Brussels Airlines in 2018

[Boavida]

It is no secret that Mr. Spohr is not a big fan of the brussels airlines brand... but he also told at the last press conference @ b. House that he would keep a belgian touch in case of rebranding. So what can we expect ?
Belgianwings, Eurobelgianwings, Eurowings Belgium or... Sabena... or just Eurowings ?

Dreaming-mode on:

1. The Brussels Airlines brand disappears

2. Some European routes (leisure, tourist,...) are taken over by Eurowings

3. The business routes + the long haul network will be done under a new name: Sabena.

[SkyTourist]

The German Handelsblatt places the dismissal of Gustin and De Raeymaeker in the context of the bad financial results. Compared to the other airlines in the LH-group, SNBA did not produce good figures ("Slechte Zahlen", "Bei Brussels Airlines läuft das Geschäft schlecht"). Therefor, a change in management is needed. The article refers to the integration plans and states that all options remain open for the succesful Africa flights.

http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen ... 25338.html

[SkyTourist]

Similar story in Der Spiegel. According to an LH inside source, cited by Reuters: "If you want to advance Brussels Airlines, you can only do it with a new management."

The article further states: "The airline is interesting for the Germans because of the European officials and lobbyists in Brussels, who spend a lot of money on airline tickets. Currently, the Belgian offshoot counts 44 aircraft, including 10 long-haul jets. Lufthansa has already pledged investments for the expansion of long-haul flights, the insider said. But you can only secure jobs if the business is prepared for the future."


http://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehm ... 91368.html

[Bralo20]

It would be strange that SN's performance would be bad if we look at the numbers provided to us each month.

SN was month after month one of the best performers of the group yet the results would be bad???

[SkyTourist]

Apparently the financial results are the spin given by "insiders" in the German press.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung also refers to the change in strategy of EW: while originally seen as a point-to-point LCC, "in the meantime, it even offers long-haul flights from the Lufthansa hub in Munich and introduced an upgraded Business Class, which is intended to attract business travelers." So the argument to keep SNBA as a separate hub airline, comparable to OS, and not proceed with the integration into EW has disappeared.

Combined with the financial element, the Germans do not want to wait any longer with the integration; if the financial results had been better, SN could have delayed the integration further: "Because reportedly Brussels Airlines was the only one in the Lufthansa Group 2017 that delivered a result well below budget and just barely achieved a small profit. According to insiders, Gustin could have achieved a further delay in the integration if the numbers had been significantly better. Internally, he blamed the poor results on the consequences of the terrorist attacks in Brussels in March 2016. However, this version will no longer be accepted by the Group Management Board."

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/b ... -1.3853073

None of the articles refers to shutting down operations in Brussels or moving long haul to Frankfurt. If Eurowings continues to strengthen its hybrid model, SN's existing market & service can be maintained with a higher profit level.

In dreaming mode now: EW, please change the awful-but-in-Germany-so-popular blue and pink colours of Eurowings' aircrafts into a nice and stylish red-and-blue colour scheme (SN's blue tail is now already copied by LH), replace the Aeroflot-1980s type of crew uniforms into something more fashionable, use a double interface on the booking engine (one for leisure, one for non-leisure travellers, the same as SN's booking engine), enable flight connections throughout the LH-network, and we'll have perhaps that Belgian touch on all EW flights.
Admittedly, integration will come at a serious social cost, which it is the unfortunate damage of nearly all mergers and acquisitions (no double financial, operations, ICT, etc departments). But IMHO LH Group is not going to leave the Belgian market to third players, LCC or others, maintaining even a modest EW hub function in light of market demands and opportunities in Brussels. This will require some creativity (e.g. *A consequences, maintaining a lounge, etc).

[travellover]

Brussels Airlines, heading for Africa. 23th December 2017.

https://www.lecho.be/entreprises/aviati ... ue/9966244

Good to remember a Bernard Gustin recent interview to "l'Echo" on 7th December 2017 during the first brussels airlines flight to the new airport Blaise Diagne of Dakar.

