Brussels Airlines' fleet renewal

[tolipanebas]

Aeroflot & BMI (sometimes) offer a real business class shorthaul product too.

No, BD definitely isn't doing that any longer...

[SN1203]

Well, at least BA has increased seatpitch in Club Europe...

BA is using flexible seats on their A32S fleet, just like any other carrier... they might have a bit more legroom in the first part of the cabin, but nothing that really sets them apart from the competition.

Aeroflot & BMI (sometimes) offer a real business class shorthaul product too.

No, BD definitely isn't doing that any longer...

BMI might still do it occasionally as they still have some of the former BMED A32S aircraft (sporting a dedicated Business Class cabin in a 2-2 configuration). Not sure if these aircraft have been reconfigured (most have left their fleet anyway). On rare occasions they rotated these aircraft on short EU hops (for instance to BRU when they still operated LHR-BRU), for rotational reasons or in case of aircraft shortage.

[DeltaWiskey]

'might do it occasionally', you can hardly call that a consistent business class cabin/service. I agree with tolipanebas concerning NCB's ideas.

There is almost no one today that wants to pay a double/triple fare to just sit in a better seat/chair for an hour (or two) and a better meal.

[NCB]

I think that there is a misunderstanding about the business class concept.
The business class needs to be made a lot better but god forbid any further price hike compared to current B.business fares. Are you crazy? Isn’t it expensive enough already?
I think that a lot of B.Flex passengers who willingly choose B.Flex (and not because they have to in absence of « sold-out » B.light fares) would pay the fare difference for B.business if SN offers a majestic service superior to any other airline.
See, people talk a lot about FR and U2 but SN’s first competitors are other major airlines operating the exact same routes to/from BRU. If SN offers at the same price or slightly higher, a spectacularly better product than BA, IB, AY, SK, LH, LX, AZ, Olympic, and many others, they can attract their business passengers on routes to and from BRU.
Fill 12 business class seats on every A319/320 flight and 9 on RJ’s/turboprops at the current fares, and you are break even on most destinations in Europe. The economy cabin would be pure profit.

You'll have a hard time finding one, and the reason is simple: a plane used on short to medium haul (i.e. domestic EU operations), needs a flexible cabin, meaning that in the morning it must be able to take 20 or more connecting long haul business pax, whereas in the afternoon, it ideally has a full economy cabin to take as much city trippers on board as possible. You can't efficiently do that with a plane configured the way NCB is proposing, hence NOBODY is having that any longer.

Today, when 20 pax transfer from Africa to a European flight, they transfer onto a fake business class. Only the champagne and the newspaper make the difference with the rows in the back.
If my proposal is implemented, 12 pax would be sitting on a business class chair, the other 8 will be offered the option to book an economy class seat for their shorthaul as economy is already full or to select another flight.
The afternoon, the same airplane leaves to MAD with city trippers in the back and business pax in the front.

SN doesn’t need that kind of flexibility, it needs a whole new but simple concept (all the way from the booking stage) and the passenger experience needs to be fairly superior. The passenger needs to be part of the flying experience and not just a customer.

Sounds like a no brainer to me: if you want the absolute lowest price, use the LCC; if you want a fiar price and a decent service both on the ground as well as in the air, take the full serice airline... and if you have no other choice, take NCB airlines! Do you really want to be the airline of absolute last resort? Soon even your Q400s will be too big then, only to downsize further I suppose?

Actually what customers seem to be complaining about, is that for 10 times the price, you are getting LCC service with SN. If you had taken the time to read the passenger comments on the link I posted, you would have realized that.
And indeed, several comments are saying that SN should be used as the airline of last resort. Isn’t that going to surprise you? Spend half an hour on the B.air website and try to look at the fares.
The passenger has to put his ass on the cramped seat, in a tired looking cabin, pay sky high prices, collect his miles like a stamps collector, shut his mouth and accept SN the way it is, right? WRONG.

