Jet Airways out of Brussels

[Airbus330lover]

"Win a car" to reach AMS without train or connection ?

[sn26567]

Any idea of the leave date ?

The article in De Telegraaf says "possibly already at the start of the winter season".

What strikes me is that a former KLM executive who is now adviser at Jet Airways brokered the deal to make AMS a mega-hub of SkyTeam companies and Jet Airways between India, Europe and North America.

Why was Star Alliance not able to retain Jet Airways at BRU in a similar deal? Lack of leadership?

[RoMax]

Why was Star Alliance not able to retain Jet Airways at BRU in a similar deal? Lack of leadership?

Because BRU and SN don't have the support of the big leaders of the alliance. United and Jet don't even codeshare on the BRU flights. LH wants India as much as possible to/from Germany and even if they offer MUC, AMS is more attractive.

In Amsterdam you have a combination of many things. It's the second largest Skyteam hub in Europe. Delta and KLM already have a cooperation for AMS-BOM and of course Delta has their transatlantic hub in Amsterdam. Etihad became a big Air France-KLM partner (don't call it a Skyteam partner...EY looks at airlines and airline groups, not at alliances, at least, not for themself, AB and 9W are other things). AMS has the room and capacity. AMS lacks some Indian routes/capacity, but it does have the connection possibilities to tens of destinations in Europa and North-America of which BRU can only dream.

Sure Star Alliance wants Jet, sure BRU and SN want to keep Jet. But if a competing hub can offer more, the choice is simple, especially when your big investor (EY) is focussing on that specific hub. There is no other Star hub in Europe that can offer what AMS can offer, unless LH gives their full support. Which they will not do, because they want India for themself (MUC is a possibility, but than again, AMS is more attractive) and if they work too much with Jet, forgetting about Air India, they will face some very angry Indian people that will prevent them once again to expand in one of their most important Asian markets.

[sn-remember]

A good deal is a win-win deal.
DL and 9W will codeshare on a similar basis as DL and KL do (so successfully). Connectivity offered at AMS is indeed at least 3 fold as to that offered in BRU.
And as already mentioned neither UA nor AC were codesharing with 9W at BRU. The SN codeharing is not as extended as the kl''s one migt be in AMS. Business extensions and opportunities tend to profit the big players most.
You can't say they did not try hard, but not with the good Tools, Star alliance did not enter any sort of JV deal in BRU. 9W had to downsize their ambitions, BLR was shortlived and MAA recently discontinued.
But in fine, what makes the difference is that the Dutch have/are by far better managers than the Belgians. The fault ultimately lies there imo. And greatly explains the state of B. civil aviation.

[sn-remember]

Ehmz, ACC was tried before, and didn't work out.
About the rest: keep on dreaming...

As long as intelligent input will be discarded as dreaming, no progress can happen. But we know here is not the proper audience to develop a business case, it was not really intended as such anyways. Just a basis for thought.
Acc was indeed briefly tried but with VX now pulling out, the context is changed. LH could drop their 737 link which is not really key to them in favour of a sn route.
We could alternatively consider :
bru-oua-abj and bru-acc-lfw/coo althogh I believe a daily A332 bru-acc-coo could ultimately succeed.
I agree that routes like pvg,nrt,even jnb are currently a bit far fetched .. but certainly not a dream.

[OO-ITR]

Ehmz, ACC was tried before, and didn't work out.
About the rest: keep on dreaming...

As long as intelligent input will be discarded as dreaming, no progress can happen. But we know here is not the proper audience to develop a business case, it was not really intended as such anyways. Just a basis for thought.
Acc was indeed briefly tried but with VX now pulling out, the context is changed. LH could drop their 737 link which is not really key to them in favour of a sn route.
We could alternatively consider :
bru-oua-abj and bru-acc-lfw/coo althogh I believe a daily A332 bru-acc-coo could ultimately succeed.
I agree that routes like pvg,nrt,even jnb are currently a bit far fetched .. but certainly not a dream.

