Brussels Airlines adventure in Africa

Atlantis · Post by **Atlantis** » 28 May 2007, 13:30

According to the VRT news this afternoon, 13h, Brussels Airlines will put its African HQ in Mauritius.

They are now in the last final line. The "new" airline will come in Burundi or Rwanda.

They will announce soon the details about this new adventure.

[Title changed after the official announcement]

blackhawk · Post by **blackhawk** » 28 May 2007, 13:45

I think a lot of b.air crewmembers will be eager to fly to this HQ

fcw · Post by **fcw** » 28 May 2007, 14:15

Although I wish them all the best in this adventure, I hope BruAir is familiar with the saying:
" Its easy to make a small fortune in African aviation, if you start with a big one"...

beaucaire · Post by **beaucaire** » 28 May 2007, 15:05

Why on earth would somebody put the HQ for an airline to Mauritius ???
If they target Central and Eastern Africa ,they should put an office into Nairobi or Kigali,Dar es Salam or Malindi -but Mauritius is expensive,and an island with all inherent access-problems ..

TWA · Post by **TWA** » 28 May 2007, 15:15

beaucaire wrote:Why on earth would somebody put the HQ for an airline to Mauritius ???
If they target Central and Eastern Africa ,they should put an office into Nairobi or Kigali,Dar es Salam or Malindi -but Mauritius is expensive,and an island with all inherent access-problems ..

EXACTLY

tolipanebas · Post by **tolipanebas** » 28 May 2007, 15:16

This is just the press 'discovering' something which has been in the pipe line for a long time, really

SN has always said they were seeking to set up an African airline,and in case they could not participate in an exisiting one (Camair) as minority shareholder they would set up a new one themself and in that case, they would officially base it in Mauritius because this is one of the few African countries to follow JAR standards, something very important if SN is to take the operational control of the airline.

SN does not want to risk loosing ITS licence because of problems with a subsidiary in Africa.

Don't expect any actual flying in Mauritius though...

Atlantis · Post by **Atlantis** » 28 May 2007, 15:24

beaucaire wrote:Why on earth would somebody put the HQ for an airline to Mauritius ???

Because they follow the European rules about safety.

blackhawk · Post by **blackhawk** » 28 May 2007, 15:36

Atlantis wrote:
beaucaire wrote:Why on earth would somebody put the HQ for an airline to Mauritius ???
Because they follow the European rules about safety.

So actually it's something like having a mailbox in Monaco.

Btw: (in Dutch) http://www.vrtnieuws.net/cm/vrtnieuws.n ... elairlines

Established02 · Post by **Established02** » 28 May 2007, 16:16

tolipanebas wrote:Mauritius ... is one of the few African countries to follow JAR standards.

(Being basically ignorant about JAR content) I would have thought that the aviation standards in the home country of a respectable(?) carrier like Kenya Airways would be up to par with international norms. Can it be that even Kenya does not follow JAR standards?

Beside Mauritius, I assume also South-Africa and some North African countries follow those JAR standards as well.

blackhawk · Post by **blackhawk** » 28 May 2007, 17:15

De Standaard is even talking about a b.air company at Mauritius, a spokesman of b.air confirmed. I think someone over there misunderstood the news .... ?

Brussels Airlines denkt aan maatschappij op Mauritius

(Belga) Brussels Airlines onderhandelt met de overheid van Mauritius over de oprichting van een luchtvaartmaatschappij ter plaatse. Een woordvoerder van Brussels Airlines heeft maandag een bericht van de VRT daarover bevestigd.
De onderhandelingen kaderen in de plannen van Brussels Airlines in Afrika. Dat continent speelt een belangrijke rol in de groei en de strategie van de luchtvaartmaatschappij voor dit jaar. Zo kwam dit jaar Burundi er al bij als nieuwe bestemming en kwam er op het Afrikaanse netwerk, met 14 bestemmingen, een nieuwe langeafstandstoestel bij. Bedoeling is de frequentie te verhogen, meer non-stopvluchten in te richten en misschien nieuwe bestemmingen aan te doen. Brussels Airlines onderzoekt ook of het met lokale Afrikaanse maatschappijen kan samenwerken.

