Ryanair at Brussels Airport

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tolipanebas
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by tolipanebas »

No need to believe anything sean, swissport still runs on the old Sabena software; we can look straight into your figures, so no need to pull out a show here, manual loadsheet or not. ;)

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RoMax
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by RoMax »

Sean_DM wrote:It was, Flightlevels numbers we're incorrect
Outbound flights were close, but inbound flights were far from close. Of course that's partly the start up effect.

But as I said before. With the start of the holidays and the extremely low prices which are by far not able to generate high yields (even when a share of the tickets is sold at a higher price, FR sold too much tickets for low prices), it's not difficult to generate high loadfactors.

SNam
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by SNam »

tolipanebas wrote:No need to believe anything sean, swissport still runs on the old Sabena software; we can look straight into your figures, so no need to pull out a show here, manual loadsheet or not. ;)
If you can check the software, then you saw that the outbound flights were more or less full? Inbound was a bit less but as far as i could see then they were close to full... Today 3 flights, 170 pax and more.

Regards,

Sean_DM
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by Sean_DM »

SNam wrote:
tolipanebas wrote:No need to believe anything sean, swissport still runs on the old Sabena software; we can look straight into your figures, so no need to pull out a show here, manual loadsheet or not. ;)
If you can check the software, then you saw that the outbound flights were more or less full? Inbound was a bit less but as far as i could see then they were close to full... Today 3 flights, 170 pax and more.

Regards,


I rest my case

cnc
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by cnc »

btw SNam what is the reason for the manual loadsheets if gestion creates the flights in DCS anyway?

SNam
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by SNam »

Manual loadsheet is just standard Ryanair procedure.

DCS is for loadmessages to the destinations and for boarding, check in, etc. Heard that Ryanair is looking for an electronic load sheet solution in the future.

cnc
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by cnc »

yes but for FR it doesn't matter how the loadsheet is made as long as the pilots get the correct numbers

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sn26567
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by sn26567 »

Sean_DM wrote:Nobody so far has had to pay extra for all of the things you mentioned as FR doesn't not care so much about these rules anymore.
On the very first day I was at BRU (you might have seen my report elsewhere on this site) and I saw with my own eyes passengers that were surprised by the amount they had to pay extra for their checked baggage, as they had not taken the precaution to pre-register their bags. They entered in a discussion with the Swissport check-in agent and had no other issue than to pay upfront.
André
ex Sabena #26567

airazurxtror
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by airazurxtror »

What is the business or the new air route that make a profit from the very first days of it opening ?
Ryanair has the financial power to sustain losses until the routes are profitable, which should not take too long. I bet a lot of people in Belgium are not yet aware that Ryanair is at BRU.
Some Luchtzakers here desperately try to persuade themselves that Ryanair will fail at Brussels - it's only wishful thinking. (A year ago, they were trying to persuade themselves that Ryanair would never be allowed at BRU !).
But one can understand that they are scared, if they are connected with Brussels Airlines ...
IF IT AIN'T BOEING, I'M NOT GOING.

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RoMax
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by RoMax »

airazurxtror wrote: Some Luchtzakers here desperately try to persuade themselves that Ryanair will fail at Brussels - it's only wishful thinking.
Oh well in my case, I don't think FR will really fail at BRU. But some members try to claim that their BRU base is a financial and operational success from the start...that's simply not true, they are not financialy succesfull on these routes now.

But no, I never said I think they will fail at BRU, if you (or someone else) thinks otherwise, I advise to read my posts again. Of course I'm not saying no one says/thinks FR will fail at BRU.
But one can understand that they are scared, if they are connected with Brussels Airlines ...
With the current route offer, SN is not going to be the big loser.
Of course it has to be seen which destinations will follow at BRU next winter season, but SN has coped quite well with for example EZY on routes like GVA, Berlin, BSL, MXP, LYS, TLS,... which attacks SN in it's more profitable business sector. So with some adjustments to their product offer and an effort to keep their costs low, FR will not bring SN down unless they dump a lot of capacity on the market at huge losses. It's not like SN has not been competing with FR before, the difference is that the competition is now right besides them instead of slightly further and more hidden away.
And just to be clear, I don't have any relation with SN like some other members at this forum.

