SN Brussels Airlines to fly from Charleroi CRL ?

[airazurxtror]

http://www.lalibre.be/economie/actualit ... lines.html

Extract :
While Brussels Airlines admitted to face financial difficulties and has submitted a plan to reduce costs, the Walloon Region has decided to make an offer of service to propose to displace some of its flights to Brussels South Charleroi Airport (BSCA), L'Echo reported on Saturday.
"Brussels Airlines is now in a serious situation. Between 2008 and 2011, it will show a cumulative loss of 131 million euros, -80,000,000 in 2011. She announced measures with consequences for employment. My approach aims to safeguard a large national airline in the country. BSCA can accommodate 500,000 passengers of Brussels Airlines ", which transported 4.89 million people in 2010, says the Walloon Minister in charge of airport policy, André Antoine (cDH ).
"It will be a win-win transaction. Total fees and airport charges at the airport of Brussels National is approximately 27.20 euros against 2.00 euros at Charleroi," says Antoine.

[cnc]

ah yes and bus the transfer pax from BRU to CRL

[Squelsh]

Hidden agenda is not so hidden anymore.
BRU must go and everything to walloon side, sponsored indirectly with Flemmish money.
Free movements for all.. Belgocontrol is making enough money.. right*

[tolipanebas]

Excellent!

Now, let's see if SN's management has the guts to go and see the CEO of BAC with this offer from CRL in their hand and simply inform them in pure Michael O'leary style of the simple fact they're going to pay not more than €10 per pax as from JAN 1st... and then just do it too of course, should BAC not accept right away: no fluffy negotiations or long discussions and stuff like this, I am talking true and uncompromised MOL style here, meaning just impose your will to BRU with as good as immediate effect and pay no more than what you'd said you would as from JAN next year, PERIOD.

Our managers can't stop talking about them wanting SN's costbase to be closer to that of the LCCs and operate their style, right? Well, let's see if they dare to put their money where their mouth is and just grap BAC by its throat then, with the clear message to accept your conditions or go down together.

FWIW, at just 5M pax a year, a saving of €17 per pax through a self-lowered reasonable airport fee of still €10 (thus still 5 times more than what CRL gets!) means a whopping €85M in cost savings for SN over 2012!
How much was our loss again this year???
Case solved, I'd say.

[DeltaWiskey]

What's the next, SN changing its name to Charleroi Airlines?

[Established02]

Case solved, I'd say.

What flights would you suggest to first move from BRU to CRL?

Unless SN is currently already successfull in fighting off easyJet at BRU, what gives you confidence that SN could pick a successful fight against Ryanair?

SN operations out of CRL would not support the developing long haul network out of BRU.

The lower airport tax at CRL should expectedly be a cost saving for the passenger rather than for the airline.

[Squelsh]

What's the next, SN changing its name to Charleroi Airlines?

[tolipanebas]

Case solved, I'd say.

What flights would you suggest to first move from BRU to CRL?

Unless SN is currently already successfull in fighting off easyJet at BRU, what gives you confidence that SN could pick a successful fight against Ryanair?

SN operations out of CRL would not support the developing long haul network out of BRU.

The lower airport tax at CRL should expectedly be a cost saving for the passenger rather than for the airline.

You've clearly completely misunderstood my post.

I am not talking about moving to CRL at all, I am talking about using this as a good excuse to armtwist BAC (aka BRUSSELS AIRPORT COMPANY, so BRU) to lower their ridiculously high taxes to just €10 euro from the current €27+ for SN alone! Not through negotiations or discussions, but through a simple notification of unilateral change of conditions by SN based on our exceptionally high importance to BRU, in the well-known MOL-style.

BRU needs SN just as much as SN needs BRU, so it is completely beyond me why SN should not get much lower fees than other visitor like AZ, BA, IB or U2 for instance? Without SN/LH, BRU would lose a huge part of its business AND could kiss goodbye to much of its long haul traffic which comes here purely thanks to the STAR effect (AC, TG, UA, and even 9W to a large extend), so although BRU will obviously never be offering a massive price cut out of itself to SN/LH, it has no choice but to accept it if it is unilaterally imposed to them!

If SN dares to squeeze BRU really hard the way it should, it would be able to cut costs by roughly 85M yearly almost immediately and what's more: it needn't automatically hand it back to its pax even; it could bag most -if not all- of it, as they would be the only one getting it anyway!

[airazurxtror]

Unless SN is currently already successfull in fighting off easyJet at BRU, what gives you confidence that SN could pick a successful fight against Ryanair?

