ANA from NRT to BRU as from winter season 2015

[Inquirer]

I doubt they'll connect to a lot of the Africa flights as due to the NRT curfew, they cant depart between 23:00 and 6:00.'

So either they'll depart NRT at 23:00 and arrive in BRU at 3:30... not...
either they'll depart at 6:00 and be in BRU at 10:30... close connection in BRU, but no connections in NRT,
or they'll use there first wave at 10:00 in NRT and arrive in BRU around 14:30... maybe some connections to West Africa. But then the aircraft won't fly back to NRT before 16:30 and then the connections from Africa to Japan are too long...

My bet: no connections to Africa, but connections in NRT to the rest of Japan or...

We might be better off to wait for the official time table before speculating on what connections will all be possible, but if this flight doesn't go daily, I think it will focus on the local market at both ends first, as well as short haul connections only.

OTOH, the tweet from BRU this moring mentioned a DAILY flight, so who knows, they might surprise us even more??? In that case, connections to Africa might also be something which have to be taken into account indeed for deciding on a perfect schedule.

If I remember well, somebody (Atlantis???) mentioned some time ago the aim was for an evening flight out of Tokyo.

If indeed they stick to that initial plan, that would set them for a very early morning arrival into BRU then, with a return flight to Japan a couple of hours later; that's all fairly similar to how the US flights operate at BRU in fact, no? That kind of arrival/departure times offer good connectivity to both Brussels Airlines European as well as African destinations, so no idea why it couldn't be for this flight too then?

Maybe they have to keep the plane waiting a couple of hours extra on the ground in BRU to make it all work out with the night closure of the airport in Tokio and the connectivity, but my bet is this is a premium heavy route, so if they have to do just that, they'll do it: it's likely not the kind of route where the average passenger really cares about the odd 50 or 100 euro more if it gives him an optimised time table in return, so they may be able to pass the extra ground time on to their customers, if needed.
Not to mention this is the kind of 'project problem' BRU could help them solve during the negotiations with them, for instance by not charing them for the extra ground time.

BTW- does anybody know how ANA decides on the airport to operate its Tokio flights from?
Because I see that some flights to Europe (CDG, DUS for instance) are from Narita, whereas others are from Haneda, but on what basis is this decided? And why Narita for their BRU route? Would be cool to know, even if it doesn't really matter much. Thank you!

[Inquirer]

The added value justifies paying a premium for direct flights, even if they cost more than double.
Due to the nature of our business, a direct flight could save us thousands more in procurement cost than the cost of the flight itself.

(off topic, so please read on if only interested in the discussion about the new route itself)

A concept I fully underwrite for my corporate flying too, yet which is completely incomprehensible to many aviation freaks around here, I warn you, so you better take a shelter now, because some low fare addicts might flame you for daring to say something like that.

Reality is of course that ticket price is in many cases far less important than convenient (i.e. flexible, shorter, or operating hours optimized to match office hours) travel times to those people flying for business.

[brusselsairlinesfan]

VERY VERY VERY GOOD - LONG AWAITED - NEWS
However, I don't see any information yet about the airport they will choose in TYO for this BRU route?
NRT doesn't allow african connections @ BRU (because of the curfew, so no evening flights). However, HND offers the possibility for it, which would of course benefit to SN HND is also more convenient than NRT...
I am very surprised to see them starting ops as from autumn '15 and about the frequency (dailiy flights) also...

[convair]

Due to the nature of our business, a direct flight could save us thousands more in procurement cost than the cost of the flight itself.

Without disclosing any secret can you elaborate on how that is possible?

[crew1990]

Regarding the Facebook page of Brussels Airport it will be Narita

[airazurxtror]

some low fare addicts might flame you for daring to say something like that.
Reality is of course that ticket price is in many cases far less important than convenient (i.e. flexible, shorter, or operating hours optimized to match office hours) travel times to those people flying for business.

As for me, I won't flame nobody, because we live in two different worlds : the world of those who pay for their tickets - and the world of the (much smarter) ones who travel at somebody else's expense ...

[brusselsairlinesfan]

Regarding the Facebook page of Brussels Airport it will be Narita

... sorry, didn't check... my mistake.

