Brussels Airlines in need of A330 ccm's and pilots

[flyexel]

Brussels Airlines launched several internal and external biddings for pilots and ccm's for the startup operations of the fourth 330.

For the cockpit crew they are recruiting external cuz they need qualified people for the first 6 months.

Today I "heard" from somebody inside they will apply for trafficrights for Boston,Washington and Dallas next week....

BA is awake these days.....

[AFApresident]

BA is awake these days.....

Was about time they woke up ... either way a Flight to Boston and maybe DC could work ... but Dallas :-s. There is almost no O&D to Dallas, and you don't need to do it for transfer pax either, since those can transfer to almost any major US city via either NY or ORD.

Beats me why they don't add the 4th plane entirely to Africa. In the end AA could still open up an extra route from the US if it would really be that profitable after all.


Good luck to BruA.

[tolipanebas]

Beats me why they don't add the 4th plane entirely to Africa.

I think this has been explained at least a 1000 times already; this 4th plane is basically a back up plane which needs to be readily available to cope with recurring technicals and delays/cancellations on the African flights.

However, rather than have it sit idle on the ramp in BRU till something actually happens, better have it operate some long haul destinations where you can more easily reroute pax to through other Airlines if and when you have to cancel your flight because you need the plane as spare plane for a flight to Africa.

[flyexel]

Sabena in the past had good yields on the DFW route,a lot of jewish people coming from Tel Aviv made a connection with SN to Dallas!

I don't understand DC ???? United is already flying from BRU to IAD.

Apparently they are going to present 1 new destination in North America and 1 in Africa on the 25th of March.
USA flights starting 30th of october (winterseason).
Next year (spring) the second one.

[tolipanebas]

Apparently they are going to present 1 new destination in North America and 1 in Africa on the 25th of March.
USA flights starting 30th of october (winterseason).
Next year (spring) the second one.

Let me make an educated guess: SN will announce MONTREAL and BUJUMBURA as new long haul destinations.... with BOSTON as next one later... As for the rest of the US destinations: traffic rights are just a way to hedge against competition, to set the markers for the future and to test the water with the foreign administrations. It's not because an airline asks for traffic rights, that it immediately starts flying.

BTW, I've heard Conakry will be closed?

[flyexel]

Situation in CKY is very unstabile,SN closed already there town office a few days ago.
Apparently the yields on that destination aren't that good...

For Bujumbura they don't need the 4th 330 as they can operate it via NBO (who isn't doing that well neither).

My guess,and actually that's what we all do here,don't expect that much changes or new destinations in Africa as they are back in the run for Camair.
They finally made the step towards the USA,and like you said,it's easier to redirect your pax towards N-America then Africa.

[TWA]

As for the ccm's on the additional A330, there are quite a lot of VEX flight attendants with more than 7 years experience who are really interested in working on this beauty but no news so far (unfortunately).
It would be a logical outcome though as new recruits just started their training for the B737's.

[tolipanebas]

You are right in that the additional CCM will probably be recruited amongst the more senior cabin crew from VEX (or Brussels Airlines Fly as they are now officially called), as virtually everybody at SN who wants to fly long haul is doing so already (cabin crew at SN either flies LH + MH or MH alone, NO pure LH), but for FCM SN is currently rushing out the biddings, so that the 4th A330 will just be flown by SN pilots only...

PS: don't expect any positions for CCM to be made available to VEX cabin crews before this plane is used on daily scheduled flights by the end of the year; at first this plane will just be used as stand-by plane and on an ad-hoc basis and will thus be crewed from the reserve pool. Since SN has quite a lot of CCM in this pool (due to the flexible cabin crew concept with 2 (+1) CCMs), there should be ample reserve to tap from for this kind of one-off flights.

[sn26567]

I don't understand DC ???? United is already flying from BRU to IAD.

My last transtlantic trip on Sabena was to IAD in April 2001. Sabena was in competition with United, but the load factor was very good for my two flights (more than 70% at first sight).

[sidestick]

For the cockpit crew they are recruiting external cuz they need qualified people for the first 6 months.

..

Hello,

Why SNBA needs contract pilots if the company receive the plane only for the winter season? They have plenty of time to qualify new pilots or give a recurrent to previously A330 qualified pilots now flying the Avro!
A very strange way to handle the situation.

Fly safe !

[sn26567]

For the cockpit crew they are recruiting external cuz they need qualified people for the first 6 months...

... and also cuz throngs of SN BA pilots are leaving for better skies in the Gulf or at Ryanair...

See https://www.aviation24.be/article13526.html

[Johan23]

Ryanair better? LMAO

[cageyjames]

Ryanair better? LMAO

Better for the pilots