5th A330 for Brussels Airlines

[BrightCedars]

What are brake cooling fans and what are they used for? Why is the lack of them beneficial to a charter operator, but not to a schedule operator? Does SN need them or can it do without?

I didn't say anything like that.

But now that you mention it, if there is such an option available, I'm sure it would be helpful for hot & dry conditions in SN's African network. Do we know if the rest of the fleet is fitted or has been retro-fitted?

[sdbelgium]

AFAIK Brake cooling fans are used to cool the brakes down after heavy action. As this particular aircraft is used frequently on short regional hops, often to airports with a short runway, the brakes are used quite heavily. Due to short turnaround times, they have no time to cool down, which is why MSN095 often flies with its gear out for a long(er) time after take-off than its counterparts... for brake cooling purposes.

This aircraft was not equipped with the brake cooling fans because it was designed as a long haul charter jet (LTU was first customer), where the brakes have sufficient time to cool down before being used again. SN could do without them, I guess...

[Vinnie-Winnie]

I didn't say anything like that.

Error corrected! Sorry!

Thanks for the explanation SDBelgium!

[LAGPanoramic]

Hello,

I'm very curious about:
_when will the plane arrive here?
_when will it be available for service?
_where will the paint job be done?
_and especially: will it wear SN or Star Alliance colours?

Anyone some ideas about this?

Thanks!

[HighInTheSky]

_when will the plane arrive here?
_when will it be available for service?
_where will the paint job be done?
_and especially: will it wear SN or Star Alliance colours?

Some answers already:

a/c should arrive somwhere between end March-beginning of April and should be available for service in June. That's what the plan is now, if everything goes well...

Normally and logically plane will have Star Alliance colours (why not? You have to paint it anyway)

[Stij]

i know it costs lots of money, but in my opinion it's worth it!
everyone i know of non-aviation enthousiasts will like a plane with 'tv's' more than one without anything, it gives it a more modern feel.
Or atleast put powerports in the seats...

Yep, everyone prefers it, but nobody is willing to pay more for it.

For me personally, power ports are more then sufficent, my laptop has a bigger screen, the movies, music and games I like.

I could be wrong, but power ports can't cost much, do they?

Cheers,

Stijn

[FlyAirbus]

I cannot see why they will take an Airbus A330 without brake fans. You just need them for the Africa flights.
The brakes are heating up very quickly after landing and since almost all Africa flights are followed by a second (shorter) one, the brakes will not have time enough to cool down without the fans.

[RoMax]

SN don't need them, the runways used by SN aren't that short so they don't need to brake that hard. Result the brakes aren't very warm. SN has much longer turn around times than Malaysia on domestic flights so the brakes can cool down. Believe me they don't warm up because it is warm in Africa.
For so far I know, the other 4 don't have them either.

[737flyer]

Indeed for the type of operations they do, they can easy manage without brake fans!
(long rwy's, ability to use full reverse, as I doubt that there are any noise restrictions over there...)

[RoMax]

Indeed for the type of operations they do, they can easy manage without brake fans!
(long rwy's, ability to use full reverse, as I doubt that there are any noise restrictions over there...)

Noise restrictions, they don't know that. Ok that's not funny. But you are wright.

[lambrusco]

Hi all,

brake cooling is very much needed ...
SN has had many flights in AFR where they had to delay their flights because of that ... not for hours ... but at times 30 to 40 min which, when you are already late, make the whole issue more painful.
The other birds, beside OO SFW, are all equiped with that.

PTV's are unfortunately quite unlikely at this stage.
It would be very much appreciated by the pax indeed but the cost is huge and they will likely await a complete fleet change to do so on all aircrafts as to be a bit coherent as well towards the rest of the fleet.

It could/would have been useful to find another, less "problematic" bird (ref OO SFW) but the costs seem unaffordable at this stage.

As far as BEY is concerned ... yes there is potential, even a rather huge demand. Especially during the peak in summer ... but beside that the costs of such an ops is high versus a rather low yield route during the rest of the year. Ideally, you need two aircrafts per day on the route (as to feed and defeed correctly the African flights). This could make part of a longer term vision because at this stage the money is not there to upgrade or create service to, let's say, the Middle East among others destinations. Everyone would like to see BEY on the map out of BRU (pax, SN, airport etc) but SN is probably not in this phase yet. The truth is that at this stage, especially with an eco crisis not fully gone yet, SN accept fights where the outcome in their favour is fairly real, no 'nice to have/see' fights where huge amounts of money could quickly be lost.

These are my 5 cents though.

Cheers dudes,

Lambi

[Megaman]

Now that the 5th A330 is confirmed, when will we see a 6th A330 join the brussels airlines fleet

[regi]

It is unbelievable who many replies came on this topic.
It is a good sign that members are concerned and remain active.

[jan_olieslagers]

Now that the 5th A330 is confirmed, when will we see a 6th A330 join the brussels airlines fleet

Kindly remain on topic please. If you want to discuss a 6th A330 nothing stops you from creating a dedicated thread.

(not really serious either)

[Megaman]

It was just a joke.

[jan_olieslagers]

It was just a joke.

And so was my reply, too.

[tolipanebas]

Will it be the A330 wit MSN095 now operated by Malasian Airlines ?

Malaysian has placed a fleet roll-over order for 15 brandnew A333s with Airbus today.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... a330s.html

Seems like one of the technical issues still pending as mentioned in SN's internal communication on the matter has just been solved....

[Nevihta]

What is the price difference between a brand new A330 and a 2nd (or 3rd or...) hand one ?
Because 2011 isn't that far for a new A330 delivery.

[NCB]

It's confidential info but since no one knows who I work for, I can tell you that list price is in the $200 million arena for A333, but for an order of 15 or so you probably don't pay more than $85 million a piece.

Second hand you could go down all the way to around $20 million for the early MSN's (but here the value depends more on the engines rather than the airframe), but lease rates don't decrease proportionally, they tend to stay higher.

[Nevihta]

how, so it's really worth it looking at second hand.
Is a new one using that less fuel ?