Yes and the LH flight to ACC is oprated by Privatair.
To my knowledge ACC was stopped because there was too much competition on the route.

[liege-bierset]

sn-remember rightly said:

But in fine, what makes the difference is that the Dutch have/are by far better managers than the Belgians. The fault ultimately lies there imo. And greatly explains the state of B. civil aviation.

This is unfortunately true. If you look at the "Cargo Business", this is exactly the same dominance.(not to say arrogance)
They want all, they get all and even MST are left with a few crumbles...sad.

[Passenger]

Actually, it's a business driven decision.

1.
Etihad has bought 24% of the Jet Airways shares for 379 mio USD.
Etihad has bought slots at LHR from Jet Airways for 70 mio USD.
Etihad has bought a majority stake from the Jet Privilege program for 150 mio USD.

2.
Etihad has opened a hub at AMS. The more passengers this hub can generate, the cheaper the overall costs become. By moving Jet Airways from BRU to AMS, Etihad gets a better return for the 597 mio USD investment.

3.
As "new" airlines at AMS, both Etihad and Jet Airways will benefit from the incentives an airport is allowed to give to new carriers. At BRU, Jet Airways now has to pay the full fare.

[sn-remember]

Indeed, EY went shopping.
But don't get confused, they are not opening a hub at AMS.
Abudhabi as such generates little traffic, it's peanuts.
What EY are interested in is feeding their (currently not too successfull) AUH hub. From AF/KL/AZ markets on the west front and from 9W markets on the east front. They (EY) are the obvious winners of this operation.
To make it happen, they had to invest in 9W, effectively taking control of them.
Then, they had a good enough bargaining tool to sell their case to AF, the carrot being
(1) eastwards : AUH now offers through traffic to the East and importantly to lots of secondary indian markets.
(2) westwards : making AMS the 9W main hub and integrating it with DL and KL. This traffic could as well have flown through AUH but obviuosly the connectivity scope would have been much more narrow.
DL gains increased indian connectivity at AMS, maybe some direct links to AUH are in the pipeline, replacing their AMS-BOM leg ?
9W will increase revenue and presence in Europe and America through their new AMS installation.
As a side note, I wonder if AB was part of the deal.. it's no secret ST wants them in.
--
Me thinks that UA/SN/AC together with 9W could have operated a "good enough" joined business at BRU through intensive code sharing.
Of course now we have the added complexity of a 3d party which happens to be the driving force and the main winner : EY.
I expect AF/KL/AZ/DL to open new routes to AUH from their respective hubs and EY to open additional new routes to secondary markets in France, Italy, the US.

[Flanker2]

I think that the EY model will fail.
They are trying to make Skyteam their own and trying too hard to secure a strong foothold in Europe, through their participation in Air Berlin and their close cooperation with AF/KL.

EY is thus trying to manage a holding in which they control mutual interests within a group to form a giant group. Even if 9W moves to AMS, they will not be successful with their current scissor hub system, despite all the additional U.S. connections.

What 9W needs is a strong hub in India (ideally in Delhi) from where they can fly direct routes to the U.S. with 77W. They also need to dump their A332's as soon as the B788's arrive, because with their business model of flying low-yield routes, the A332 will not make money.

[sn-remember]

There is a connectivity problem at DEL..
The new terminal is great but transiting is not at all seamless. They should really take their act together because they have achieved 90% of the job and fail on internal aspects of organising pax flows within the airport plus the usual indian bureaucracy... Very stupid and damaging.
Scissor hubbing is an attractive alternative specially in a convenient european hub .. Hmmm
And don't forget the ME3, EK in particular being so popular with the Indians...
I always thought they 'd be better off with the A333. More cargo and more Y-pax stuffing. The 788 will do very well.

