business classe respectively. (AVRO85)

Before I also went to MXP in July and it was always far from being full ...

Next 2 trips to Singapore and Denver in September (LH)

Cheers,
Danny

[tolipanebas]

Another aspect which hasn't been highlighted is the significant increase in cargo loads: +7%, thus achieving record loadfactors in the belly too.

[cathay belgium]

Hi,

So if I may conclude : why change a winning strategy !!
But SN deserves some props, some french (bordeaux?) and english cities needs them..

CX-B

Is there already a timing when the B733's will leave the fleet ( after winter yes,but a date/month ? and regs )
Or better : is the already a date planned when SN will operate their last B733 flight?
( maybe a idea of a daytrip - will the last one get a water salute ?? )

[brusselsairlinesfan]

Very very nice news ! It will be interesting to compare the brussels airlines july figures with the whole bru airport ones now ... And how did others european airlines perform on the same period ?

[sn26567]

And how did others european airlines perform on the same period ?

Austrian: +2.7%

http://www.austrianairlines.ag/Press/Pr ... &category=

[RoMax]

And how did others european airlines perform on the same period ?

Austrian: +2.7% (http://www.austrianairlines.ag/Press/Pr ... &category=)

Swiss achieved a 10,4% increase (July was also a record month for them).

Basicly, SN is growing faster than many/most other European airlines since early this year.

[Crosswind]

But they loose a lot of money... invests or...?

[RoMax]

But they loose a lot of money... invests or...?

They invested in the fleet, not only 'new' A319/A320's, but also new seats. They invested in Korongo, but that program is costing a lot of money while they are still not flying. Fuel costs are much higher than they expected for this year (and SN has a big fleet of fuel consuming aircraft: B737 and RJ's), but when you use that argument many people say: "yes but that's the same for everyone", indeed but did you see the financials of others...
So SN is growing fast, they are making a reall network carrier of themself, they increase their market share,... But on the financial side this is a bad year. But that doesn't mean their strategy of bigger aircraft and aggressive pricing has failed, not at all. SN is decreasing capacity this winter, and some members (or should I say, just Flanker) see this as a prove that SN's strategy failed. But SN will decrease capacity to save costs by returning some B737's and cutting capacity to holiday/summer destinations (so not the destinations where SN placed more A319's to replace RJ's), and these aircraft will be replaced by A319/A320 after winter. So I don't see where this is a prove of a failed strategy or that they are loosing a lot of money because of that strategy. Look at other airlines, MANY airlines are cutting in their capacity this winter to save fuel costs.

[tolipanebas]

Basicly, SN is growing faster than many/most other European airlines since early this year.

The most interesting part is not their load factor growth nor their capacity growth as such -for each of which you'll find more impressive figures from some airlines-, but the combination of both at the same time: it's pretty much unparallelled this year to see an airline add to its capacity with double digit percentage numbers AND not take any loadfactor hit from doing so, quite on the contrary even and what's more: although no official figures are posted, yields are also up, which is even more astonishing!

As such, the claim SN are simply dumping excess capacity on the market is completely false!
Let's just hope the ever variable fuel costs doesn't spoil the end game too much, because for once they do the right thing, they should not take a bashing for it. In this context, it is interesting to note fuel is back in the price range where SN had hoped it would be for much of this year: if I were them, I'd hedge now for a significant amount, just in case...especially as winter is coming soon!

What it proves most of all however, is that the sole reason why SN had such a dismal market share on many of their routes in comparison to their main competitor on the route, is not because of bad scheduling, lack of frequencies or poor product offering, but simply lack of sufficient capacity on their planes operating on the route. In the past, others have proposed fiddling to the frequencies, the schedules or installing a premium on board product, but in fact that's all just secundary at best for most pax! Having more capacity to offer to the market right when demand is there, will allow you to be far more aggressive and will thus stimulate your loadfactor straight away. And as you're just steeling away pax from your competitor, you won't have to lower your prices by much, thus yields won't take a hit neither, while at the same time the extra capacity allows you to aim for more connecting pax too which bring in easy money for hardly any extra costs at all. All this leads to the obvious conclusion it is indeed a good idea to up capacity on routes where competitors operate with larger capacity planes too, while at the same time you clearly need to be cautious and be willing to temporarily cut back as soon as market demand does no longer warrant the use of the bigger plane for seasonal reasons, which is what will be done during NOV to FEB, after which they will return full blast again as they have finally understood how this game is played, it seems....

[bruteboeing]

Do note that, the airplanes that are beeing returned also go trough a maintenance phase... wich is quite expensive

[RoMax]

Do note that, the airplanes that are beeing returned also go trough a maintenance phase... wich is quite expensive

But probably less expensive than operate them a whole winter to destinations wich have lower demand in winter...

[bruteboeing]

uffcourse