SN needs to steal low paying passengers from Ryanair and Easyjet in the back and steal business passengers from other major airlines at the front. 3 rows is enough, if it works fine, you can add more.
In the back: charge almost the same fares as Ryanair, charge for luggage but less than Ryanair, charge for ticket flexibility, hot meals and on-board internet. Give a free drink from a bottle and a decent snack (more than just a stupid bag of peanuts, more like a chocolate mousse or Toblerone like LH does), give small presents to children like Kinder Surprise.

At the front: business class at the same fares as LH/BA/IB but free internet, free wines, free champagne, plenty and a wide choice of very refined cold appetizers for passengers to pick from (no full meal required on a 1-2 hour flight), IFE with AVOD to watch live news (via internet connection) and short movies.
1-2 and 2-2 seats with recline up to 45 degrees because the airplane needs to be able to offer the flexibility of operating routes to LHR or MAN as much as ATH and LIS for the shorthaul RJ or TP or TLV, DME, the North African and maybe Western African routes for A319/A320.
Okay in this sense I agree with Tolipanebas that aircraft must be configured in a flexible manner.

The overall result is same cost but higher revenues thanks to a thriving business class and a packed economy class with ancillary revenues, but involve the passengers into the experience of flying.
The booking process must also be made a lot more clear and immediate all-in prices must be shown instead of one price at the top of the page and a much higher price when you scroll down the page.

What’s wrong with common sense?

About the CS100, it’s a dream that will not materialize. SN can’t afford to buy CS100, nor does it need it. If SN can’t fill the Avro, it won’t fill the CS100.
That lower CASM will fill the airplane is an optical illusion.
When SN sells a flight from A to B to an average of 60 passengers paying an average fare of 100 euro and the flight costs 6000 euro to operate, profit is 0.
CAS (without the miles) on the CS100 will be 60 euro compared to 67 euro on Avro RJ, but so what. No matter if the airplane is a Avro RJ with 90 seats or a CS100 with 100 seats, the operating cost would be the same 6000 euro.
It’s a different picture with a 70 seat Q400 because there your flight costs only 3000 euro to operate. Your CAS is 43 euro but your trip cost is half of 6000 euro and the airline saves 3000 euro to do the same job, flying 60 pax from A to B. So yields are the same but cost is lower, the absolute yields or margins or profit (whatever you want to call it), is bigger with Q400. Where the Q400 is too small, but 2 frequencies is too much, simple, you increase the fares and the yields so you get 70 pax that pay a higher average fare.
With larger aircraft you can't do this.
Where more capacity is needed, you go with frequency and attract even more pax by offering a better schedule. The more pax grow, the more Q400 you add, eventually some Q400X. Where the opportunities present, swap Q400’s for A320’s and you just created the airline of choice by 2020.

Also, the great thing about the Q400 is that the winter is low season in Europe but high season in Africa and the Q400 is very suited for operations in Africa. So in the winter some aircraft can be sent Africa to increase seasonal capacity with Korongo. You can never do this with CS100 or E190’s.

After reading recent reports, I can’t recommend the SSJ100 either, according to Aeroflot it’s 3 tons overweight, which is a deadweight equivalent to 40 passengers and that’s a lot for a 90 pax aircraft.

[tolipanebas]

You keep talking the same nonsense, NCB!

1- you just can't be a LCC AND a full service airline at once, you need to make a choice as your cost basis will be very different due to the different needs of pax and either you spread those costs out over ALL pax, thus making it impossible to compete with LCCs, or you let them be paid only by your premium pax, which will have to take a serious price raise on top of what they pay for their tickets today. There's just NO MARKET for that: nobody is going to pay 1,000 or more euro for a one way ticket to TXL, HAM, GVA, just because he gets to seat in a long haul seat for an hour, you know. I don't know who told you that?

