Brussels Airlines announces new short haul product

[FlightMate]

Yep, it's pretty standard to have cabin luggages put in the hold on the avro, specially when the flight is full.
(Some will say it's pretty rare, then. But no, it actually happens frequently )

[Inquirer]

Yep, it's pretty standard to have cabin luggages put in the hold on the avro, specially when the flight is full.
(Some will say it's pretty rare, then. But no, it actually happens frequently )

Indeed, I can confirm this is the case on flights operated with regional planes; those props being even worse!

Something which isn't mentioned however and which IMHO is key to me is:
- will you get the hand luggage delivered back to you right at the door of the aeroplane, or not?

In the end, if you travel with hand luggage only, the reason you do so (apart from avoiding extra fees at an ever increasing number of airlines) is not to waste time waiting for bags upon arrival!

It's all very nice to be generous on accepting ever more hand luggage in the passenger cabin, but if it is handled as all other checked luggage the moment they take it off you at the doorstep of the plane, it's a scam as airlines are simply employing you as your own checked luggage porter to the plane then!

[airazurxtror]

The sales of the new products will start in Mid-August, after the travel agencies have been drilled. The new classes of service will be effective on 1 September.


Only ten more days to wait for those fantastic new products !
I am really impatient to see that ! :crazy:

[airbuske]

As from today the new booking engine is online so you can book the new products online.

As from today you can book tickets as from € 69.

Operations with the new products will start on september the 22th.

[b-west]

Apparently the new tickets will only be available for trips after September 20, until then the old booking classes are still used

[b-west]

Quick search revealed the following: availability of €69 tickets looks sparse, or at awkward dates (forget about weekend trips), more availability at €79. One ways & non w-e stays are possible with check&go.

Oh, and pay attention webteam: on the main page, you cannot use multiple airport search, like "milan all airports", you need to select either LIN or MXP. At the booking engine page however it is possible to select "all airports"

[airazurxtror]

At first sight, in Europe :
- 23 destinations at 69 euros
- 20 destinations at 79 euros (plus Agadir and Marrakech)
- 7 destinations at 89 euros
- Heathrow at 109 euros, Malta and Moscow at 149 euros
It was, indeed, announced as from 69 euros...

At first glance, it certainly looks interesting and Brussels Airlines must now be included in the search when looking for the best price of a flight.

May I just point out that the French version should perhaps be made by a French speaking person ?
This is not correct :

Cette promotion est basée sur un tarif retour, taxes et charges comprises. Le billet est non remboursable. Réservation et de billetterie doivent être remplis en même temps. Applicable uniquement sur les vols opérés par Brussels Airlines. Nombre de places disponibles limitées à bord sur certains vols.

Discovering little by little the caracteristics of the new fares, I see that, as before, the prices vary with the length of stay, the day return trips being - not always but very often - more expensive. I suspected as much : if not, why promote only return fares ?
On this point, Brussels Airlines definitely is wanting.

[tolipanebas]

At first glance, it certainly looks interesting and Brussels Airlines must now be included in the search when looking for the best price of a flight.

The most surprising thing to anybody should be the fact you can also often book one-ways or day returns in check&Go at those -like you've noticed yourself- extremely competitive prices.

Do you really still want to bother with printing out your own boarding pass (sometimes difficult for the return flight), the American carwash walk to/from the plane accros the apron under the Belgian rain, the avaricious hand luggage allowance, the cramped cabin space and the constant nagging to buy all sorts of stuff by cabin crew at others, when you can get a normal type of service at similar fares AND save for a completely free flight on our soon to be launched loyalty program while at it?

[DannyVDB]

Hi all,

I got an offer for Berlin in the 'lowest class' for 99€return, all included except the luggage. During the week, no weekends ...

Since I have to take a lot of paper work to carry this time, needed full flexibility (changing flights and might even have to cancel - 30% chance), also would like to use the other facilities like fast lane (rush hours) I took flex at around 510€. [The meal is not so important but a welcome add-on - no need to go the restaurant upon arrival and done eating when coming home].

