Brussels Airlines introduces free meals/drinks in Blight

[HighInTheSky]

Brussels Airlines will introduce a free meal & drink service on flights longer than 3hrs scheduled.

This change will start from 30th September on flights to Agadir (AGA), Marrakech (RAK) and Athens (ATH).

Food offered in Blight will be wrap-kind (both breakfast and lunch/dinner-style).

Quite good news I must say!

Let's hope that passengers will value these changes

[cathay belgium]

Guess SN had to introduce this just because of the co-operation with Club Med, no ?
Hope this quite inexpensive (?) 'gift' will put a little bit of sunshine on bLight and will know an expansion to all flights..
( even guess if this -little- extra fare was already into the airfare, a lot of pax will like this..

CX-B

[RoMax]

Guess SN had to introduce this just because of the co-operation with Club Med, no ?
Hope this quite inexpensive (?) 'gift' will put a little bit of sunshine on bLight and will know an expansion to all flights..
( even guess if this -little- extra fare was already into the airfare, a lot of pax will like this..

CX-B

I don't think Club Med is the main factor in this, rather LH will be. As far as I know SN already offers free drinks and snacks in blight to TLV and DME. The other "long" routes are a logicall next step. As both AGA and RAK are "long" routes they will get this service, but also ATH (does Club Med sell tickets on the ATH route?).

If this service proves to be succesfull I'm sure they will expand this to other "longer" (longer than 1.5 or 2 hours or something like that) European routes. But I doubt we'll ever see this on all European flights. Even some major carriers do no longer offer free snacks (altough most/all offer free drinks) on the shortest domestic/regional flights, or only until 10 a.m for example.

[acba]

When I used the flight to RAK with Club Med this summer, the Club Med pax were seated in b.flex in order to get a meal. Maybe that will change in the future, with the availability of a snack in b.light.

[RoMax]

When I used the flight to RAK with Club Med this summer, the Club Med pax were seated in b.flex in order to get a meal. Maybe that will change in the future, with the availability of a snack in b.light.

I tought Club Med always wants to offer some kind of "premium" offer to their clients. In that way they will stay where they are (b-flex) as this will still be a "more premium" class with reall meals (so not the simple kind of meals that will be offered in blight), free newspapers, more flexibility, more M&M miles (wich can also be collected by Club Med pax if I'm correct), ...

Really I doubt this decision has anything to do with Club Med. Why would SN do this for Club Med? All Club Med pax now fly in bflex, why would they adjust blight so that the Club Med pax could fly in blight. If that would happen, SN would earn less money on the Club Med pax. Not really a good way to get out of the red numbers. Blight is simply a low cost offer with often not so low cost ticket prices. I'm sure this is one of the things that has to change for LH, especially on the longer flights and as they already offer free meals and drinks to TLV and DME, ATH/AGA/RAK are the next step.

[airbuske]

Aegean is offering free drinks and food on the flight from ATH - BRU.
Often pax with an Aegean ticket are not happy that they don't receive a meal and drinks when flying SN.

[Air Key West]

In terms of passenger service and catering in economy, Aegean is definitely a better airline than SN.
In the beginning, I was against the three-class cabin in Europe, but now that there are such huge differences in prices in economy (return flights to the same destination sometimes varying from 99 to 999 euros - at least on LH), I am increasingly convinced that the AF configuration is the best : Premium Affaires (Business), Premium Economy (b.flex on SN) and Voyageur (b.light on SN). AF offers free drinks and a small snack also in Voyageur on all European flights. I hope SN will soon do the same. On LH, for instance, my experience is that in economy, catering is most of the time of the "99 euros" type rather than taking also into account pax with expensive flexible economy tickets.

[woutertheboy]

It looks like times are changed . SN offered me a free coke and a delicious Lotus wafer when flying BRU-BCN on 6/10. Finally they are on pair with LH, LX, ...



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[fretn]

Had the same thing on the LHR-BRU flight 2 weeks ago. We received a waffel and an oj/water. It was a real nice touch to the service. On the BRU-VIE & VIE-BRU there was nothing for b.light.

[RoMax]

Is this some kind of trial to see how passengers think/feel about it/if they appreciate it? Or did they start doing this on selected routes (though in that case I would think it's strange to do this on a BCN flight and not an a VIE flight, which has (I believe?) more 'high-yield' tourists and business orientated passengers)? Or is there another more simple reason for this?