Jetairfly has set a base at Charleroi and is not unsuccessfully challenging Ryanair to Morocco, south of Spain, Canary islands, Greece and many other destinations.
Incidentally, one does not often speak of Jetairfly, but it seems to be a well-run company, expanding short and long haul, and it has a young fleet - claims to have the youngest Belgian fleet.

[Conti764]

Unless SN is currently already successfull in fighting off easyJet at BRU, what gives you confidence that SN could pick a successful fight against Ryanair?

Jetairfly has set a base at Charleroi and is not unsuccessfully challenging Ryanair to Morocco, south of Spain, Canary islands, Greece and many other destinations.
Incidentally, one does not often speak of Jetairfly, but it seems to be a well-run company, expanding short and long haul, and it has a young fleet - claims to have the youngest Belgian fleet.

True, but do not forget JAF mainly fills its planes with people who booked package holidays with Jetair... Not difficult to fill your planes then.

In the case of Brussels Airlines... I, for one, would not drive the extra hour to CRL to take a plane at the same price I can take a plane at BRU.

[cnc]

the club med flights could be flown out of CRL but then you get P flights BRU-CRL-BRU, taxi crew back and forth,... don't think it would save much money

[Conti764]

Case solved, I'd say.

Too easy, don't you think?

They are not stupid at BRU management either... They know it is not ideal for a company of SN's size flying scheduled flights to spread their operations over two airports.

SN would still make a loss if they move to CRL, even with the much lower taxes at CRL. Most passengers would not drive the extra hour to CRL to take a flight at exactly the same price they could take a flight at BRU. And a difference of 25 euro (like the taxes BRU>taxes CRL) will not change it. At CRL, SN would also loose the advantage of the hub and spoke system they have at BRU and will loose the feed to and from long haul flights. That would mean only a select number of SN-flights might be considered to be flown from CRL, making them no match for FR, making the losses even bigger, esp. with the expanded operations at two airports.

So all in all, it just won't happen. And BRU management knows that as well. So they'd probably give SN management a shoe in the a** if they'll try to twist BRU mgt's arm in this matter.

André Antoine knows this as well... So it's nothing more then a political move by the Wallloon minister.

This doesn't mean that I'm not convinced BRU should lower the taxes for their home company, which brings in the majority of pax. But using this 'proposal' of André Antoine is not the right way to do.

[Conti764]

the club med flights could be flown out of CRL but then you get P flights BRU-CRL-BRU, taxi crew back and forth,... don't think it would save much money

True, but I can hardly imagine that would be the 500k pax André Antoine mentioned (more or less 10% of the SN pax).

An alternative would be SN basing two or three planes at CRL, but if I'm right, the A320's were achieved because of Club Med operations. And basing those two planes at CRL would mean they could not switch between planes at BRU according to bookings. Yet another alternative would be basing a few 737's at CRL, together with crew. But those 737's are set to leave the company and all in all it would be a much to expensive operation for a company the size of SN, in a country the size of Belgium.

[tolipanebas]

BRU management knows that as well, so they'd probably give SN management a shoe in the a** if they'll try to twist BRU mgt's arm in this matter.

Who cares what BRU management may think of it? I'd pay them just €10 after JAN 1st... then what?
In the end the power is with the customer, and the customer is SN here.

IF SN only pays BAC €10 per pax, what are BAC going to do? Halt all their flights by positioning a car in front of the plane and thus kill their main customer? Close off all check-ins for all SN flights and thus create complete and utter chaos inside the terminal? Not very likely, IMHO, especially not knowing there will be a whole lot of partners of SN, all customers of BAC too, which could easily be rallied behind this too.

More likely is that BAC would take some sort of legal action against SN, something which can take years, yet in the end they're going to have to come to a compromise anyway and any compromise will be a better deal for SN than what they have now.

This doesn't mean that I'm not convinced BRU should lower the taxes for their home company, which brings in the majority of pax.

That my friend, is a given!
The complete failure to get a much more favourable deal from BAC than what far less strategically important airlines pay at BRU, despite being the only reason why so many intercontinental airlines are looking at BRU again (AC, UA, TG, NK, ...), is one of the main issues (apart from their piss poor hedging skills) I have with SN's management: they seem unable to turn the strategic value of SN's STAR alliance membership into a tangible cost saving for the company!