2- Your idea on how pax decide to fly SN and what class they book in is completely wrong and indicative of the way you look at the matter: you have zero understanding of corporate booking processes, are missing the importance of STAR alliance to SN as well as the levels of connecting pax flows and of codeshare revenues. All you can think of is Joe Average from Gent or Liege, working at a small business, being sent somewhere for the first time in his carrier and dreaming of some sort of a unique experience for his flight he can then brag about at work as well as at home for years to come.
The average corportate pax on board is a real Frequent Flyer and sees it very differently from you, believe me, especially since we've joined STAR... All he wants is maximum flexibility prior to his flight, total efficiency on the ground, and tranquility in the air. Period. He couldn't care less about his seat width for as long as he's comfortably seated and has enough working space, nor does he care about IFE or a choice of meal, because he'll be working on his laptop anyway and won't have any time to eat a 3 course meal: a quick snack will do just fine, thank you.

3- the Q400...
Haven't you bothered checking the topic about Summer 2011 and the changes to the SN network, posted by MR_Boeing? Does that ring a bell, NCB? Isn't that exactly what I had said would happen? Not more frequencies (frequencies are generally fine), but bigger planes with lower CASM to increase profitability through volume.

[eurojet]

Dear NCB,

I can only confirm what Korongo explains about how corporate booking works: I work for an international financial institutions, and fly about every week, leaving from Lux to entire Europe and CIS countries. I do about some 30-50 round trips a year, so I may call myself a little bit of an "experienced business traveller". Just some short statements from my side:

1) when we or our travel agency books us, it is all about flexibility: leaving when it suits you, coming back when it suits you, and having decent transfer times on hubs which are easy and hassle free
2) stick to one alliance as much as possible, in our case, Star Alliance, which means passing through FRA, CPH, MUC, VIE and ZRH as much as possible
3) C-class only for TATL flight or flights longer than 5 hours

The last thing me and my colleagues care about is sitting in front on European flights: the extra price just doesn't justify the extra cost. Since we all fly that much, our status allows us lounge access even when flying Y/M, so lounge access is the only thing we are interested in.

Rather than investing in a fully fletched intra-European business class, I'd rather suggest Brussels Airlines to invest in frequency, since to a lot of European business destinations, their frequency still leaves a lot of room for improvements.

As to C-class on long-haul,that is a different story, here our corporate policy is very clear, and nobofy contests the need of travelling in comfort if you have a meeting straight after a 12 houra flight to Hong Kong. Within Europe on flights shorter than 3 hours, that story is dead.

[sn26567]

2) stick to one alliance as much as possible, in our case, Star Alliance, which means passing through FRA, CPH, MUC, VIE and ZRH as much as possible.

^
How about BRU? Also an important Star Alliance hub, isn't it? But indeed, there are no longer flights between LUX and BRU since the demise of Sabena. Wouldn't it be time to reintroduce them? Why not with a Q400?

[cnc]

just give me wifi and powerplugs on board for short to medium haul flights

[regi]

2) stick to one alliance as much as possible, in our case, Star Alliance, which means passing through FRA, CPH, MUC, VIE and ZRH as much as possible.

^
How about BRU? Also an important Star Alliance hub, isn't it? But indeed, there are no longer flights between LUX and BRU since the demise of Sabena. Wouldn't it be time to reintroduce them? Why not with a Q400?

Yes, immediately, and let us add Lille as well.
But seriously, LUX is 225 km away from BRU, and that is exactly 96 km more than Lille. And this extra hour travel time could make the difference, making flying attractive.
I think that LUX is a very specific niche destination, especially the bank sector. That means that you would need frequency during working days in the morning and the evening for day returns. But no use during the middle of the day. ( except maybe some < LUX passengers who would like to use a SN flight to Africa, but I didn't check those connection hours)
This means that the machines are not used during weekends, public holidays and mid day. And I guess that there are some different public holidays between the 2 countries. So also no traffic.
Other issue is LUX airport itself. I am not very well informed, but are there not very harsh restrictions , and are the airport taxes not extremely high , to avoid too much traffic?

