Brussels Airlines' second US destination

[Boeing767copilot]

I'm talking about extra reductions

[Flanker2]

It's still a new route for SN so only time will tell if this route can be successful, but it's quite clear already that together with UA, they have too much capacity during the winter.

I don't have any doubt in my mind that they would have been better off starting Hong Kong, in codeshare with Hainan. They would have put those A332's to better use, and they would have acquired both a significant Africa feed and cargo. That way, they can expand their reach into Asia.

I also think that Japan-Africa is a link that SN needs to consider urgently, because Japan has a high demand for imported fish, while Africa has a rising demand for Japanese equipment. That takes care of the hold.
On the pax front, Japanese businesses are very eager to expand their reach into Africa for high-value equipment and technologies but also to establish affordable manufacturing.

[Established02]

I don't have any doubt in my mind that they would have been better off starting Hong Kong, in codeshare with Hainan. They would have put those A332's to better use, and they would have acquired both a significant Africa feed and cargo. That way, they can expand their reach into Asia.

China has recently become the biggest importer of oil and within a few years it will be the biggest economy in the world. Due to the hopeless debt situation, the fate of the US is ultimately in the hands of China. In the not so far future the major financial and economical decisions will be taken in Asia and no longer in the US.

Even though HKG may be a valid destination for the BRU market, I guess the typical reply to your proposal will be that between Asia and Africa small players like SN & HU can not compete with the Gulf carriers / ET / KQ / TK ... who all have a major geographical advantage.

[FlightMate]

Hkg could be interesting for O&D traffic, as there is no direct flight presently.
But for connecting pax to Africa, SN would have to compete with EK which offers cheap tickets and a cheaper route to operate (less distance).
While I have no doubt there is money to be made for flights between asia and africa, I don't think SN will be eating that cake.

[Flanker2]

While true that EK can better cater to the needs of the Asia-Africa market, it doesn't yet have the network in Africa that SN has. SN has three times more destinations in black Africa if we leave aside South Africa.
Only 5 destinations overlap.

On the other side, EK is only starting to operate Tokyo and with low frequencies. On most Asian routes, they are already very busy with the Europe-Asia traffic that there is barely any capacity left to feed flights to Africa.
But I'm sure that in a few years, EK will be covering more ground in Africa, so SN will again be looking at a pile of lost opportunities, opportunities wasted in the pursuit of "prestige" in North America.

Short-term, TK is a bigger threat to Asia-Africa than EK, but TK is already giving SN a hard time in Europe-Africa. SN can hurt them back by restricting their growth in the Asia-Africa traffic, which will be their backbone to justify the African expansion.

I say Hong Kong to start with, but Shenzhen as second in codeshare with Star partner Shenzhen airlines, I even put it before Tokyo HND.
If they started HKG when they started JFK, and Shenzhen when they started IAD, they would be adding 3 A333's next year just to keep up with the extra demand on Africa.

It's a low risk proposition because the freight alone would be significant and it would go both ways, so even if the pax side takes time to find momentum, it wouldn't be a financial mess.

Gustin, please at least consider it thoroughly.

If it helps to have a visual example of what's going on in Africa:
Have you watched Jungle gold? It's about gold mining in Ghana and at a certain point, the American main guys in the movie have the land they rented for mining taken over by hundreds of Chinese workers armed with guns. That's 2 plane loads of Chinese pax right there, in one single mine in Ghana.
You see Chinese thieves, I see dollar signs for SN.

[b720]

you're watching too many Hollywood block busters

[Flanker2]

Reports state SN A333's operating the BRU-IAD with 25-30 pax, 50 pax.

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forum ... n/5989888/

What is it going to take to stop this madness
I gave SN the benefit of the doubt on IAD but now I have to raise a flag here.
Even if they can fill some of the flights, it takes a lot of full flights to make up for one empty flight.

And they want to add 2 more U.S. flights
Are they playing "how fast can you go down the hill"? They are winning!

[DannyVDB]

Flanker,

I will take the flight 3th week of March and will let you know ...

It is always dangerous to conclude based on examples.

Besdies, I often wondered why they send e.g. an A319 to some destinations when we see there are only pax (65 people) for filling the palne (50%), but then you notice that pax leaving the inbound flight are 120 people or so almost a full flight ...

Unless you have the full picture it is difficult to draw conclusions.

This said, it might be that the demand for a TATL flight in the evening is not so big as expected ... So we might see a shift to the morning connecting another city ...

Cheers,
Danny

[convair]

Feb is, I think, the quietest month on N-Atlantic. And they have cut 2 weekly from the Summer 5; only fly it on Tue, Fri and Sun this month. Does anyone have any idea of the l/f last summer?

[woutertheboy]

Feb is, I think, the quietest month on N-Atlantic. And they have cut 2 weekly from the Summer 5; only fly it on Tue, Fri and Sun this month. Does anyone have any idea of the l/f last summer?

