Some people blame me for having too much negativism towards Air Belgium. I disagree. I walked through the old posts here (= as from the initial annoucement), and I was one of the few who believed in the project when they started. Example: my post from 1st June 2017:
I then mainly posted about their aircraft movements (mainly on FR24), till TLspotting took over…
Few months later, we were then confronted with the AOC delay. Then too, I was one of those who believed in the project. Whilst others blamed Air Belgium for not having a solid file, I gave them all credits and I blamed the Belgian CAA. I did so because I have witnessed from closeby a similar story in 2002, when VG Airlines had to wait very long for its AOC. Example: my post from May 2017:
Post by Passenger » 16 May 2017, 13:52
I indeed think that it is not normal that the Belgian CAA needs more than 9 months to take a decision. For an new AOC, the CAA has to check all requirements from an existing checklist. Most difficult question is probably financial sustainability, but it is not normal that it takes more than then 9 months to audit a business plan. Specially not when it has been confirmed/audited already by an international firm like KPMG or E&Y.
In October 2017, they reported a huge loss for 2016 (2,2M€). I reported it without any comment. My post from 28th Oct 2017:
by Passenger » 28 Oct 2017, 15:45
During their first financial year (18/02/2016-31/12/2016), they made a loss of 2,185,000 Euro.
(source: NBB)
Only once they had their first aircraft, I started to doubt. Simply because it was quite obvious to those with experience in ticketing & the travel trade, that things were going wrong. In brief:
* announcement of the first revenu flight was postponed a few times;
* too little time between “book now” and and first flight, causing lack of bookings (I don’t even use “load factor” because there were so little bookings);
* lack of presence in a GDS and lack of a call center;
* unfriendly schedule: when you have 4 flights per week, you can’t have 3 consecutive days without a flight. And you need to focus on weekend flights;
* use of CRL Airport when the direct competition is at BRU. Remember Terzakis once told that 80% of his clientele comes from the north: then why choose an airport in the south?
* cancellation of their first planned flight;
* reducement of their schedule;
* announcement of “three new routes in China”, once again on very short notice;
* and finally, the announcement of the cancellation of HKG came from a newspaper (L’Avenir), not from them.
So there was not just one factor that caused the HKG failure.
a Wallonian national embarrassment, then? 
