Why doesn't SN fly to Asia?

[Flanker2]

One last thing: You say SN should not think about starting Asia because other concerns are also concentrating on their core business. But the core business of SN is to connect city's all over the globe through their BRU hub.

The idea an airline needs to serve places all around the globe is outdated the moment you accept air travel is indeed increasingly becoming just a commodity to most people, because then you accept getting to acceptable volumes on the routes offered becomes critical over serving as many different places as you possibly can.

The last thing you need to do when you are selling commodities is to spread your resources very thin over all too many of them: it's going to make sure you sell a little bit of everything for a while, but lose market leadership on all after which you'll be pushed aside by 'market specialists' in each one of them.

The bottom line is that IF you want to enter a new market, you need to do it big, otherwise don't bother.
Given the proposals I've seen so far, getting to a meaningful volume and market share on them is not very likely, so I wouldn't go for them either if I were having to decide.

In a few years, SN will loose most of it African market niche to operators such as TK. More European airlines will start flying to Africa and more African airlines will start flying to Europe.

This means that in a few years, whether SN still has liquidity or not, there will be no business case for SN anymore. I think that you don't operate to Asia for the sake of just operating it, it's just essential to SN's African network.

The main traffic flow is now between Asia and Africa and it's not 2 A332's that will put LH/LX's business case in jeopardy if most of the traffic transits towards Africa. So if LH and LX see a problem with this, because they will loose some profitable BRU-Asia traffic or some other Europe-Asia traffic, then LH is simply the wrong partner for SN and the other shareholders should take distance from LH.

Getting shareholders to approve U.S. flights is a miracle to me as well, how could so many people not see that it doesn't make sense?

For me, not operating Asia flights means that SN is neglecting its core niche Africa and is wasting money elsewhere looking for personal prestige, with the excuse that it's to feed Africa... remind me how you can feed African flights with a late afternoon IAD flight?

[b720]

the late afternoon IAD flight, does indeed make no sense to me too. I could understand a late afternoon to NY area though.. but IAD? SN must focus on their REGIONAL european network. Lots of feed North-South.. flights from GVA (e.g.) carry substantial traffic to several destination in the UK, Germany and Scandinavia. Am sure same to some destination in Italy and Spain. remaining realistic, I don't see SN opening any destinations in Asia for the time being. JFK is doing well, it seems. Maybe IAD pushed to early morning, as the UA flight leaves BRU at noon. Back to Asia, how can 4 or 5 weekly flights to 1 or 2 asian destinations compete with multiple seemless connections with LH and LX? Someone in Asia flying to Africa has daily 1 stop connections on ME3, TK, ET, EGYPT AIR (very cheap, and extensive network in Africa) and AF-KL, .. with SN (provided they fly to 1 or 2 destinations in Asia) one might end up doing 2 or 3 stops with their triangular network in Africa. What has SN to offer that the airlines above can not? Nothing actually. SN is no Africa's Queen of the skies. BRU is no SCHIPOL nor DXB..O.D. Traffic between Belgium and Asia is almost non existant. Belgium's economy is focused on Europe, and has always been the case. I think that SN must focus on EUR, and it's hub which happens to be the capital of EUR.
SN's survival depends on making its EUROPEAN operations PROFITABLE. Africa, as Flanker mentioned, will no longer bring in the dough in the near future, for the precise reasons he stated.

[BrightCedars]

As mentioned the Africa business case isn't that rosy for the future. As Africa develops so will competition, as is already the case, pressure will come on the price and SN's small volume operation won't be able to keep up the fight.

To me SN should focus on the niche operation that is BRU and forget about global traffic flows other than by opportunity to fill the last otherwise not sold seats on a plane. That means NYC seems to make sense, so do probably some Africa routes. Other than that they should focus on connecting BRU with Star Alliance hubs when it makes sense and run BRU centric long-haul flights. That means Japan can be in the cards, HKG as well as it is said to have potential, but most importantly they should focus on focusing and funneling capacity at one Asian gateway e.g. BKK where most connections are possible and the O&D leisure traffic fills the rest of the plane. California is said to be another potential operation that would make sense out of BRU. Maybe YUL might as well.