http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail. ... 7145070528

SN30952 · Post by **SN30952** » 28 May 2007, 18:11

Why Mauritius?
There are more Chinese* than Belgians there....
The official language of Mauritius is English. And, Mauritian Creole, the language the African slaves used to communicate with their French masters.
France is the country's biggest trading partner.
The Republic of Mauritius is a parliamentary democracy, independent since 12 March 1968 (from UK).
One nice thing you have on Mauritius is, you have coast-to-coast wireless internet access, primarily via a microwave radio relay trunk system.
Mauritius is 3600km distant from Kigali or Bujumbura. 9500 from Belgium.

The operators @ MRU S. Seewoosagur Ram. International Airport are:
Air Mauritius (MK)
Air Madagascar
Air France
Air Austral
British Airways
Emirates
South African
Catoair

Condor Flugdienst B763 to FRA
CORSAIR A330 to ORY
LTU International Airways A332 to MUC
Eurofly A330 to Rome / MXP
EUjet B763 to MXP

Air India and Kenya Airways codeshare with MK;
Malaysia Airline is code sharing with MK to ..... Singapore.
Singapore is not in, although...

*30,000 Mauritians are of Chinese descent, from the Hakka, Mandarin, and Cantonese language groups.
These Chinese Hakka people are of the same descent as the Thai Chinese, like the ousted former premier, Taksin; the Chinise on Taiwan; and the leading class in Singapore.
Does that ring a bell? Singapore, 7th freedom?

A trojan horse on the island?
btw, the Singaporians developped a strong textile sector on the island.

SN30952 · Post by **SN30952** » 28 May 2007, 18:17

blackhawk wrote:De Standaard is even talking about a b.air company at Mauritius
Brussels Airlines denkt aan maatschappij op Mauritius
(Belga) Brussels Airlines onderhandelt met de overheid van Mauritius over de oprichting van een luchtvaartmaatschappij ter plaatse.....Bedoeling is de frequentie te verhogen, meer non-stopvluchten in te richten en misschien nieuwe bestemmingen aan te doen.

Hoezo non stop naar Afrika.
Alle bestemmingen naar Afrika via MRU zijn een omweg....

Kcinnay · Post by **Kcinnay** » 28 May 2007, 18:29

According to the book "Belastingparadijzen" by Ivan De Hoon Mauritius is one of the countries in the world where you can create "companies" with a minimum on Assets. And you just have to use one citizen (not even full time) in your company and it is legalised.
Maybe Brussels Airlines wants to gain some extra money without paying to much to the gouvernment

(some sort of fraud)

blackhawk · Post by **blackhawk** » 28 May 2007, 18:38

Kcinnay wrote:According to the book "Belastingparadijzen" by Ivan De Hoon Mauritius is one of the countries in the world where you can create "companies" with a minimum on Assets. And you just have to use one citizen (not even full time) in your company and it is legalised.
Maybe Brussels Airlines wants to gain some extra money without paying to much to the gouvernment (some sort of fraud)

"As Mauritius opens to the world, aiming to transform itself into a competitive global business platform, the national investment promotion agency, the Board of Investment (BOI) has put at the service of the international business community a range of services, free of charge, to attract international investment and talents in the country."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauritius
http://www.investmauritius.com/

Why Mauritius?: http://www.investmauritius.com/detail.aspx?PageId=17
- New businesses to start operations within three working days
- Ease of recruiting international talents and capabilities, with occupation permits issued within three working days
- Flexibility in the labour market
- Purchase of real estate for business activities

A set of fiscal reforms provide a highly advantageous taxation platform with: harmonised corporate and personal income tax rates to a flat and low taxation of 15% by July 2010; capital allowances; duty-free on most production material and equipment; low registration duties; and a VAT framework where many goods are zero-rated / exempt and fast-track VAT refunds.

tolipanebas · Post by **tolipanebas** » 28 May 2007, 18:43

blackhawk wrote: So actually it's something like having a mailbox in Monaco?

