Brussels Airlines future and financial perspective

[airazurxtror]

This is exactly what Gustin was saying end october 2014 (see page 50 of this topic) :

In an interview to De Tijd,
(...)
Gustin also reiterates aiming at profit in 2015. In 2013 the loss was curtailed from 90 to 21 million. It should be reduced further in 2014, only to re-establish positive numbers from next year. In 2018 he expects a net profit of 50 million euros.

[tolipanebas]

Yet growth for the sake of growth doesnt mean anything. Ask anybody who doesnt work for SN but IN the industry if they are willing to jump ship to SN and the answer will be: no, I will not take that risk.

I actually know quite a few people who have made that very decision. On quite some levels within the company(-ies) too...
Every company has advantages and disadvantages. Putting them against each other is a decision everybody needs to make for themselves.

Yes so do I, because they ran out of temporary contracts at JAF and they didn't have another choice than to start doing temporary contracts at SN

ROTFL,
Your timing is less then perfect to say the least!
80 cabin crew members were given a permanent contract this morning in support of our continued expansion at BRU. This is how our explosive growth creates real Belgian jobs: not indirectly through some questionable formula some lobbygroup was paid to came up with, but straight on the company's payroll. More is to follow.

[Flanker2]

80 cabin crew members were given a permanent contract this morning in support of our continued expansion at BRU. This is how our explosive growth creates real Belgian jobs: not indirectly through some questionable formula some lobbygroup was paid to came up with, but straight on the company's payroll. More is to follow.

Cabin crew staff turnover is quite big, so how do you know that these are not replacing staff who has quit in the past years? 80 CC members out of how many? 1200? You can't call this an explosive growth, it's just yearly staff turnover and a few new jobs. People in horeca doing similar jobs earn tips, have higher payscales and more stable work hours, so you can't call these jobs "quality jobs".

In addition, remind us how many jobs were lost in the slimlining during the past 3 years?

So I would wait a few more years before I would paint SN as a Messiah of job creation in Belgium.

[sean1982]

ROFL I've been on my companies payroll for 11 years allready at a much higher wage

And how many pilots? And I dont mean on a dodgy summercontract? Some of FR's pilots may not be employed directly by Ryanair but at least they have a garantueed full year employment with high jobsecurity. Just ask some of your (smart) ex-colleagues at BRU how their paycheck and roster stability improved

[Inquirer]

Relax a bit, guys; don't be provoked so easily!
Also, no need to post condescending remarks about 80 new jobs, flanker.
They are very much welcome in Belgium, I'd say?
Btw- with over 3000+ people employed, I'd say they already are a very important job creator today?
It's the equivalent of a very large car factory, you know?
So it's definitely good news to see them add to that.

[Flanker2]

Inquirer: yes and no.
3500 jobs are good, but there are too many low quality jobs either due to bad conditions or low wages. We all use Horeca as the benchmark between good and bad jobs, and unfortunately, too many jobs at SN and JAF are below the Horeca threshold.

Like I said many times before, aviation is not a good sector to invest into for the creation of sustainable, good jobs. The government might as well use the same subsidies to build hotels and restaurants, the returns will be better.

Like I said before, Wallonia/Belgium should invest in a world-class hospital facility with the best doctors and nurses, the best equipment, mirroring world-class facilities in the USA like the Clevelande Clinic.
You create good jobs and you put Belgium on the map. That by itself would generate more passenger and cargo traffic for aviation in Belgium than investing directly into airlines and airports. Cleveland sees regular visits from privately owned B747SP, and they're no there for a visit to the mall in downtown Cleveland.

[sean1982]

ROTFL,
Your timing is less then perfect to say the least!
80 cabin crew members were given a permanent contract this morning in support of our continued expansion at BRU. This is how our explosive growth creates real Belgian jobs: not indirectly through some questionable formula some lobbygroup was paid to came up with, but straight on the company's payroll. More is to follow.

And to put things in perspective ... We are training 700 cabin crew at the moment ... For a permanent position

[Avroflyer]

ROTFL,
Your timing is less then perfect to say the least!
80 cabin crew members were given a permanent contract this morning in support of our continued expansion at BRU. This is how our explosive growth creates real Belgian jobs: not indirectly through some questionable formula some lobbygroup was paid to came up with, but straight on the company's payroll. More is to follow.

And to put things in perspective ... We are training 700 cabin crew at the moment ... For a permanent position

Hi ,

I personally think that it's wrong to compare a airline of your size with Brussels Airlines...

Not to forget that we also have 4 an initio groups in training + direct entries coming up next month and just finished a new recruitment campaign for cabin crew .