[Stij]

If indeed they stick to that initial plan, that would set them for a very early morning arrival into BRU then, with a return flight to Japan a couple of hours later; that's all fairly similar to how the US flights operate at BRU in fact, no? That kind of arrival/departure times offer good connectivity to both Brussels Airlines European as well as African destinations, so no idea why it couldn't be for this flight too then?

NRT 23:00 BRU 3:30 isn't "very early morning", it's middle of the night... On top, the connecting times would be more than 7 hours. That's the problem I was trying to elaborate. A departure from HND at 1:00 arriving at 5:30 would be much better.

BRU 12:10 NRT (or HND) 6:00 would be fine, allowing long, but acceptable connections.

Cheers,

Stij

[cnc]

It went very fast the last couple of days, wow. First was Autumn 2016, then Spring 2016 and now will be already Autumn of this year.
Well done. I think the pressure was high.

huh? plans where already there back in 2010 and ANA even had plans for a start up in 2012-13 first.
i'd say it went very slow.

[SN501]

Brussels Airport ‏@BrusselsAirport 2 minil y a 2 minutes

Hello, excellent route news to start the day with: @flyANA_official will connect #Brussels & #Tokyo with a daily flight as of autumn 2015.

Meanwhile this tweet has been removed and replaced by a new one

Brussels Airport @BrusselsAirport
Hello, excellent route news to start the day with: @FlyANA_official will connect #Brussels & #Tokyo as of autumn 2015.

The daily frequency is not mentionned anymore.

and when an user asked Brussels Airport about the flight details, they replied:

Brussels Airport @BrusselsAirport
@ArnoVisser2 @FlyANA_official @UpintheSkyNL the news is official, but we do not have any details about frequency or aircraft type at... 1/2

[RoMax]

They must have spoken before their turn. They are waiting for regulatory approval, of course there is a schedule, frequency and type, ANA just doesn't want to commit to anything in public when changes can still occur due to the whole regulatory process.

[Inquirer]

NRT 23:00 BRU 3:30 isn't "very early morning", it's middle of the night... On top, the connecting times would be more than 7 hours.

I subscribe to your observation, but I don't think it's such a uniquely inconvenient situation concerning the connecting times: aren't the U.S. flights all landing well before 6AM in BRU too, with many of the outbound African flights leaving BRU only around (of even after) noon?
Not exactly a 'short' connecting time either, so depending the exact African destination, the ground time on certain Japan-BRU-Africa trips may even be shorter than on some U.S.-BRU-Africa trips currently sold, despite a theoretical arrival at 3.30AM of the Tokyo flight!
We'll just have to see what the exact times are going to be and what connections are going to be offered, and of course most important of all: how the market reacts to the new flight.

[Conti764]

When I worked at BRU no US inbound flight arrived before 6 am... The first UA flight arrived little after 6 with the bulk of US flights arriving between 7 am and 10 am...

[b-west]

When I worked at BRU no US inbound flight arrived before 6 am... The first UA flight arrived little after 6 with the bulk of US flights arriving between 7 am and 10 am...

And this is still the case. The only flights arriving before 6.00 are a few Africa flights and TLV.

[Flanker2]

Regarding the schedule, I measured the taxi time on my last TK NRT-IST flight last week which has a scheduled departing time of 22:30, just before the night curfew. We pushed back at 22:20 and took off around 22:45.

What TK does in order to make sure that they leave before the curfew is to change the departure time to 22:00 and boarding time at 21:30 at the airport, so that all pax hussle to the gate.... only to find that the flight hasn't started boarding yet.

Does someone have the Sabena schedule of this flight?
If I recall correctly, Sabena schedules this flight at around 13 hours with the A343's.

NH can easily stretch the NRT-BRU flight to 13 hours including the long pre-curfew taxi at NRT and a lower cruise speed.
KLM schedules 11:30 minutes for the slightly shorter distance to AMS.

This way they can schedule the arrival at 04:30 am / 03:30 winter time, just before the African flights and I think that this is best as immigration and customs can become quite clogged.

Departing back at 10am will make sure that they arrive back to NRT by the time the curfew lifts.
It's quite a lot of ground time but this is not unusual for a Japanese airline.
NH also has a small advantage in that they were B787 launch customer and ordered the B787's when the list price was much lower. This and the compensations they received from Boeing helps them reduce their capital cost on the B787's, minimising the effect of longer ground times.