[eurojet]

Hi Regi,

a direct flight LUX-BRU would make a lot of sense .. When we need to go to Brussels (which I often need to do), we either drive (if your meeting is at 09.00 in Brussels, this means we can leave here around 05.30 AM, so avoid all traffic jams) or the train, which takes more than 3 hours as well. Now, we mostly leave the night before, stay overnight in Brussels in a hotel and drive back. Cost wise highly unefficient, since those (leasing carr) kilometers need to be paid and written off, as well as the hotel night. I never understood why VLM/Cityjet never jumped into this. Fortis Bank used to have a daily flight shuttle between LUX and BRU, just to avoid all the travel hassle between the two cities. Also, any flight out of LUX could easily connect in BRU. Hey, KLM is capable of filling three daily F70s to AMS, and 95% of that traffic is connecting in AMS. FYI, a Y-class day retour LUX-AMS-LUX = EUR 660 ....

It is indeed true to Lux Airport is heavily "protected" by the Lux governement, especially to protect the interests of Luxair. Luxembourg being a super-rich country is in many aspects also the last communist state of Europe, where even the biggest milk factory is still in the hands of the state....

[NCB]

LUX makes alot of sense as does Lille.
Lille is 90 minutes driving in best case scenario, but we've had this conversation before.
Car parking at BRU, elderly people, people who don't own a car, connecting to Africa. All these points showed that there would only be benefits to a BRU-LIL route as SN currently receives no traffic from Lille.

If you have a problem with the distance, tell LX they are really stupid to operate 6 weekly Basel-Zurich, which is shorter than BRU-LIL, and with a Avro RJ100.

[sn26567]

This remains out of topic, but Sabena had 4 daily flights between LUX and BRU. Why should VLM jump on this? Brussels Airlines has a much bigger interest in such a connection: feeding of its African and other European routes, as well as point-to-point traffic as eurojet has explained.

Luxair, which is partially owned by LH (I wonder why it is not yet part of the Star Alliance), could easily codeshare with SN on such a route. And I was serious when I suggested a Q400 to serve the route...

[tolipanebas]

There you have it NCB, straight from the mouth of a regular corporate traveller: you who likes to take all your evidence straight from the web, surely will value this kind of personal unbiassed opinions highly, won't you?

Eurojet is 100% mainstream with his travel needs, BTW: corporate travellers ONLY care about flexibility (so they can change their flights when they need to, even last minute), prefer flying with an alliance airline (so they can rely on a status which entitles them extra facilities on the ground in case of delay) and want speedy ground procedures from check-in (for instance on-line or phone check-in), easy baggage handling (like drop off points) and generous carry-on rules with ample personal working space on board (so good luck with your cramped Q400s). What they definitely don't care about is what you're thinking they'll surely love: a luxureous in-flight experience, ironically on board a cramped little plane, which will often have to be parked remotely, resulting in very inconvenient boarding procedures, limited carry-on allowances and minimal personal working space....

Nope, the days of Crossair are over my friend, I've told you so before: you're model is so 1990: the only difference being you've replaced the fuelguzzling E-jets with Q400s, which might result in a cost saving allright, but at a high cost for both the pax comfort as well as average flying times, 2 things corporate travellers do not want to compromise on today.

[eurojet]

NCB/Korongo... to add one thing: we have this running joke about people working for stock-quoted companies who still fly business intra-Europe: sell the stock of that company asap ...

[regi]

Hi Regi,

a direct flight LUX-BRU would make a lot of sense .. When we need to go to Brussels (which I often need to do), we either drive (if your meeting is at 09.00 in Brussels, this means we can leave here around 05.30 AM, so avoid all traffic jams) or the train, which takes more than 3 hours as well. Now, we mostly leave the night before, stay overnight in Brussels in a hotel and drive back. Cost wise highly unefficient, since those (leasing carr) kilometers need to be paid and written off, as well as the hotel night. I never understood why VLM/Cityjet never jumped into this. Fortis Bank used to have a daily flight shuttle between LUX and BRU, just to avoid all the travel hassle between the two cities. Also, any flight out of LUX could easily connect in BRU. Hey, KLM is capable of filling three daily F70s to AMS, and 95% of that traffic is connecting in AMS. FYI, a Y-class day retour LUX-AMS-LUX = EUR 660 ....