[Stij]

Between BRU and EDI we received crackers, an alcoholic beverage and a Neuhaus cookie!

However, there were no food or drinks for sale...

Maybe they do t this way where they have competition (Austrian isn't competition).

Anyway: me like!!!

Cheers,

Stij

[RoMax]

Between BRU and EDI we received crackers, an alcoholic beverage and a Neuhaus cookie!

Was this an SN operated flight or FlyBe/Tyrolean? Because these always serve a small snack and free drinks on board, thoug they serve non-alcoholic only I believe?

[Ricard]

Sorry to dissapoint some people, but this was a temporarily measure, due to supplier LSG, all back to normal since last monday.

[Stij]

Was this an SN operated flight or FlyBe/Tyrolean? Because these always serve a small snack and free drinks on board, thoug they serve non-alcoholic only I believe?

Oops non-alcoholic of course!!! And yes, operated by FlyBE, once in FlyBE livery and once in SN livery.

A pity it isn't permanent...

Cheers,

Stij

[shockcooling]

Was this an SN operated flight or FlyBe/Tyrolean? Because these always serve a small snack and free drinks on board, thoug they serve non-alcoholic only I believe?

Oops non-alcoholic of course!!! And yes, operated by FlyBE, once in FlyBE livery and once in SN livery.

A pity it isn't permanent...

Cheers,

Stij

Well I heard from my colleagues that many pax were unhappy they couldn't buy alcoholic drinks in that period, think Scandinavians for example. So still unable to satisfy everyone.
But if the rest are happy with a waffle and a oj, great

[Comet]

It would be great if SN introduced this on ALL their flights. You don't need a full meal but it is nice to be able to have a drink onboard without having to pay alot for it. On the EDI-BRU route, they are in competition with BMI, who offer a free drink and a snack onboard.

[tolipanebas]

It would be great if SN introduced this on ALL their flights. You don't need a full meal but it is nice to be able to have a drink onboard without having to pay alot for it. On the EDI-BRU route, they are in competition with BMI, who offer a free drink and a snack onboard.

It would be great for passengers indeed, but it does come at a cost: handing out say a typical Belgian waffle and a cup of coffee to over 4 million of b.light passengers annually would costs anything between 5M and 8M euro (cost + lost revenues on the onboard sales).

It's estimated that not enough extra passengers could be attracted to make up for that and there's something to say about it: at an average revenue of not even 100 euro per ticket, I'll let you calculate just how many extra passengers you'd need to convince to go for SN's b.light and it's free waffle / coffee and whether or not it's truely worth it.

BTW- on the EDI route you refer to, SN are soon going to be the only carrier, as BMI has decided to halt their 2 daily flights as from next year due to too strong competition from SN's recently started flights...
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=50497&start=80#p287066

It may not be a popular thing to say, but in fact b.light should be stripped of even more free things, like for instance it's free checked luggage allowance, IMHO as they could make several millions from that easily. It really is low hanging fruit waiting to be plucked...

[FlightMate]

You sound like a bean counter, tolip.
It's pretty hard to put a number on consumers satisfaction.

All I know, is that SN was making money when they were offering free meals and drinks, and now they are not

[tolipanebas]

You sound like a bean counter, tolip.
It's pretty hard to put a number on consumers satisfaction.

All I know, is that SN was making money when they were offering free meals and drinks, and now they are not

Everybody likes good service, but are you willing to pay any extra for it, even if just a single euro?

Look at what LH just said on their de-hubbed flights already transferred to Germanwings: they aren't loosing any customers and although the initial ticket price is lower, total yield is up from charging for all sort if things which used to be given for free.

It''s just the way it goes: some people may complain at first, but they won't walk because if it, so why still hesitate? There's really nothing mysterious about the Easyjet model, in fact it's much euh... Easier than anything else even....

[FlightMate]

Nothing mysterious about how easyjet or ryanair operate. It's just that SN cannot compete with them, price wise. Competitors of SN are other full service carriers.
BA to the UK, LX to switzerland, even LH to Germany. All offering better service for similar prices.

If SN wants to increase their number of pax, à la ryanair, they should be offering much better prices, and start increasing fees on luggages, food, etc...
If they can't, 'tourists' will keep on flying with ryanair, while 'businesmen' will keep on flying LH, BA, etc...