So we're not hiring at the rate that you guys do but we aren't doing bad either for a company which is a lot smaller than yours

[sean1982]

Im not saying that at all ... It's good and nice to see SN doing well. I just have a problem with panebas his "superior" attitude

[Avroflyer]

I probably misunderstood your point ( letting my cabin crew hart speak too fast haha)

But I'm glad to hear that and also glad that you guys are doing it well too despite the commercial "battle" between the companies

[sean1982]

We will probably be training around 2000 cabin crew this spring and summer both for turn over and expansion for the whole of europe, so this is indeed not comparable.

And you know what, companies aside, at the end of the day we're all here for the same purpose which is to transport our customers from A to B as safe and comfortable as possible. I have respect for every crew member in every airline, as long as I get treated with the same respect

[Boeing767copilot]

And meanwhile in the SN corridors:

Losses in 2014 were approximately 20 mio euro.
Without state aid: approximately 36 mio euro.

[crew1990]

how much was the lost in 2013?

[Boeing767copilot]

Net results

2012: -59.9 million euro
2013: -21.95 million euro

[sean1982]

http://flightlevel.be/42616/brussels-ai ... -toekomst/

Interesting article on flightlevel ... What was said here on the forum seems to be true. Growth for the sake of growth means nothing. European yields are down 9% less than previous years. As the article mentions on the routes where competitors entered llike FR and VY .. Barcelona for example yields are 20-25% down. I'm sure the competitors will be happy to hear that.

[teach]

http://flightlevel.be/42616/brussels-ai ... -toekomst/

Interesting article on flightlevel ... What was said here on the forum seems to be true. Growth for the sake of growth means nothing. European yields are down 9% less than previous years. As the article mentions on the routes where competitors entered llike FR and VY .. Barcelona for example yields are 20-25% down. I'm sure the competitors will be happy to hear that.

Right. I'm not so sure though they'll be so happy to hear that despite those lower yields, their financial performance is actually improving, and they're well on their way to becoming profitable again.

Or, how one can interpret the same article in two entirely different ways, depending on one's viewpoint, i.e. one viewpoint of someone who desperately wants to see SN fail, the other from someone who does not get a kick out of wanting other airlines to fail.

[sean1982]

I don't want to see them fail at all? Where do you read that? I'm just saying that yields are down despite higher loadfactors and quite severly on some flights. That's all.

[nordikcam]

What is exactly this "New plan 2017 " with 10-12 A330 and 28 A32F ? Interesting !

[RoMax]

Interesting article on flightlevel ... What was said here on the forum seems to be true. Growth for the sake of growth means nothing. European yields are down 9% less than previous years. As the article mentions on the routes where competitors entered llike FR and VY .. Barcelona for example yields are 20-25% down. I'm sure the competitors will be happy to hear that.

I don't want to see them fail at all? Where do you read that? I'm just saying that yields are down despite higher loadfactors and quite severly on some flights. That's all.

You have read this forum in 2014 as well...nobody expected yields to rise, or even to stay stable. Competition pushed ticket prices down and SN introduced its new short haul ticket offer which starts with lower base prices. So dropping yields or nothing special, altough of course 20-25% on some routes is simply said 'bad'.
I'm quite convinced that FR and VY didn't need this article to figure that out either.

Their overal financial performance improved, despite the dropping yields. Why? Very simple, because once again conclusions are drawn way to fast from operational data (like LF) and a drop in yields. Costs are not taken in consideration. If the article is right, SN's losses decreased from over 20 million in 2013 to 4-5 million in 2014 (or from 35-40 million to 20 million when excluding the state aid). That's more interesting than the drop in yields. Some routes are probably not performing well, but this basic yield data also doesn't give an idea of how routes performed before and after the introduction of the new product types. I imagine that there is a huge difference.

[Flanker2]

Their overal financial performance improved, despite the dropping yields. Why? Very simple, because once again conclusions are drawn way to fast from operational data (like LF) and a drop in yields. Costs are not taken in consideration. If the article is right, SN's losses decreased from over 20 million in 2013 to 4-5 million in 2014 (or from 35-40 million to 20 million when excluding the state aid).

I think that you are drawing conclusions too fast based on this article.
I think that the final result will be very similar to 2013, despite this article's estimate of such a low loss.

In addition, the article confirms what I feared about North America: the best it can do is break even, there's little no money to be made there and it was a complete waste of energy and resources. In addition, predictably unpredictable circumstances have turned against SN as Ebola has chased away many North American travellers.

SN has left the door wide open for TK, which seems to be establishing very well in Africa, especially as it can combine feed from both Asia and Europe. This will cost SN in the long term.

As for 10-12 A330's, I'll believe it when I see it.
IMO it won't happen, simply because SN has no-where to send them to. An additional aircraft for Africa should be possible, and perhaps they want to embark on an another useless connection to Canada, while leaving important connections to Asia wide-open for the competition? Ok then, that's 10-12 but it's a stupid 10-12.

A profit of 1.5 million in 2015? That's also not realistically correct. SN should be able to easily turn a 10-20 million profit in 2015, with oil prices where they are.