Brussels Airlines' fleet renewal

[oldblueeyes]

Hi all,

Just a question. Would you see SN having a A321 sub-fleet? I see it useful for destinations such as Tel Aviv, Madrid, Malaga, Athens ...
I think on some of these routes frequency is less important or would bring too much capacity, or a combination might be more logic

Also Tenerife, Lisbon come to my mind ...

I assume 3 to 5 would be more than enough.

Any thoughts

Cheers,
Danny

Already the number shows you the limits of such a subfleet.

For a small company such as SN, simplicity is an asset and the major challenge of the decade is to move to an all 320 fleet towards the end of the decade.

The same move applies for the other group companies :
- Austrian removed the 319 as in between size between E95 and A320 and is expanding via additional 320; the small 321 legacy fleet is due to replacement after 2025, let's see if tgey will go for all 320 instead

- Swiss has a different market - over 30 Long haul Widebodies to feed and no LCC in ZRH

[crew1990]

For a small company such as SN, simplicity is an asset and the major challenge of the decade is to move to an all 320 fleet towards the end of the decade.

The same move applies for the other group companies :
- Austrian removed the 319 as in between size between E95 and A320 and is expanding via additional 320; the small 321 legacy fleet is due to replacement after 2025, let's see if tgey will go for all 320 instead

- Swiss has a different market - over 30 Long haul Widebodies to feed and no LCC in ZRH

Totally agree on that

[crew1990]

https://sites.google.com/view/europeanairlinefleets/bel

It's getting clear that a 10th A330 is coming, there is already gossip about an 11th for 2025

In the mean time, OO-SBA performed some test and should be deliver in not to long to SN.

[brabel]

I guess we'll know more soon? Also about which new destination(s) it will fly to?
I know they want SN to fly to Africa (and some North-American destinations) but it's a shame they stopped their flights to Mumbai.
India as one of the fastest growing economies isn't served at all from Brussels. That's a huge miss.

[lumumba]

Is it not wise to have one more plane for there actual schedule to avoid cancelations?

[Atlantis]

I guess we'll know more soon? Also about which new destination(s) it will fly to?
I know they want SN to fly to Africa (and some North-American destinations) but it's a shame they stopped their flights to Mumbai.
India as one of the fastest growing economies isn't served at all from Brussels. That's a huge miss.

Air India or Indigo would be better

[PopUp]

LH has a strong presence in India. They want us to fly to FRA/MUC and connect there on an LH flight (and vv). No competition allowed from SN. My two cents...

[PopUp]

Is it not wise to have one more plane for there actual schedule to avoid cancelations?

If I followed well, given the many technical problems recently, I agree it would be wise to keep an A330 as a replacement instead of having all of these aircraft operating flights, especially if I understood correctly that wet leases from HiFly are no longer allowed. I stand to be corrected...

[PopUp]

I guess we'll know more soon? Also about which new destination(s) it will fly to?
I know they want SN to fly to Africa (and some North-American destinations) but it's a shame they stopped their flights to Mumbai.
India as one of the fastest growing economies isn't served at all from Brussels. That's a huge miss.

And a huge mess...

[Atlantis]

LH has a strong presence in India. They want us to fly to FRA/MUC and connect there on an LH flight (and vv). No competition allowed from SN. My two cents...

But SN was already flying to India under the embrella of LH.
LH cannot forbit other airlines from India to fly to BRU.

[RoMax]

Until there is some sort of special new opportunity that arises making anything outside of Africa or secondary North America suddenly a very attractive opportunistic opportunity, there is absolutely no reason to go into a new such very expensive adventure while leaving other more logical and very potential markets in the core focus market(s) untouched. Even if there is the potential, such route in untouched territory is a guarantee for at least up to 2 years without profits. There are other markets with better potential. Sure maybe less sexy on the world map of aviation geeks, but that's not what matters for the bottom line of a commercial company

When SN reorganized during Covid, it was not the expectation it would be back at 9 long haul aircraft now, neither to go to 10 in 2024 as the rumours hint at. Sure there's something to say on how it happened, but SN got the very sudden opportunity to relaunch Conakry and Ouagadougou with the 9th aircraft and prove that it would be profitably doing so. This 9th aircraft was not guaranteed to stay for more than 2 years, only if it would be a success. The 2 stations were started-up very rapidly, much more rapid than would have been 'ideal'. But the Africa-specialist of the group did it. Meanwhile there has been a coup d'état in Burkina Faso. SN continued operating with relative few interruption (contrary to Air France). It worked. This 9th aircraft is working commercially and it has been confirmed now by LH for the long term.
Again: not the sexy routes, but the routes that work for SN. And that's what matters on the long term if we want a strong Belgian national carrier. That it can serve a network that works and not artificially kept alive with fancy marketing names such as it was the case with Sabena for most of it's network except sub-Saharan Africa for decades after decades.