Key sentences :

A year after the passage under the wing of Lufthansa, mayonnaise has taken. The Belgian company has never been as up to its reputation on the African continent, gaining importance and is entrusted with the conquest of the African continent.
"On December 7, SN was the first non-African carrier to land at the new Blaise Diagne airport in Dakar. As confirmed by Amadou Diop, Senegal's ambassador to Belgium, "we like to reward loyalty". "
"We do not have to complain about Toronto and Mumbai. Delhi is under study. But in 2018, we will first strengthen our competitiveness in Africa, which we will put back at the center of our strategy. Now integrated into the Lufthansa Group, we have more attractive arguments than when we were independent. "
"New African projects are Lagos, or the return to Nairobi which is to be discussed at group level.
Our rapidly modernized long-haul fleet will quickly benefit our customers in Africa, with improved Business and true Premium Economy. From October with A330s with Rolls-Royce engines and increased take-off weights. "
"The logic of the Lufthansa Group is to focus on relationships with local companies when they are members of Star Alliance. On our flights to Mumbai, Air India brings us passengers. With All Nippon (ANA), it's the opposite: we fly our passengers on their flights to Tokyo. In both cases, it is to the full satisfaction of the partners. "

Is it because you have a lot of Airbus and A330 experience that Lufthansa asked you to take care of the Eurowings Airbus fleet in Düsseldorf? "I guess so, yes. "
Speaking of Eurowings, what will be the future name of Brussels Airlines?
"It must be noted that this brand is not or very little known outside Europe and Africa and still not everywhere on these two continents. "
But Eurowings not more! " It is totally true! It is necessary to find a "glocal" name, ie "global" (global) and local which is understood by all our segments of market. It must be said and remember that only 50% of our clientele is Belgian and even less than that if we take into account that in transit. "
There could be "Wings" in common core and then associate "Brusselswings", "Eurowings" ...
"The name Brussels Airlines is protected until the end of 2018, but that does not mean that we will change after that. Everything is under study. Whichever name is chosen, it will in any case be known and imposed. "

"In the Lufthansa group, we have always been treated as if we were part of the family, and in nine years of respectful dialogue on both sides, there have never been any votes on the board; still an important message! "
"I only have a new position as president of Elia outside Brussels Airlines. If the work had been penalizing for the
one at the company, I would not have accepted
"For whoever knows me, if I had to leave SN, it would be pushed in the back. It's never unthinkable, but it's not my intention. I am committed to Brussels Airlines at 200%. "

[Sai]

Davignon says in an Article on vrt he is not worried about tomorrow
“I have reasons to be unhappy, but not to be worried”

Suppose we’ll see tomorrow...

I guess due all commotion of the past days Lufthansa will just fire the CEO and CFO and that will be it.
After the storm has passed they'll probably go further with it. But for tomorrow? I would guess nothing significant anymore.

Couldn't agree more.
...together with some ambiguous assuring statements that can be interpreted as you wish depending on which end of the table you sit.

[Bralo20]

According to HLN Etienne Davignon is complicit in the plans of Carsten Spohr, back in November when Gustin tried to defend their business model and was cut of rudely by Spohr he could have (at least temporary) stopped the whole deal since decisions had to be unanimous and the Belgians still had veto power but he kindly agreed to move the point to today so that Carsten Spohr couldn't be blocked anymore and the Belgians would have lost their veto power.

[BrightCedars]

LH group now own 100% and are the boss. If the incumbent does not follow their guidelines or meet their targets there is no reason for him to stick around. If we didn't want the decisions to be made abroad we should have kept a controlling stake.
If LH makes bad management decisions and Brussels-based travellers are unhappy with the offering the market will go elsewhere, it always does.
Few will care if Brussels Airlines flights in Europe are now branded Eurowings, but definitely a strong local long-haul offering is needed and my opinion is that Eurowings may not be the right product.
My concern is that perhaps LH wants to do with SN because it's the weakest brand and if they succeed they can spread it to OS and maybe LX and eventually AZ.
It's interesting that LH is publicly stating that Africa is its next growth market. I'm afraid their plan might be to hub all that in FRA or MUC and take it away from BRU. BRU has already turned into a virtual Star Alliance hub where the local carrier can easily be replaced by others on most routes except Africa.

Oh well, we will always have Air Belgium

[Passenger]

Of course I know that Belgian and European legislation allow strikes. But it is not a "fundamental right", when we regard as "fundamental right" what is written in 30 articles from the Declaration. Contrary to, example, equal pay - which is written as a right in the Declaration:

Now online: "United Nations - Universal Declaration of Human Rights":
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declarat ... an-rights/

Article 23.