It is indeed true to Lux Airport is heavily "protected" by the Lux governement, especially to protect the interests of Luxair. Luxembourg being a super-rich country is in many aspects also the last communist state of Europe, where even the biggest milk factory is still in the hands of the state....

thank you for your swift contribution, and your own experience. In fact it should be Luxair that should fly to AMS and Brussels , Antwerp with their Q400.
The protectionism of Luxembourg seems to be one sided, because they use Saarbrücken - Germany - as a second base. So...welcome to Brussels, Luxair. And because they are partly owned by LH, they can use those extra Q400.

[tolipanebas]

SN currently receives no traffic from Lille.

Do you know this, or simply assume this?

As far as I KNOW, a very significant number of our French pax either comes from the Lille or the Valenciennes region, 2 places SN doesn't serve with flights. People just drive up to BRU and they do so because it is hundreds of euro cheaper to fly to AFI through BRU, than it is to connect through CDG with AF.

Again, you're simply assuming too much, just to make it fit your point of view.

[NCB]

The average corportate pax on board is a real Frequent Flyer and sees it very differently from you, believe me, especially since we've joined STAR... All he wants is maximum flexibility prior to his flight, total efficiency on the ground, and tranquility in the air. Period. He couldn't care less about his seat width for as long as he's comfortably seated and has enough working space, nor does he care about IFE or a choice of meal, because he'll be working on his laptop anyway and won't have any time to eat a 3 course meal: a quick snack will do just fine, thank you.

So you are starting to admit that there is no point in SN offering B.business class in its current form.
You are also admitting that SN has no efficiency on the ground and that pax don't need a meal.
That's progress.

2- Your idea on how pax decide to fly SN and what class they book in is completely wrong and indicative of the way you look at the matter: you have zero understanding of corporate booking processes

Interesting. I think that you will realize that it's a lot easier than you think it is, because there are only 3 main criteria for anyone to book any flights: price, schedule and product in this order.
Mileage schemes bring no benefits because at an airport like BRU, there just isn't a short-haul frequent flyer presence like there is in Paris, Frankfurt, London, Milan or other metropolitan cities.
Just take a picture in the terminal at FRA and compare it with terminal A in BRU.

Haven't you bothered checking the topic about Summer 2011 and the changes to the SN network, posted by MR_Boeing? Does that ring a bell, NCB? Isn't that exactly what I had said would happen? Not more frequencies (frequencies are generally fine), but bigger planes with lower CASM to increase profitability through volume.

Summer 2011? Gosh, Bombardier is going to deliver the CS100 2 years early??
No, I haven't read the thread but you're probably alluding to the fact that RJ85 capacity is going to be replaced by RJ100 capacity and A319/A320's coming online.
You clearly are under the illusion that this is permanent. It is not.
2011: -5 RJ85, +3 A319, +2 A320.
2012: -X RJ85, +X A319/320 (maybe already RJ replacements)
2013: +X RJ replacement, -X B737, -X RJ85/100
2014: +X RJ replacement, -X B737, -X RJ85/100

The additional A319/A320 next year are there mainly to replace B737's (also for added capacity), but the B737's will be compensating the RJ85's while waiting for the RJ replacement.
So starting 2013, RJ's or turboprops are going to replace the B737.
The larger aircraft theory is only correct if they come in with CS100 but this is a shared concern for every sane human being. I believe that that will be a very large strategical mistake and that it could have huge long-term consequences. The CS100 is an obsolete aircraft, just look at its weight numbers. They're horrible.
Being a launch customer is also a risk that SN can not accept.

you just can't be a LCC AND a full service airline at once, you need to make a choice as your cost basis will be very different due to the different needs of pax and either you spread those costs out over ALL pax, thus making it impossible to compete with LCCs, or you let them be paid only by your premium pax, which will have to take a serious price raise on top of what they pay for their tickets today. There's just NO MARKET for that: nobody is going to pay 1,000 or more euro for a one way ticket to TXL, HAM, GVA, just because he gets to seat in a long haul seat for an hour, you know. I don't know who told you that?