[OO-ITR]

There is a connectivity problem at DEL..
The new terminal is great but transiting is not at all seamless. They should really take their act together because they have achieved 90% of the job and fail on internal aspects of organising pax flows within the airport plus the usual indian bureaucracy... Very stupid and damaging.
Scissor hubbing is an attractive alternative specially in a convenient european hub .. Hmmm
And don't forget the ME3, EK in particular being so popular with the Indians...
I always thought they 'd be better off with the A333. More cargo and more Y-pax stuffing. The 788 will do very well.

Now I understand why they wanted to keep an European hub and choose to more their hub from BRU to AMS. Probably AF/KL forced the move since 9Wneeded an European hub and KL/AF are working closely together.
When they purchased a part in 9W, I never understood why they wanted to keep a hug in Europe. Thought that EY wanted to funnel all the Indian pax through their hub in AUH...

[Flanker2]

One has to weigh convenience with profit potential.

A DEL-AMS-JFK routing is 5% longer in great circle terms than a DEL-JFK routing.
In reality it's more like 10%, if you count in NAT OS detour and all the time wasted flying the descent into AMS, etc...
Additional costs of operating a hub outside of your own territory, paying expensive wages and operating costs, expensive handling costs, etc...

A scissor hub is convenient, but it's expensive and hell to manage capacity, demand and yields.
The little advantage in convenience that it brings will IMO make it impossible to make money with.

I said DEL because that's the only realistically located hub, if you want to be able to fly to the U.S. East Coast with B77W. From DEL, on a great circle track you can bypass the NAT OS system without a detour, and hence fly to/from the U.S. when you want, the way you want.
From DEL, you can also serve the West Coast reliably.

If we compare a scissor hub with a hub in DEL or flying EK through DXB, we once again stumble across the question of asking oneself what the pax prefer. I'd rather sit 12-15 hours on a B77W and then on a B737, or 12 hour in a B77W/A380 and 4 hours on a B77W, than 8 hours to connect in Europe onto another 8 hour flight.

I hence think that it's much better to locate an international hub in DEL to fly directly to the U.S. from there. Much easier to manage yields-wise and operationally, your feeding flights will also be full of high-yield domestic O&D.

[sn-remember]

It makes sense for 9W to develop around a european hub .. Connectivity as was mentioned but also cost and attractivity. Pax like to break their long trip Midway, for a few hours walk or a stop over(I am one of those too) and medium hauls are less fuel-heavy. The 333 is nice for those missions.
But of course AUH will also be an option. With lots of future growth now possible .. indeed the indian market is in the youth curve, lots of potential...

[convair]

What is the additional fuel consumption/cost of a non-stop DEL-NYC vs a stopover in AMS/BRU?

[sn-remember]

Flanker :
I agree with your critic of scissor hubbing. In fact it's a very rare occurrence and indeed unconvenient from a business perspective (although it has the advantages I already mentioned in the case of 9W).
Maybe what we will se regarding the 9W setup in AMS is a sort of dual partnership "à la QF_EK", 9W being limited to AMS and no further except JFK. Depending on their marketing structure, pricing and overall demand, they could offer 1 wave or 2 waves of flights from AMS to 4 or 5 indian cities, for instance :
wave 1 (morning ) would cover del/bom/maa/hyd/ccu
wave 2 (mid-afternoon ) del/bom/blr
Those waves would synchronise nicely with the morning and afternoon-evening flights to/from N-America offered by KL/DL.
Europe and UK are always nicely covered at AMS.
That I think could be the long term viable solution.
.
Additionally via AUH, the indian connectivity is much wider (10 cities or so) so EY would extensively profit from the indian feeding. On the US, they already offer yyz,ord,jfk,iad.
I expect new US destinations from AUH (jointly operated by EY and DL) : dtw/atl/iah/sfo/lax. Again what would be the share of 9W ? To be defined ...
On Europe and ME, well they have good opportunities to most countries, Germany included (through their stake in AB), France and Italy upcoming.