Being opportunist would mean they should look at offering long-haul leisure routes as well. Weekly Florida flights, some islands, some markets where the traffic flow is so straight (TNR-France) that they can run a plane once a weekend.

Other than that they must focus on being the undisputed European leader at BRU or they will bite the dust and never return. FR and VY will be doing all they can to wipe them off the map and take the bastion.

[Inquirer]

If the plan is to serve Asian routes in order to feed African routes, then isn't it far better to move the African routes to a hub which is specialized in Asian routes?
I think that Asian routes will always be more numerous, more frequent and more voluminous than any African network will ever be, so why turn things upside down?
Because it's BRU we're talking about and we'd all absolutely want to see it all being done right here? Understandable, but not very realistic from an investor's perspective.

The USA is an important trading partner of Belgium, so it's a little bit unfair to pretend it doesn't make any sense to serve it, as if it is Antartica!
NY is probably the most essential intercontinental point-to-point route of all from Belgium (and is seemingly doing quite well by now) and given the status of Brussels on the world scene, a flight to DC makes much sense too.
They may have to change its schedule to also connect it to their African flights, but then wasn't it said it was United which pushed very hard to have them try with an evening flight to tap the diplomatic evening trafic between the EU and US capitals both ways?
What's wrong with an occasional opportunistic approach to expansion anyway? In fact, I think it is going to have to be their way forward even, as strategic long haul expansion plans are simply off scale for them.

For the rest I agree with what is said by b720: they better keep their focus on connecting BRU with the main Belgian business destinations (wherever they are) and use those flights as their feeders to their African routes. I doubt there are much other opportunities around as it requires just too much investment for too little return, so you'll never find somebody to fund such expansion, regardless whether it makes any sense or not.

One shoudn't forget that in the end it's always a question of money and so far, I haven't seen much on how to pay for the expansion proposed here, other than some finger pointing to shareholders first blamed for their desire to lose money on the ramp up of very logical USA destinations, something which is a bit of a weird accusation to make then as you'd have to be asking them to do even more of the same right after to pay for a much more risky Asian ramp up.

[Flanker2]

To add substance to this discussion, it may be interesting to discover the Tsukiji fish market, the world's largest wholesale food market. Domestic and imported fish is traded here, while some of the fish is also exported.
The tuna caught in Gloucester, Massachussets (see the natgeo reality TV show series Wicked Tuna) also ends up here.

The video follows the movements on the market from midnight through the morning and the day.

[Air Key West]

The current situation seems to indicate that LH wants pax to/from BRU traveling to/from Asia to fly through FRA/MUC and ZRH/VIE. LH's policy seems to be that b.air must concentrate on Africa. Personally,I thinkit it is indeed better for b.air not to enter the Asian market. This market is already dominated by basically four airlines (TK + G3). Soon, Chinese airlines will become really aggressive, too, and I'm far from convinced that Western airlines will win the battle on the Eastern front. There are still opportunities in Africa (in spite of TK & G3 entering the market,but it's mainly for Asia/Africa traffic) and we'll see if Gustin's hint at flying to Juba (South Sudan) will materialize. Opportunities still exist in Latin America where there are no "bulldozer" airlines like TK & G3. This part of the world is still developing and growing and Brazil in spite of a slowdown of its economic growth - which was too high anyway to remain at previous years' level - still offers opportunities to European airlines. Same for Panama : more airlines are now starting to fly there (AF/UX). So, I'd say : b.air, keep your hands off of Asia. Let LH burn its wings there.

[Inquirer]

The current situation seems to indicate that LH wants pax to/from BRU traveling to/from Asia to fly through FRA/MUC and ZRH/VIE.

I guess four Asian hubs is more than enough from a group's perspective, so I really fail to see the need to add yet another one to it like some would want to see happen; whatever point-to-point need there is from BRU, can adequately be taken care of by a partner airline, like for instance ANA or Thai.