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

[Av24.be]

An extraordinary works council has been scheduled at Brussels Airlines at 17:00

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/lufth ... frankfurt/

[Poiu]

It would be strange that SN's performance would be bad if we look at the numbers provided to us each month.

SN was month after month one of the best performers of the group yet the results would be bad???

When young Sean, several times, explained that growth has to be sustainable, he was shot down in flames!
This forum is mainly populated by fans, whilst there is nothing wrong with being a fan, one needs to be realistic though: there is no space in today’s aviation for a small player like SN. Unfortunately the choice is between Eurowings by SN or no wings at all.

[Bralo20]

An extraordinary works council has been scheduled at Brussels Airlines at 17:00

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/lufth ... frankfurt/

Well, that's not a good sign at all...

[Flanker3]

Flashback to 7 years ago, when I was being thrown around the forum for a fool while warning for the unfolding of this scenario. I was wrong about one thing though: I didn't expect the government to forgive SN's loans so generously, before handing SN over to the Germans for next to nothing. Lower oil prices also helped a lot.

Now it looks like LH's intent was clear from the beginning.

Isn't it ironic that Gustin sold SN to LH and is now getting fired by them?
LH got a real bargain. 55 million for the whole thing. That's like 4 months worth of payroll at SN? The staff should have bought SN, but the staff were lead by naive managers and people like Tolipanebas who thought that the golden crane was bringing investments to BRU.

It's too late to protest now. You can strike all you want, it's only going to make matters worse.
After Gustin is gone, LH will probably divide and conquer.

The way I see this unfold?
Longhaul: German bilaterals permitting, shift of Africa routes to DUS under Eurowings or FRA/MUC. MUC is more logical, but DUS makes a lot of sense too. Geogrphically and also to make EW look good.
The routes that don't have bilaterals will get them or be shut down if they don't make financial sense.

Shorthaul rebranded completely to EW and gradually brought under the German AOC, gradually replaced by cheaper crews, especially the ones that cost too much.
Routes that were for feeding such as CDG and LHR would gradually disapppear, the routes where there is strong O&D yields and volume, operations will be kept, the rest shut down.

It doesn't look too good for jobs, but hey it's a bit too late to panic now.

Some of this was being debated as MrBoeing mentions, in the A332 thread.

Tolipanebas, it seems that you've become the specialist of off-context quoting.

Maybe that's because I am merely quoting remarks from you then?

Last but not least, operating costs of consolidated routes don't explode. Consolidation is there to cut costs.

Consolidation as in reducing overlaps cuts costs; consolidation as in moving everyting to FRA however, won't cut costs as the unit cost of LH is significantly higher than at SN or OS!
Aks the unions at LH what they are most scared off these days: scenarios of LH outsourcing longhaul flights!
So you're considering relocating OUA and BKO plus its tag-ons to FRA for instance? Any idea what that would do to the profitability of these destinations? I can tell you LH has done the exercise already just to see how lean we truely operate and it showed they can not operate profitably to any of these places given their inherently higher cost basis! How did you call that before... euh, checkmate?
Why do you think they got after us in the first place when they decided AFI would be their next target? Because we happened to have a few old A330s operating some triangular flights there?
The Germans did their homework first, believe me.

The only investment that LH would have to make is to shift 6 or 7 of their own A330's to the African routes and take-over the local African operations. That is a much much smaller investment than taking-over the entire Brussels Airlines operation.

As I've said before, Lufthansa can freely do so indeed, just as they can do with OS or even LX.
It's a theoretical possibility indeed, but it isn't the most probable one and the remote possibility of it happening nevertheless does not justify not teaming up with LH, especially as there isn't really an abundance of other partners to choose from these days, while a stand-alone scenario is completely impossible given the reluctancy from our historic shareholders to invest any further.
SN has to work with the financial means it has, not the financial means it would love to have and in such a context, the partnership with LH is a gift even if it entails some risks.
As they say: in the long run, we're all dead anyway, so doing nothing isn't an option either.

I think that if LH has done the exercise of seeing if they can transfer BRU-Africa routes to their own FRA operations, it's reason for serious concern.
1. LH may be saying what SN wants to hear
If the exercise has shown that operating from FRA made more sense, would they say so to SN? How would unions, non-LH shareholders, Belgian politicians, etc... react to that? Would LH let that happen?
You've got to see how big corporations are run and realize that they can't be taken for their word, especially with sensible subjects as this.