HND would be more ideal but the Japanese government has all the say and they don't give away slots that easily, especially on untried routes. In addition, NH would probably not want to "waste" a HND slot and higher HND fees for a B787 flight, when most of their HND longhaul flights are B77W's that give them more room for profits.


Long connecting times to Africa are not convenient, but this is a trade-off they have to make.
This same problem already exists on the Africa-U.S. connections.
Personally I think that it would be nice if SN could offer resting facilities to the premium Africa connecting passengers and regular lounge access for all Japan-Africa pax.

[crew1990]

actually this is already the case, in the lounge there are some kind of individual bed for the business traveller willing to have a nap.

I wonder if Brussels Airlines will codeshare with ANA on the Tokyo-Osaka route

[b720]

I think most connections from Japan based pax will be to other European destinations.. Japan is not as exposed to Africa as China is. I do not think that the aim is to connect to SN's Triangular African flights.

[sn-remember]

I doubt they'll connect to a lot of the Africa flights as due to the NRT curfew, they cant depart between 23:00 and 6:00.'

So either they'll depart NRT at 23:00 and arrive in BRU at 3:30... not...
either they'll depart at 6:00 and be in BRU at 10:30... close connection in BRU, but no connections in NRT,
or they'll use there first wave at 10:00 in NRT and arrive in BRU around 14:30... maybe some connections to West Africa. But then the aircraft won't fly back to NRT before 16:30 and then the connections from Africa to Japan are to long...

My bet: no connections to Africa, but connections in NRT to the rest of Japan or...

If they would move the flight to HND, they could copy Hainan's schedule and make connections on both ends...

Cheers,

Stij

It's really a missed opportunity if they don't target the W-Afi flights sn morning departures.
03.30 arrival is really TOO early to catch the 10:30 or 11/00 AFI flights deparutre.
Same apply for the EU departures.
HND should/would make this flight successfull if they target a 6am BRU arrival.
Or they just keep the flight longer in the air from nrt.
W-afi to tyo is a small market (Ghana and Nigeria excluded bcs served from FRA) but significant nonetheless.
It's worth the above mentioned schedule given that BRU offers short routings to most of W-Afi destinations distance-wise (no great distance overhead) and ANA does'nt fly to IST (which is the major challenger but a bit longer for some W-afi routes).
A proper partnership with SN should bring fruits but obviuosly needs time (a certain time) to ripe profitably.
Anyhow, very good news, and long overdue.
Congratulations to ANA and BRU ...

[asianlao02]

Cdg-narita will be cancelled. 25 October....
Maybe we will get this plane

http://airlineroute.net/2015/06/02/nh-nrtcdg-w15cxld/

[Inquirer]

If that news about the Paris cancellation gets confirmed, it is indeed likely that the BRU route gets a daily frequency and it really shows that there has been a coordinated effort from both the airport AND Brussels Airlines to convince ANA to move their flight from Paris to BRU: connectivity will likely have played a big role then in convincing them to come to BRU and do so in full force.

I agree with Flanker: the evening schedule from Tokyo needn't be such a big problem.
Its not like US to Africa or TLV to Africa connections are to be called short either, right now?
And the EU connections will be very plenty too then, so by doing so they maximize the number of connecting possibilities, which seem to be extremely important for them if indeed this flight is to replace a daily paris flight!

As to the Sabena schedule, I can help you out with that one:
It departed Tokyo 1140AM, arriving in BRU 1720PM (so no African connections at all possible) 5 x weekly.
(still have their last time table as a memorabilia from when I was plane spotting at steenokkerzeel and there were no iPhones with flightradar on it, yet )

I am guessing that this time round, based on comments from people in the know and what seems technically possible if indeed they are correct, its going to be a daily evening flight!?
That would also match the initial tweet from BRU, which got removed again because the news about the CDG cancellation wasnt officially confirmed yet, and so they spoke before their turn...

Would they use a 787, like everybody is guessing, or go for something bigger?
Remember the plane type isn't confirmed either, so they might surprise us even more than they already did with first this launch itself and then the fact it may very well be a daily flight indeed!