Anybody an idea on how Thai is doing on Bangkok, or what the prospect is for that ANA flight to Tokyo? They were rumoured to come to BRU some time ago. in fact, they even announced it for a very brief time, after which they quickly pulled the official Press Statement offline?

[cnc]

once the 787 fleet is performing as expected BRU should come back on the table at ANA.
doesn't seem like it will happen in the next 18 months with that nightmareliner

[Inquirer]

once the 787 fleet is performing as expected BRU should come back on the table at ANA.
doesn't seem like it will happen in the next 18 months with that nightmareliner

I agree it's likely to happen, but have they already officially (re)confirmed their interest?

They have recently added a German route which was said to be competing with BRU to be ANA's latest addition to their time table, and in the end, the Germans won (aviation sometimes looks a bit like football)

I think a flight to Tokio by ANA would be a very good news, for them obviously, but also for Brussels Airlines (provided they'd codeshare) and of course our country.

[RoMax]

I agree it's likely to happen, but have they already officially (re)confirmed their interest?

They have recently added a German route which was said to be competing with BRU to be ANA's latest addition to their time table, and in the end, the Germans won (aviation sometimes looks a bit like football)

Last I heard of it was that ANA would want to add (operated by 787's) Dusseldorf (starting soon), Zurich and Brussels. The first one will now be DUS, which is no suprise actually. It might mean we will have to wait a bit longer on flights to BRU, but I'm quite convinced it will eventually come.

[airvoltaire]

Is there no opportunity for SN to fly to PBM?

[RoMax]

Is there no opportunity for SN to fly to PBM?

Why PBM? Except for the OD traffic to/from the Netherlands (which is already well served by KLM and SLM) I don't see any connection between Europe and Parimaribo/Suriname?

[crew1990]

The best would be that the ANA open a link with Tokyo and Singapour Airlines whit Singapour as they coul bring some pax to SN

[Flanker2]

NH won't operate the route unless they think that it can be profitable.
Operating costs at NH are higher than SN.

So if NH operate the route,
1. they can bring feeding to Africa indeed, but the cost of that feeding will be higher as NH will have to make profit on top of the higher operating costs
2. SN will not make as much profit and will also be less competitive on Japan-Africa

South America is a great mid-term vision / goal.
I'm more concerned that SN's Africa niche will become unsustainable in the short-term, in 1-2 years or so.
All it takes is for SN to loose 50 pax on each flight at current yields and they can start pulling their A330's out of Africa. TK's increasing presence and the relaunch of Afriqiyah into Europe and Africa alone can achieve that IMO.

[koja78]

One vote for South America..

[Air Key West]

One vote for South America..

Thanks !

South America is a great mid-term vision / goal.

Thanks, too !
In today's economy, there is no planning for the long-term anymore. A lot is short-term and the best is to plan for the mid-term. So, we agree. Diversify to the west (Latin America).

[b720]

I agree, triangle Africa, europa, Americas ... Consolidate n. America
And maybe venture into lat am, rather than Asia. SN needs to fortify
It client base in Africa, building loyalty. AF is actually teeming up with
Local banks at important markets, offering credit cards linked to
It's F.F. Program. SN can maybe introduce that system in some
African markets, targeting growing middle class.. One idea, sure
Many similar moves can help..

[ticketbuyer]

Ask Etihad to invest in SN- access to Asia, cash investment and independence from LH

[RoMax]

Ask Etihad to invest in SN- access to Asia, cash investment and independence from LH

Until 2017 Lufthansa has the exclusive right to take over the remaining shares, so until that moment no other airline can invest in SN unless LH decides to pull themself back and they will not do that. Or all other shareholders should be willing to start a new adventure and step away from LH, that would be the most stupid thing to do at this moment.
Besides, Etihad is not going to be a better choice for SN...they will keep SN away from Asia even more than LH.

[Flanker2]

Today I discovered that SN has a Japan website: http://www.brusselsairlines.jp/
It seems to be in cooperation with http://www.beltra-center.net/