For starters, to my knowledge, BRU-LHR is SN's shortest flight and it blocks at 75 minutes.

It doesn’t matter whether you want to call your airline an LCC or full service airline.
No one forces anyone else to make a choice as long as your product is basic, simple to understand.
There is no point in selling a 500 euro one-way business class when all you get is
-a seat with LCC pitch,
-hot meal that you may not need for a 1 hour flight,
-a newspaper but limited in choices that you may not need because you already bought your own at the airport,
-champagne or high end wine which you don’t want if you’re on a morning flight,
-a lot of miles to collect but it would just be easier to fly B.Flex and pay for that reward car rental yourself.

Yet SN is selling it and it's not very popular

Business pax want more than things they don’t need. They want internet so they can stay connected with the stock markets, their e-mails, their company or just keep busy. Even better if it’s a wi-fi system, so they can use their own laptop. They want a big seat with space and a large table so they can put their laptop, some papers and a pen on it. They want to stretch their legs.

You say SN needs flexibility.
But what flexibility? Flexibility in favour of the airline or flexibility in favour of the customer?
Where is the flexibility when a business class customer flying to ATH, DME, TLV, or the new North African routes has to sit in the same cramped seat as a flight that goes to LHR or GVA? Isn’t a 45 degree recline and decent legroom a minimum for a 3 hour flight? Why would the customer need to compromise his comfort for the flexibility of the airline?

As far as I KNOW, a very significant number of our French pax either comes from the Lille or the Valenciennes region, 2 places SN doesn't serve with flights. People just drive up to BRU and they do so because it is hundreds of euro cheaper to fly to AFI through BRU, than it is to connect through CDG with AF.

Nuance: very significant number of our 200 French pax per day. You're trying to build a religion, aren't you?
If French pax come to Belgium for a flight, it's from CDG with SN and to CRL from the Lille region, to catch a Ryanair flight. No sane passenger would come from the Lille region by car to connect to a European flight.

You don't know one percent of what I know about this business, this fight is just unfair.

[tolipanebas]

NCB/Korongo... to add one thing: we have this running joke about people working for stock-quoted companies who still fly business intra-Europe: sell the stock of that company asap ...

ROTFL.

A bit off topic, but the highest numbers of self-sponsored C class pax on intra-European flights are to be found on Italian destinations. For one reason or the other, wealthy Italians are still willing to fork out the money for prestigeous frills. Oh well, those same Italians also like to show off their Guggi sunglasses by wearing them even at night!

[NCB]

I can only confirm what Korongo explains about how corporate booking works: I work for an international financial institutions, and fly about every week, leaving from Lux to entire Europe and CIS countries. I do about some 30-50 round trips a year, so I may call myself a little bit of an "experienced business traveller". Just some short statements from my side:

1) when we or our travel agency books us, it is all about flexibility: leaving when it suits you, coming back when it suits you, and having decent transfer times on hubs which are easy and hassle free
2) stick to one alliance as much as possible, in our case, Star Alliance, which means passing through FRA, CPH, MUC, VIE and ZRH as much as possible
3) C-class only for TATL flight or flights longer than 5 hours

The last thing me and my colleagues care about is sitting in front on European flights: the extra price just doesn't justify the extra cost. Since we all fly that much, our status allows us lounge access even when flying Y/M, so lounge access is the only thing we are interested in.

Rather than investing in a fully fletched intra-European business class, I'd rather suggest Brussels Airlines to invest in frequency, since to a lot of European business destinations, their frequency still leaves a lot of room for improvements.