2. LH may be saying the truth
Another perceivable way to look at it is that you're right and that LH indeed didn't find a way to operate the African routes profitably from FRA.
If LH's purpose of buying SN was to bring in those routes to FRA, they no longer have a reason to buy the remainder of SN.

Either way, your dream scenario doesn't make sense.
Even if SN's cost base is lower than LH's, as long as SN is losing more money in Europe than they're making in Africa, SN only brings negative value to LH.

I think that the many employees who work very hard for SN, including you Tolipanebas, people who have mortgages and their children's tuition to pay for, deserve to know where they stand.
For this reason, I think that it's healthy to discuss that here.

Thanks to LH SN achieved several improvements on all sides, except for the financial side. The investments were/are (too?) heavy for SN. The only thing SN can hope for is that LH takes them over fast so that they can take care of the financials. Now it is too late to be able to survive without LH.

100% correct. Fingers crossed, hope for the best, be prepared for the worst. If LH doesn't exercise their options come spring, SN still has other options available.

All is in the title... There are lots of internal rumors, actually: Korongo not going well (at all), fleet renewal (phase in/phase out) frozen due to lack of money to train crews, heavy losses in 2011, bankruptcy within 2 or 3 years if Lufthansa doesn't buy the rest of the company by 2012...

This is my personal evaluation of the financial situation: I think that at the current pace, with the current strategy and considering the operating environment, without any cash injection, we can be happy to make it to the end of 2012. That's without considering the damage that the media would make on future bookings if the story is floated on the news.

[Av24.be]

Congolese civil aviation authorities have decided to reduce the daily Brussels Airlines flights to Kinshasa to 4 per week with immediate effect.

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/lufth ... te-effect/

[Bralo20]

According to someone on Airliners.net (I know, not the most reliable source) there are talks going to keep all planes on the ground "to make Lufthansa listen".

Anyway, if they decide to strike, is it really the first strike in the history of Brussels Airlines? Somehow it's hard to believe that there wasn't a strike before?

[Passenger]

Congolese civil aviation authorities have decided to reduce the daily Brussels Airlines flights to Kinshasa to 4 per week with immediate effect.

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/lufth ... te-effect/

Linked to that decision: an ongoing discussion with the EU about the temporary closure of Maison Schengen in Kinshasa, where visa can be obtained:

https://www.radiookapi.net/2018/02/05/ ... rs-fermees

https://actualite.cd/2018/02/05/rdc-bel ... -airlines/

[rwandan-flyer]

Brussels Airlines, heading for Africa. 23th December 2017.

But it's pretty sad that the airline never provided daily service to Kigali, they even reduced flights, from 6 to 5, since some weeks. My Brother flown with SN, in 2014, he enjoyed and for a short time, Brussels Airlines has served Montpellier (South of France)

KLM without big point to point market serves Kigali, every day.

According to Eurostat, KLM carried 145 000 pax between Kigali & Amsterdam, while SN carried 57 000. I don't have stats from Turkish & Qatar Airways, both operate also daily service to Kigali with 737 for TK and A330 for Qatar (Dreamliner for summer 2018).

I won't be suprised if, LH decides to serve Kigali, why not via Entebbe, Uganda CAA said month ago that Lufthansa could start flight to Entebbe, in 2019. Probably Brussels Airlines will keep operating some flights to Kigali (only my opinion)

Rwanda was also a former German colony, ties are old,(not stronger than btw Rwanda & Belgium) and Germans have big projects in Rwanda (Wolksagen plant in Rwanda, the future Rwanda Railway Network,...). Germany is also one of top 5 market for Rwanda, in terms of Tourism

Use Ctrl +, to see bigger

[Bralo20]

Reuters picked up the story about Belgian companies standing behind Brussels Airlines: https://uk.reuters.com/article/lufthans ... KL8N1PV35Z

[euroflyer]

Reuters picked up the story about Belgian companies standing behind Brussels Airlines: https://uk.reuters.com/article/lufthans ... KL8N1PV35Z

Well, if I read that statement of Belgian companies, I cannot find much support to keep the brand or the business model. They basically ask for good flight connections to/from Brussels; the rest is interpretation. LH will easily be able to show this can work without keeping the brand and with a changed business model if they want to ...