[LJ]

I hence think that it's much better to locate an international hub in DEL to fly directly to the U.S. from there. Much easier to manage yields-wise and operationally, your feeding flights will also be full of high-yield domestic O&D.

However, there is not much high yield traffic. Ask AI, UA and AA about their yields on nonstop US - India flights andf they tell you it's not a money maker. The competition is fierce and the India - US market is very price sensitive. Finally, it's not in the interest for EY to have nonstop India - US flights.

I place my bet on the fact that the BRU hub will be moved to AUH and the YYZ flight will go via AMS. In addition, 9W will use AMS for its European gateway and fly to AMS from both BOM and DEL.

I think that the EY model will fail.

I think you'll be surprised.

[sn-remember]

What is the additional fuel consumption/cost of a non-stop DEL-NYC vs a stopover in AMS/BRU?

to OOITR, Flanker
I've no real idea but I think it would amount to roughly the same.
Of course Flanker takes the most significant routing, del-jfk.
But del o/d traffic is only a part of the picture.
Let's take a common route for instance hyd-jfk (via del or bru or auh)
hyd-del-jfk is 8101 mi 16:18
hyd-bru-jfk is 8275 mi 16:39
hyd-auh-jfk is : 8480 mi 17:03
The flight time overhead via bru would be roughly 20 minutes + approach overhead roughly 30 minutes. Soo maximum 1 hour overhead,
I think it can compensate the fuel saving but i've not the Tools to make the precise computation.
BTW, Flanker, what is NAT OS detour ?

--
However we have more extreme routings also, for instance DEL-SFO vs DEL-AMS-SFO
This is a VERY significant overhead of 23% = roughly 4 hours flight time !
del-sfo is 7706 mi 15:30
del-ams-sfo is 9435 mi 18:59 (+22.4%)
del-auh-sfo is 9576 mi 19:16 (+24.3%)
del-pek-sfo is 8283 mi 16:40 (+7.5%)
SO let's draw some preliminary conclusions:
1. Hubbing in BRU/AMS is ok for NA East coast not for west coast
2. Hubbing in BRU/AMS is slightly cost saving vs AUH (more so for north India) for East coast
3. Hubbing in BRU/AMS for NA west coast is as much costly as via AUH (24% overhead compared to del nonstop) The next best option is pek with only 7% overhead ( 1 hr flight time)
BUT (important but)
1. Since there is NO nonstop flight to west coast from DEL
2. Since PEK is very poorly connected to India
Therefore AMS (or BRU) is still an option for West coast, comparable to DXB (which is stlightly better suited)
For how long? That's another question.
--
From DEL AI already serves nonstop flights to JFK and ORD.
My guess is that SFO is largely overdue.

[sn-remember]

I place my bet on the fact that the BRU hub will be moved to AUH and the YYZ flight will go via AMS. In addition, 9W will use AMS for its European gateway and fly to AMS from both BOM and DEL.

So you mean 9W will fly auh-jfk and ams-bom/del/yyz ?

My bet is they will start with 1 morning wave to/from ams. Probably linking a bunch of 4 to 5 cities.
Bom and del seems obvious however DL is in the way ... So I think DL will drop their ams-bom flight and consider a link to auh (maybe atl-auh) instead. The KL flight to DEL is early afternoon so no collision here.
Additionally I expect 2 or 3 cities: maa,blr,ccu or hyd.
But there is ample room for business development.
Second leg from ams would be jfk and probably yyz. It worked in BRU, so I see no reason it would'nt in ams.
As for bru ops, I fear it will be dropped.
A business case for UA maybe on the same pattern that DL used to operate out of AMS ?

[sn-remember]

They also need to dump their A332's as soon as the B788's arrive, because with their business model of flying low-yield routes, the A332 will not make money.

On after thought, I wonder if the B789 would not be a better option for them.
You don't replace A332s with B788s, do you ?