As to C-class on long-haul,that is a different story, here our corporate policy is very clear, and nobofy contests the need of travelling in comfort if you have a meeting straight after a 12 houra flight to Hong Kong. Within Europe on flights shorter than 3 hours, that story is dead.

This is an excellent input for a case study example.
I put the mileage part in bold, because it shows very well that BRU is not on there. I assure you mr. Tolipanebas, BRU is not a frequent flyer market at all on short-haul. A very large part is leisure, another large part is small businesses and politics, and a smaller part is corporate travel.

A lot of companies nowadays book their customers in Y class because they see no merit in paying more for additional perks that are not worth the money.
Other companies just will pay as little as possible, which is the case for most European financial institutions coming out of the crisis. The business class is only of interest for inbound executives and wealthy people who expect more than the seats SN provides. So yes, the rich Italian pax will take SN's business class once, but don't worry, they won't make the same mistake twice.

Today I want to take the following example:
BRU-MAD 2 hours 30 min flight, outbound next Monday nov 15th, return next Tuesday. Following options available
B.Light: sold out
B.Flex: 590 euro
B.Business: 1300 euro
What’s the difference of 710 euro between B.Flex and B.business for?
Miles and better meal and a few invisible millimeters of pitch. B.Flex needs to pay small fee for lounge access.
Put simply, everything you don’t need for 700 euro.

If tomorrow your company can book a real comfortable business class seat with good pitch and recline, free internet and AVOD, in addition to a good wine, champagne, free lounge access and full flexibility, your company and other companies will consider paying 800 euro for that seat. Only 210 euro more over today’s B.Flex ticket for a totally different flying experience.

If the company is not willing to do that, then it’s simple, you fly economy class, get a free drink and snack and your company pays 200 euro for booking the fare this late, an additional 100 euro for ticket flexibility, 20 euro for your piece of luggage and 20 euro for lounge access for a total of 340 euro. In the end the company pays 250 euro less than with B.Flex today.
The benefit is that if you’re a regular Joe looking to book a ticket to see your sick family member in Madrid and you don’t need flexibility and you don’t need lounge access but you have one piece of luggage, you can get a ticket for 210 euro.

The end result would be that SN will be flying with a full business class and full economy class because business class will be worth paying for and economy class will be cheaper.
In other words, your company or you, the business man will choose SN over Iberia or Spanair for the better business class service or the cheaper flexible economy class ticket and the Regular Joe will go for SN over Ryanair because of schedule, hassle of going to CRL and even because he can get internet on board the 5 hours he’s going to spend on both legs of the journey. The fare difference would be only 70 euro but the customer wouldn’t need to pay gas to go to CRL, no parking fee, no lousy announcements,

Today, the regular Joe only has the option of booking that 590 euro B.Flex ticket (because B.light is “sold-out”, so Ryanair gets the business because the fare difference is too large.
Today, the business passenger only has the option of booking a 590 euro B.Flex ticket which is 150 euro more expensive than a flexible ticket with Spanair and the business class is just not worth booking.

Also keep in mind that SN is sending the same aircraft on 1 hour routes as on 4 hour routes, so there you need to have the better comfort available so that the passengers flying the 4 hour routes get no compromise and those on the 1 hour route get a gadget.


I love the fact that you talk frequency.
If SN goes with a CS100 fleet, it will not be able to increase frequencies. On top of that, the CS100 is so expensive that SN won’t afford to lease extra aircraft to maintain a good quota of spare aircraft and delays will result for the passengers.
The Q400 with a list price of 25 million dollars would be a lot cheaper because Bombardier has a shrinking backlog but an open production line.
I think that SN could lease 50 Q400’s with 70-seat for the price of leasing 25 CS100 with 100 seats. But in the end, SN doesn’t need 50 Q400’s, so 35 of them should be sufficient to do the same job the 25 Avro’s are doing today but with more frequencies and more spare aircraft. Another 5 options would be great for frequency and capacity expansion, and it would still cost less than buying the 25 CS100!!
This all without even taking into consideration the lower CASM of the Q400, the 50% lower trip cost per flight, the better load factor management possibilities and the ability to allocate the Q400 to Korongo for the low season.