I flew BRU-IAD-JFK last summer because it was way cheaper thanks to many promotions. L/F on BRU-IAD was around 60% in Y and 80% in J. IAD-BRU was 90% in Y and J was fully booked (100% in J)

Some explanation for people that don't understand these farecodes, Y = Economy and J = Business.

Greetings,
Wouter

[b-west]

It's hard to base your views solely on a few examples... I flew to Dakar on a nearly deserted A332, but when I flew back it was packed, including in business. So does the route perform well or not? Besides, load doesn't say a thing about the yields.

[SN539]

Reports state SN A333's operating the BRU-IAD with 25-30 pax, 50 pax.

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forum ... n/5989888/

I guess Gilles Patrick and you are the same person. You're just spending a lot of time in forum tu run a virulently hostile campaign againts SN. Why ? I don't know ...

[Flanker2]

I guess Gilles Patrick and you are the same person. You're just spending a lot of time in forum tu run a virulently hostile campaign againts SN. Why ? I don't know ...

Isn't it rude to tell someone who he is or is not?
It seems that SN is in a hostile campaign against itself and your supporting it. If you care, why aren't you concerned?
Apparently you don't seem concerned, so you would like this situation to continue? Do you work for KLM?

It's hard to base your views solely on a few examples... I flew to Dakar on a nearly deserted A332, but when I flew back it was packed, including in business. So does the route perform well or not? Besides, load doesn't say a thing about the yields.

An empty flight is never an isolated problem.
Consistency is a necessity in longhaul ops. 10% load factor on any single flight is bad and there are no yields that can compensate that. It also means that they are not able to dump cheap tickets to fill the capacity.

Even if February is a slow month, a month of this can make the rest of the year unsustainable.

[nordikcam]

I flew in may AMS RIO with KLM...only 70 passengers in that way...and more or less full back to AMS...

[Passenger]

It seems that SN is in a hostile campaign against itself...

Organizing a hostile campaign against itself... Lucky for you that you unable to understand what nonsense you have posted there. Like we say in Dutch: "zalig de armen van geest, want hen behoort het Rijk der Hemelen".

An empty flight is never an isolated problem. Consistency is a necessity in longhaul ops. 10% load factor on any single flight is bad and there are no yields that can compensate that. It also means that they are not able to dump cheap tickets to fill the capacity. Even if February is a slow month, a month of this can make the rest of the year unsustainable.

Somebody not familiar with Brussels Airlines posted on another forum "I saw only 20 to 30 people at the gate for a Brussels Airlines flight", another person said "yeah, me too", and you accept that as fact and you translate that into "10 procent load factor" and you assume that it's like that the whole month. Are you sure that this 20-30 pax were all the passengers from that flight? No. Are you sure that the Business Class passengers were already included in that 20-30 pax? No. Perhaps they were still waiting in the C Lounge. So once again, mister, you've found something that you can use for your twice daily anti Brussels Airlines shit, and there you go.

If you want discuss Brussels Airlines' load factor, please use published figures, example published by the AEA.

[Inquirer]

I have to agree with what has been said above.

One sample is hardly representative and as was already pointed out: these are said to be the quietest weeks of the year, hence the cutback to their regular schedule. Maybe they should have cut it for a couple of weeks altogether? Or maybe this wasn't possible due to contractual obligations with big and important clients?

With so few factual information at hands it's difficult to say something meaningful on the overall profitability on a yearly basis like some want to do (the flights seemed quite full over the summer?), but I am sure that if things are really staying below target for a protracted period of time, they will act, so I don't think there's a need to become hysteric, especially not if you've first been calling for a more explanatory approach to their business development first?

A final remark:
Taking into account Convair's post, I find the report on airliners.com very strange to start with, since the author claims to have seen the boarding of the flight on Thursday, but if you check online, the scheduled flight on Thursdays is actually cancelled from mid January till the end of February????
So either they operated a flight for one reason or another which officially didn't exist any longer, or the author saw the boarding of some flight other than the one he thought it was.
Strange, to say the least!

[Flanker2]

SN has been very secretive about their TATL performance until now.
All we know is that it's been challenging and IAD is lossmaking, I believe De Tijd reported that.

[YYZ727]

'De Standaard' reported on the Washington route in a sidebar next to the big Brussels Airlines Article on january 31st. It said Brussels Airlines wasn't doing as good as expected on this route and that they might try changing the flight to a morning flight.

[webstermc]

I just read the mentioned article in 'De Standaard' about the DC flight (I can't believed I missed this, but this was a bit hidden in their ipad verssion). This was said:

Title: Problem child DC

- the new DC route is not performing bad, but not as good as hoped for
- During Summer, the flight is performing good, but during winter, there are no tourists (business should perform OK).
- the route is more seasonal then expected
- One option is to change the flight to a morning flight, or changing to other hours with better connection possibilities
- the other option is making the flight seasonal
- but it takse +/- 1,5 years before a flight should become profitable, so canceling the flight is no option yet.
- you need to give it some time.

[airDD]

And the DC flight is part of the joint venture with United & Lufthansa, so loss & income are shared, so I don't think it is hurting Brussels Airlines directly so much.