Sean_DM
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by Sean_DM »

sn26567 wrote:
Sean_DM wrote:Nobody so far has had to pay extra for all of the things you mentioned as FR doesn't not care so much about these rules anymore.
On the very first day I was at BRU (you might have seen my report elsewhere on this site) and I saw with my own eyes passengers that were surprised by the amount they had to pay extra for their checked baggage, as they had not taken the precaution to pre-register their bags. They entered in a discussion with the Swissport check-in agent and had no other issue than to pay upfront.
You are pulling my words out of context, once again.
There is a big difference with booking no bag and than showing up with one and booking one and showing up with one that is slightly overweight or oversized.

There are only 4 things left when booking:
1. Add a bag
2. Reserve a Seat
3. Travel insurance
4. Sports equipment or special assistance.

Not too difficult I think? You dont go to McDonald's to order a burger without bacon and then argue that there is no bacon

Sean_DM
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by Sean_DM »

RoMax wrote: With the current route offer, SN is not going to be the big loser.
Of course it has to be seen which destinations will follow at BRU next winter season, but SN has coped quite well with for example EZY on routes like GVA, Berlin, BSL, MXP, LYS, TLS,... which attacks SN in it's more profitable business sector. So with some adjustments to their product offer and an effort to keep their costs low, FR will not bring SN down unless they dump a lot of capacity on the market at huge losses. It's not like SN has not been competing with FR before, the difference is that the competition is now right besides them instead of slightly further and more hidden away.
And just to be clear, I don't have any relation with SN like some other members at this forum.
SN is not and will not be the "target" if O'Leary says on the first press conference: SN is too small for us too worry about, he is serious

The cookie is big enough to share.

brusselsairlinesfan
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by brusselsairlinesfan »

Passenger wrote:
b720 wrote:I think that first and foremost it is traffic cannibalised from its own operation at CRL. I guess that all of their pax originating north of Brussels, will most probably shift to BRU. Add to that the dirt cheap prices will attract some of their own clients, pus newly generated business and some from all other airlines. I think it will be more interesting to observe load factor and operations at CRL in the future, than those of SN or others in BRU.
Indeed. A few years ago, CRL-manager Buelens said that 65% of the CRL-clients come from Brussels or Flanders. So it's quite normal that they will shift to BRU. The most important figure that Dublin now will look at, is “do we have first-time-clients for our BRU-flights, or had they flown with us before?” Translated: “do we hurt the competition at BRU with our dumping prices, or are we just giving away money to existing clients who were willing to buy a more expensive ticket?”
RoMax wrote:It will be a combination. The price battle at BRU resulted in extremely low prices (especially from FR which has been selling quite some tickets which do not even cover the airport charges), which in its turn resulted in a lot of people buying tickets for a trip they maybe wouldn't have made without these low prices at BRU. Also FR will see without doubt less pax at CRL (maybe not already, but certainly this summer, capacity at CRL will be lower as well). And probably also some pax are stolen away from the carriers which were already operating on these routes from BRU. The loadfactors indeed look good, but that says nothing about the real performance of the routes yet. Many of these tickets were sold at rock bottom prices on which FR makes a significant loss. It would be interesting to know the yields, but of course that's FR management information only.
“It’s very normal that Ryanair got this 80% overall load factor: they sold at real dumping prices during the last weeks”. This is not my statement, but from Thierry Vanelslander, professor Transport Economics at the University Antwerpen, in Het Nieuwsblad 28/02/2014.

One doens’t need a computer to calculate the yield of these first flights: they’re below zero. Unless 50% of the passengers forgot to print their boarding pass at home, hadn’t checked in their luggage online, made a spelling error in their name, arrived at the gate with overseized hand luggage, etc.

The only winners in this battle so far are the passengers (quote from professor Vanelslander).

The biggest looser will be CRL, and the dismissal of David Gering (official “ex” FR) is a clear sign that CRL is very unhappy with Ryanair’s decision to open a second Belgian station.
Very important facts to me! Obviously if 65pc of the FR CRL pax do come from both Brussels and Flanders, CRL Will clearly feel the pain in terms of traffic figures!

teddybAIR
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by teddybAIR »

I just booked a visit to family who live on Mallorca. Outbound flight 31/05, inbound flight 05/06. I have compared the different operators for the flights and Ryanair was clearly the cheapes one for comparable services. I took the different extra's (travel insurance for all three pax and checked in a 15kg bag) and it came about 85€ cheaper than with JAF.
However, I flown JAF very frequently in the past and given the fact that I'm very pleased with their service, I decided that the switch was not worth the 85€. So in all honesty: Ryanair currently indeed offers tickets that are significantly below the price you could get without them operating from BRU. But for me personally it's not worth the switch. I can imagine that for others it is though, as is proven by their load factors which are simply impressive!
Gotta love how entrepreneurial RYR is in opening a new base and creating a lot of buzz around it. All belgian aviation fora are talking about nothing else than RYR :D

Inquirer
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by Inquirer »

A brief reply, because my wife doesn't want me to spend too much time online during our citybreak to Rome. ;-)

1- yes we took the brussels airlines flight.