Sort of, although your example is purely for tax reasons, whereas in Brussels Airlines' case it would (also) be for licencing reasons.

You have to consider that if SN is to set up a NEW airline, rather than participate in an existing one, it will have to provide them all possible OPERATIONAL support before it can run its own operations as subsidiary, meaning the operational department of that new company will (at first) have to be provided by SN and in a further stage be trained and finally continuously backed up by them.

To take an easy to understand example: Pilots.
The airline will likely be operating with BAe146, meaning of course the new African airline needs to qualify its still to be recruted pilots on that type. Logically this will be done by instructors from SN who will train the initial batch of pilots of the African company which will have to do some line training at SN before they can be released... However, do you expect the Belgian Civil Aviation Authorities to just approve pilots from Burundi to fly on a Belgian airline for some time WITHOUT being up to JAR standards??? NO WAY! You are not even allowed to fly commercially under JAR rules with an FAA licence, let alone licensing rules which are even lower!

Same stuff for other functions essential to running smooth operations like accountable managers, chief pilots, head of operations, training managers, scheduling managers... All will have to do training at Brussels Airlines and must thus match the European standards and therefore it is important that the airline which officially sends them out is living up to the same minimum standards as Brussels Airlines.

As I have said: don't expect any real flying to or from Mauritius....

SN30952 · Post by **SN30952** » 28 May 2007, 18:46

Kcinnay wrote:According to the book "Belastingparadijzen" by Ivan De Hoon Mauritius is one of the countries in the world where you can create "companies" with a minimum on Assets. And you just have to use one citizen (not even full time) in your company and it is legalised.
Maybe Brussels Airlines wants to gain some extra money without paying to much to the gouvernment (some sort of fraud)

Mauritius has attracted more than 9,000 offshore entities.....
Mauritius BOI
Mauritius Belgium BTA Double Taxation Avoidance apply also to Mauritius_Rwanda
Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement apply to Mauritius_Burundi and Mauritius_Rwanda.
Singapore is never involved.... hence my hinting. (Out of base, fleet depot?)
MRU is a far better springboard to Africa for SIN than it is for BRU.

SN30952 · Post by **SN30952** » 28 May 2007, 18:56

tolipanebas wrote:The airline will likely be operating with BAe146

Are you serious about that?
BAe146 on international routes in Africa, with a range of under 3000km.
Maybe, but will the payload cover the costs?
But they will have to make a tech-stop to return to MRU-base....

tolipanebas · Post by **tolipanebas** » 28 May 2007, 19:09

SN30952 wrote:
tolipanebas wrote:The airline will likely be operating with BAe146
Are you serious about that?
But they will have to make a tech-stop to return to MRU-base....

Yes I am serious: BAe146 will be used.

However, it seems you still don't get it.

Contrary to what has been mentioned in the press today, the airline is not going to operate from MRU, they will just be registered there and follow the much stricter Mauritian rules (copy past of the JAR) so the organization of the new company can be easily set up by Belgians AND be acceptable to the Belgian Civil Aviation Authorities.

The airline itself will operate from the area of the great lakes though.

Atlantis · Post by **Atlantis** » 28 May 2007, 19:17

Tolipanebas is right. The aircraft's that will be used are the Bae146. I thought it was already known for a long time on this site

And indeed they are not operating to, from of via Mauritius but they used ONLY this country because it follows the European rules, almost like the Belgian rules. This is the country were it will be registered, only that part, nothing more, nothing less. Its a neutral African country. You have to compare with an independent Switzerland.

But they want to serve more African destinations non-stop. What kind of aircraft could they use for that purpose? A319?

thomascookie · Post by **thomascookie** » 28 May 2007, 19:20

maybe a new home for the 737's when they 're getting old :p

regards
Bram

Aviation24.be

Brussels Airlines adventure in Africa

Brussels Airlines adventure in Africa

The trojan horse?

Oh BOI!