5th A330 for Brussels Airlines

[Conti764]

The 'trick' you needed to play on their website was to do as if you were booking on an existing destination (so via the first page of the home page) and then, once inside the booking module, simply change your destination through the pull down menu... and there they were!

These destinations can already be accessed now through FRA in codeshare with LH.

Not all of them... eliminate which ones can, and which ones can't.

As 'new' destinations, apart from the ones mentioned on the destinations page at brusselsairlines.com, I get Accra, Cape Town, Cotonou, Lagos, Libreville, Lomé, Johannesburg and Ouagadougou.

From those, only Accra, Cotonou, Lome and Ouagadougou are destinations not in LH's destination chart. So I guess these are the four new destinations?

And which of the excisting flights will be upgraded with more frequencies?

Edit: did a new search and apparantly Accra is already served by LH...

[Air Key West]

Apparently, yes, the three new destinations will be Cotonou, Lomé and Ouagadougou.
My guess is 3 x weekly Cotonou-Lomé (triangular flight) + 3 x weekly Ouaga-Abidjan (also triangular) bringing Abidjan up to daily flights (from 4 to 7 a week). But, just a guess.

[Air Key West]

Indeed, Accra is served 4 x weekly by LH. So, instead of my previous guess, 3 x weekly Ouaga-Abidjan, it could be 3 x weekly Ouaga-Accra. Then, Accra would get a daily service by LH/SN.

[Conti764]

Apparently, yes, the three new destinations will be Cotonou, Lomé and Ouagadougou.
My guess is 3 x weekly Cotonou-Lomé (triangular flight) + 3 x weekly Ouaga-Abidjan (also triangular) bringing Abidjan up to daily flights (from 4 to 7 a week). But, just a guess.

Now compare SN's own destinations to those of Sabena at the time of their demise:

Abidjan, Banjul, Bamako, Bujumbura, Conakry, Cotonou, Dakar,Douala, Entebbe, Freetown, Johannesburg, Kigali, Kinshasa, Lagos, Lomé, Luanda, Monrovia, Nairobi, Ouagadougou, Sal, Yaoundé.

The underlined destinations are not served by Brussels Airlines, so the 'new' SN is pretty much on par with the old 'SN' regarding Africa. If we take the LH destinations and consider the short hop to FRA, Brussels Airlines' African map is actually bigger than Sabena's...

I expected them to add Bamako as well as new destination, since it would mean the only blank spot of Brussels Airlines in comparison to Sabena (the LH destinations taken in acount), so it maybe could be the next new African destination for SN alongside Bujumbura (Korongo's hub) , although I wonder how much expansion is still possible, considering Star Alliance partnership. I guess with the next widebody coming in, SN is going to add two or three extra destinations and from then on, focus on offering more frequency to excisting destinations...

[tolipanebas]

for info, BJM is served by SN....

[Atlantis]

Bujumbura is a current destination of Brussels Airlines. It's served twice a week

[Conti764]

Bujumbura is a current destination of Brussels Airlines. It's served twice a week

And Tolipanebas as well, you are right Lubumbashi will be Korongo's hub of course... I always mistake Lubumbashi (DRC) for Bujumbura (Burundi) for some reason...

So I expect, if Korongo will materialize and grow into a succes, SN in the future might add a frequency to FBM as well...

[Air Key West]

I don't really expect SN to fly to FBM. Instead, I expect Korongo to take pax from FBM to Kinshasa to connect with the SN flight and to bring connecting SN pax from FIH to FBM.

[Conti764]

I don't really expect SN to fly to FBM. Instead, I expect Korongo to take pax from FBM to Kinshasa to connect with the SN flight and to bring connecting SN pax from FIH to FBM.

So when people want to fly from BRU to one of the smaller destinations Korongo would offer, they'd have to make two transfers (at FIH and at FBM)? That look rather strange since if (and only if) Korongo would become a succes and a good performing subsidiary of SN, it would be better to fly pax to their main hub, no?

Of course, this is all mere speculation since we don't even know if Korongo will even materialize, but until futher notice we'd have to assume it will...

[airtrotter]

a little off topic: did Sabena ever fly to Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, Libreville and/or Malabo?

[Stij]

a little off topic: did Sabena ever fly to Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, Libreville and/or Malabo?

About Brazzaville and Libreville I'm pretty sure.
Pointe-Noire I think with a connection or something.
Malabo I think not...

Cheers,

Stij

[BrightCedars]

I think before it's demise, maybe some time before, Sabena also served other destinations which the potential should be reviewed, such as Kano and Niamey.

[airbuske]

I checked my Sabena timetable from winter 1997.

Brazaville: 2 weekly : 1 nonstop and 1 via ZRH
Libreville: 2 weekly: 1 nonstop and 1 via ZRH
Pointe-Noire: BRU - BZV and connection with 5R (Aero Service) to Pointe - Noire
Malabo: not served

Nouakchott was also an ex Sabena destination.

[flip330]

Brussels airlines is going to Accra with their own aircrafts . Flights are already loaded in their booking system . Flights will be : SN 0257 and 0259 . I also noticed that all flights to Abidjan have different flightnumbers so i think that it is going to be Abidjan- Cotonou ( the old sabena flight 203)

[airbuske]

Brussels Airlining will fly on monday to Accra , LH is also flying on monday to Accra!

I played with the GDS and found follwing triangular flights:

BRU-COO-ABJ
BRU-ABJ-LFW
BRU-LFW-ABJ
BRU-ROB-ACC
BRU-OUA-ABJ

[BrightCedars]

Brussels Airlining will fly on monday to Accra , LH is also flying on monday to Accra!

Now that would be stupid!

[RoMax]

Brussels Airlining will fly on monday to Accra , LH is also flying on monday to Accra!

Now that would be stupid!

Are you sure this is not the codeshare flight? Because they codeshare already since a few months on this route or is it really a own SN flight?

[flip330]

it's an SN flight = SN 0257
codeshare flights with lufthansa are 7XXX

[RoMax]

it's an SN flight = SN 0257
codeshare flights with lufthansa are 7XXX

Ok there must be a reason for that. I can imagine that SN would do something like that, but LH...

[fretn]

maybe they just need the demand and in case of overbooking they can easily put them on another flight?