[Miqvell]

In the mean time, OO-SBA performed some test and should be deliver in not to long to SN.

As seen today :



© dn280

[oldblueeyes]

LH has a strong presence in India. They want us to fly to FRA/MUC and connect there on an LH flight (and vv). No competition allowed from SN. My two cents...

The same applies if we speak about Africa and SN.
And whilst for the Swiss customer SN is a downgrade, for the average SN customer LH or Swiss are an upgrade.
Each coin has two faces and with a specialized offering both sides applies for SN as well, just seen from other parts of the group.

The local position is understandable, as "more SN" means for many people, especially in a forum like this more job opportunities, career advancements etc.

But the reality has to be seen from a business prospective and not everything that is to be blamed at first view is consistent.

Let's see the Indian example:
- we are definitively not talking about an open skies market, but for a traditional destination highly regulated in between states
- the current Indian government is very nationalistic, the Indian airline have ordered hundreds of new planes - so it should be clear for everyone that routes agreements would be tough negotiated allowing Indian players to have a consistent stake
-Air India wanted to become part of the Star Alliance and the LH Group is bullish on the Indian market - as most of the large markets are covered by LH via JV, it is very likely that somewhere in the short/medium future we'll see a JV between the LH Group and the Air India Group
- if so, assuming a route from BRU would be started, SN would participate in the JV regardless if it would operate the flight or not

Independent of such a scenario, as the access to India is regulated, capacities as limited as well. So there would be no surprise to have an Indian route, if the group would already squeeze out the capacity it already has in other markets and this would make economically sense from BRU (just thinking on availability and quality of feeder flights as well).

[convair]

But SN was already flying to India under the embrella of LH.

I don't think so. A few years back, Jet Airways had daily flights (with excellent Business Class, btw) between BRU and Delhi and Mumbai with continuation from BRU to US and/or Toronto.

But they were discontinued several years ago.

SN flew to Mumbai (then called Bombay) in the seventies with B727s and B707s on the southern route to Manilla, Tokyo and some other Far East destinations; maybe also with DC-10s.

[Miqvell]

But SN was already flying to India under the embrella of LH.

I don't think so.

Brussels flew to Mumbai between March 2017 and January 2019...

[oldblueeyes]

But SN was already flying to India under the embrella of LH.

I don't think so.

Brussels flew to Mumbai between March 2017 and January 2019...

The question is rather... was it profitable?

The public figures show for 2017 a mere EBIT of 15 Mio for SN. 2018 was no statement in the report, 2019 the annual report says that there is a turnaround plan for SN in place (which would not make sense to be mentioned in case of profitability).

Let's phase reality : 2/3 of each plane are transfer pax and towards India the "free" catchment market is not that big. Potential is for sure there, but very likely once a JV with Air India can be established.

[crew1990]

The question is rather... was it profitable?

.

A new route start to make profit after 2 year, if Lufthansa bord would have give a chance to Mumbai and not "kill it in the egg" it would have definitely be profitable.

If SN goes to a fleet of 15 long haul aircraft, I do hope that we will diverse the network.

[convair]

But SN was already flying to India under the embrella of LH.

I don't think so.

Brussels flew to Mumbai between March 2017 and January 2019...

You're right. I had completely forgotten about these.

[Homo Aeroportus]

....
SN flew to Mumbai (then called Bombay) in the seventies with B727s and B707s on the southern route to Manilla, Tokyo and some other Far East destinations; maybe also with DC-10s.

Affirm.
I once flew back from Bangkok, then out of Don Mueang as it was around 87-88 in another century.
The flight came from Tokyo and it was a milkman's run : DMK - BOM - DXB - BRU.
On a DC-10 indeed with a small 21-seat C cabin just behind the partition with the cargo area in front. You had that small door through it to reach the flight deck.
Other times.

H.A.

[crew1990]

According to: https://sites.google.com/view/europeanairlinefleets/bel an 11th A330 could come even earlier than foreseen...

Rumour say that OO-SFL; OO-SFK; OO-SFP could rejoin the SN fleet. Could be actually logical since they were already register in the past in Belgium so it could be administratively easier. But also logitically easier since we already fly OO-SFJ wich have the exact same cabin, configuration and equipment than D-AIKA and D-AIKC (ex OO-SFK and OO-SFL)