[cnc]

does anyone have an idea if BA had lower taxes in LHR then others? or other situations where a home carrier doesn't hold +45% slots at its home base.
i said had because with the bmi slots they go above 50%

[Flanker]

Tolipanebas,
Where have you found that bag of common sense?

As you say, BRU needs SN and vice versa.
SN goes down, I'm not sure UA, CO, TG will keep flying BRU, it also casts some doubts on 9W. LH could also help a hand here as they have quite a market share in BRU.
For BRU, it's of much greater interest to support SN with tax discounts than to invest hundreds of millions in growing the airport further. A little less revenue from taxes, a little more revenue from parking and shop rentals. The current infrastructures are sufficient and SN is going to cut its fleet by 20%, freeing up some spare space.

I think that everyone concurs that SN's pax are being charged ridiculously high taxes at BRU and that it's costing SN both more money and lost customers.

As such, it would be the most obvious thing for SN to go to BRU management and dictate how business is done. I think that they just don't have the guts for it and they're too afraid to spoil the nice relationship built with BRU top management along the many restaurant visits.

tolipanebas wrote:
Case solved, I'd say.


Too easy, don't you think?

They are not stupid at BRU management either... They know it is not ideal for a company of SN's size flying scheduled flights to spread their operations over two airports.

Isn't it unbelievable how people read one sentence and already assume the content of all the rest?
I get that on 30% of my post, where I have to reply to things that are extrapolated at will and have nothing to do with the actual content or fundamental idea.

[fcw]

Now, let's see if SN's management has the guts to go and see the CEO of BAC with this offer from CRL in their hand and simply inform them in pure Michael O'leary style of the simple fact they're going to pay not more than €10 per pax as from JAN 1st... and then just do it too of course,
FWIW, at just 5M pax a year, a saving of €17 per pax through a self-lowered reasonable airport fee of still €10 (thus still 5 times more than what CRL gets!) means a whopping €85M in cost savings for SN over 2012!
How much was our loss again this year???
Case solved, I'd say.

Just one thing: it is not BruAir but we the passengers who are paying this tax!!!!

[fcw]

Now, let's see if SN's management has the guts to go and see the CEO of BAC with this offer from CRL in their hand and simply inform them in pure Michael O'leary style of the simple fact they're going to pay not more than €10 per pax as from JAN 1st... and then just do it too of course,
FWIW, at just 5M pax a year, a saving of €17 per pax through a self-lowered reasonable airport fee of still €10 (thus still 5 times more than what CRL gets!) means a whopping €85M in cost savings for SN over 2012!
How much was our loss again this year???
Case solved, I'd say.

Just one thing: it is not BruAir but we the passengers who are paying this tax!!!!

We are even paying it in advance thus giving BruAir a free loan.

[Flanker]

fcw wrote:

tolipanebas wrote:
Now, let's see if SN's management has the guts to go and see the CEO of BAC with this offer from CRL in their hand and simply inform them in pure Michael O'leary style of the simple fact they're going to pay not more than €10 per pax as from JAN 1st... and then just do it too of course,
FWIW, at just 5M pax a year, a saving of €17 per pax through a self-lowered reasonable airport fee of still €10 (thus still 5 times more than what CRL gets!) means a whopping €85M in cost savings for SN over 2012!
How much was our loss again this year???
Case solved, I'd say.

Just one thing: it is not BruAir but we the passengers who are paying this tax!!!!

We are even paying it in advance thus giving BruAir a free loan.

Yes and no (Definitely yes on the free loan). The pax are paying a total price, fare and taxes inclusive.
The pax don't care how many % are taxes and how many % are the fare and how many % are the fuel surcharge, they only care about how much they need to pay. That's the basis of comparison for a SN flight and an FR flight.

For instance for advertising: SN advertises a 99€ return to Madrid.
The return fare could be just 40€, competitively priced in comparison with Ryanair.
But if flying out of BRU adds 59€ in taxes, the pax will prefer to take the 42€ (2€ tax inclusive) return with Ryanair from CRL, especially if travelling with several people / family, in which case the final bill can be significantly different!
EX: family of 4 people, 168€ vs 400€ despite that both companies have the same fare!

Top management is always complaining about unfair competition on the news, but they aren't using their negotiating position with BRU to do something about it. It's none of our business? It most certainly is.
Pressure goes both ways.

[cathay belgium]

Hi,

Sending some planes to crl will also result in north belgians going for ams thus ...result in loses for both sn and bru,...

Better solution would be setting both taxes on the same rate / level, one country too much governments..

At least we have one soon...

cxb