With the Q400 you can match capacity and frequencies to the demands of a route. With the CS100 or any aircraft larger than the Avro’s, you can only sit there and look at how empty the cabin is and try to find a way of filling more seats at the same high price, which is very, very difficult.

The CS100 will have a 20-30% fuel burn advantage over the Avro but the lease costs would be 250% higher, same maintenance costs due to labour-intensiveness and not mature systems, resulting in the same trip cost.
The Q400 will have a 50-60% fuel burn advantage over the Avro, lease costs would be about 70% higher, significantly lower maintenance costs through the mature and simple design, resulting in half the trip cost of the Avro.
The Q400 will also pay less landing fees per passenger because the MTOW is almost half that of the CS100 while carrying only 30% less passengers.
The Q400 will emit 20% less CO2 per available seat, and by current load factors 50% less CO2 per trip compared to the CS100.
Carbon prices are around 20 euro per ton of CO2, an aircraft releases 3 tons of CO2 per ton of fuel.
A Q400 Next Gen burns 1000kg per hour, a CS100 will burn around 1800kg per hour. The annual cost of the EU trading scheme will be in the million euro’s per year for SN, so going for the Q400 would save SN several millions of euro’s. The EU emissions trading scheme will be including aviation in 13 months, 57 weeks from today.

The CS100 will have no additional revenue potential over the Avro, the Q400 will have additional revenue potential through higher frequency operations that will result in better schedule and increased pax demand.

Put the CS100 dream in the garbage, please. Bring on the Q400.


Passenger carriers who are able to achieve higher occupancy rates and freight carriers with greater loads may have an advantage over competitors, because they will receive a greater number of free allowances.

The risks associated with not having developed a robust monitoring system are considerable for tonne kilometre data in particular. This is because this data will be collected only in 2010, determining the number of free allowances for a period of nine years (2012-2020) - and making it worth up to several billion Euro.

The emission factors are 3.15 t CO 2 per tonne of jet kerosene and 3.10 t CO 2 per tonne of aviation or jet gasoline following the 2006 IPCC Inventory Guidelines.

Given that the aviation sector's emissions are expected to grow to 130% by 2012 (compared with 2005 levels), only about 60 % of the allowances the sector needs will be issued for free in 2012.
This shortfall equals costs for entire sector of about 3.5 billion Euros per year assuming a price level of 30 Euro per allowance (of 1 ton of CO2)

http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/transportation ... ions.jhtml

This is serious business.

It's also interesting to realize that some people flying in the cockpits don't realize that asking for larger aircraft is asking for the jobs scissor.

[tolipanebas]

If tomorrow your company can book a real comfortable business class seat with good pitch and recline, free internet and AVOD, in addition to a good wine, champagne, free lounge access and full flexibility, your company and other companies will consider paying 800 euro for that seat. Only 210 euro more over today’s B.Flex ticket for a totally different flying experience.

So you really think any employer will say 'Oh well, 'just' 200 euro more for excellent wines and champagne a go-go for our hardworking employee on a business trip, yes, sure go ahead!"
Especially with a meeting planned upon arrival, drinking is a good thing to do, right?

Let me tell you, NO COMPANY is going to allow you to fly in C class, not even if it is just 100 euro above regular economy, for the simple reason it is completely against the COMPANY POLICY nowadays.

Let's ask Eurojet what he thinks the reaction would be to such a proposal at his working place...

Put the CS100 dream in the garbage, please. Bring on the Q400.

Nope, much to your disbelief, we're going to go even larger than the CS100: the A319 is coming to replace the first RJs already next year (see the topic about the Summer 2011 timetable for their use).

What a shocker, right?