2- I'll do a 'loadcheck' on our return flight too.

3- it's a holiday period indeed, so loadfactors are probably high on all routes to the sun right now.

4- let's not fall into the trap of blindly believing all the corporate communications.
After just a few days, it's too early to claim victory, but we have for sure seen several demonstrations of how we are lead to believe certain things which are only later found to be showing part of the full picture only, be it on loads, customer behaviour, or revenues/yields.

5- don't forget the real fight still has to start.
Europe's most profitable airline Vueling still needs to start up their base in BRU and that will hurt the established airlines (including ryanair) because their product is appealing to more types of customers.

6- CRL will indeed suffer this winter once more flights are moved to BRU and whatever is filling the void there is going to be far more seasonal and thin, if anything at all even. It's telling the CEO of the airport (and ex-ryanair) got fired recently: is CRL starting the see where this risks leading to and thus feeling betrayed? seriously, what did they expect?

Well, I'm off to the eternal city now!

Stij
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by Stij »

Inquirer wrote:... is CRL starting the see where this risks leading to and thus feeling betrayed? seriously, what did they expect? ...
They actually knew this risk and were busy trying to diversify... but to late to little???

I don't think they'll leave CRL completely: flights to Morocco and other VFR flights will remain, but the others...

Cheers,

Stij

teddybAIR
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by teddybAIR »

How many of their A/C are based at CRL?

airazurxtror
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by airazurxtror »

teddybAIR wrote: So in all honesty: Ryanair currently indeed offers tickets that are significantly below the price you could get without them operating from BRU. But for me personally it's not worth the switch.
I'm not teasing or looking for a fight, I just would like to know out of pure curiosity : what are the points of difference you find between JAF and Ryanair (worth at least 85 euros) ?
I stress it : just asking, and not to start a discussion.
IF IT AIN'T BOEING, I'M NOT GOING.

teddybAIR
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by teddybAIR »

no problem for the question...it's a relevant one! In decreasing order of importance:

1) timetable: return flights are very comparable and depart in the same hour, but the outbound flight to Mallorca was more favourable at JAF: 3 hours earlier and first flight of the day --> less risk of delay
2) customer friendliness: I've flown JAF multiple times and call me emotional, but I feel treated as a customer who matters. That's a feeling I really value when I'm on that 1 or 2 precious weeks of holidays I take a year
3) baggage allowance: JAF offers me 3 x 15kg bagage allowance included in the total price while at RYR I had only opted to check in 1 bag. But checking in 1 or two more would have resulted only in 15 or 30€ markup, still resulting in a 50€ cheaper price for RYR. You could say that I'm over equipped with the right to carry 45kg baggage at JAF, but what it offers me is the flexibility and piece of mind that I can buy whatever I deam interesting at Mallorca without worrying that I will be charged an astronomous amount to place it in the hold
4) Seating arrangement: the one option I didn't check at RYR was to choose my seats while at JAF, by default I know they seat the entire family together. But again, this is quantifyable as at Ryanair it would have cost me 5€ a seat to book them in advance. 6 seats = 30€ extra...still financially more interesting to fly RYR but the gap is becoming very small now, isn't it? We're flying with a three year-old and last year (son was less than 24 months back then) there was exactly one empty seat on the plane and JAF staff made sure we were seated in the row that had the free seat...now that's a gesture I easily value at 50€ since we have to be honest: when your kid is less than 24 months, you don't pay for his seat.
5) comfort: again: on those one or two precious occasions a year, I'm not interested in risking to have to walk towards in one of our famous downpoors.

So actually it simply comes down to the fact that I am a loyal JAF customer who values the service they deliver me. But it's a free world and I'm quite sure that the FR flight to Mallorca that day will have a high load factor as well :)

sdbelgium
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Re: Ryanair at Brussels Airport

Post by sdbelgium »

teddybAIR wrote:How many of their A/C are based at CRL?
I believe 12 and 1 spare, making 13 in total.

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