Project foresees 500€ for travel in Europe, on average, so that is quite OK as well.

Will save more money when working a little bit more efficient ... I observe more waste of money there, then regrading airline tickets.

Cheers,
Danny

PS: I think a 'normal' price for a 1.5 h flight is around 100€, so 200 return. In case of lower prices, someone else is paying for you (people paying higher fares, subsidies, other types of support, ...) By the way I saw somewhere average income per pax for Ryanair. It is much higher than you would expect. Fare for passengers is on average (per flight, so not return, including bag) 46€; and average revenue with all the extra's is at 62€. So for a return ticket that is in reality 92€ or 124€ respectively. So that is not so low as I would expect. Taking into account that they have many very cheap tickets it means they also have a lot of expensive tickets ...

[airazurxtror]

Do you really still want to bother with printing out your own boarding pass (sometimes difficult for the return flight), the American carwash walk to/from the plane accros the apron under the Belgian rain, the avaricious hand luggage allowance, the cramped cabin space and the constant nagging to buy all sorts of stuff by cabin crew at others, when you can get a normal type of service at similar fares AND save for a completely free flight on our soon to be launched loyalty program while at it?

Always nagging Ryanair won't lead you very far, you know. When you sell more than 80 million seats per year, and make a comfortable profit doing it, we'll see.

That said :
- yes, I like printing my boarding pass and so avoid queueing at an airport desk.
- at a plane linked to a bridge, it takes twice as long to embark and disembark because it uses only the front door instead of the two doors.
- the Ryanair hand luggage allowance is : a big bag (10 kg) and a small one. More than adequate, I think.
- cramped cabin space ? As a matter of fact, the FR flights are often full or nearly full, but the individual space is quite enough for a normally sized person.
- nagging to buy all sorts of stuff ? have you ever been on a Ryanair flight ?
- similar fare at SN ? that is not to be taken for granted, and it remains to be seen for each case.

Nonetheless, I wish you the best of luck.
P.S. : There is at least one thing for Ryanair and easyJet and Vueling : their website is customer friendly, which is more than can be said of Brussels Airlines' ...

[tolipanebas]

Always nagging Ryanair won't lead you very far, you know.

Did I mention them then?
Must be you somehow recognized their improved product in those widely known inconveniences listed...

As a passenger looking for the best deal, I'd compare what others offer on the market and quickly notice they systematically offer less comfort, yet often for more money too as from now.

[airazurxtror]

@ tolipanebas
No kidding : I advise you to take a few Ryanair flights, and talk to some of their customers.
It would help. You want to compete with Ryanair and the other LCC, and you don't even know their product.
(like Redeligx who did not know that the Ryanair passengers have an allocated seat on each flight).

[Flanker2]

SN offers more comfort? You mean those slimline "seats"?
I prefer the FR comfy leather seats any day.

I also prefer CRL to BRU any day, even if it's farther away for me.
It's just more efficient and more comfortable.
Flying through CRL is like taking a bus ride, while flying through BRU feels like a journey to/from Mars.

FR have also stopped their annoying announcements and their on-board products are better and cheaper.
I second airazurxtor, there is an apparent disconnect between what the SN clan imagine FR is and what it really is.

If you ask me, for 2 hours or less, a seat on a plane is a seat on a plane, except when they make you sit on one of those slimline benches.

[White Light]

I'm not a Ryanair fan, but one has to admit that it is "mission impossible" to beat them for several reasons.
Recently, I flew back with brussels airlines from Venice and there were two elderly ladies sitting behing me in b.light. Upon arrival they said (translated from Flemish) : "we paid more than with Ryanair, what did we get more ? nothing". Then, they struggled to get their hand baggage out of the luggage bins. They could have checked in their luggage for free and have avoided the hassle of handling their hand luggage themselves. My mother who is a pensioner and still travels quite a bit, always flies with airlines that allow her to check in her luggage for free, although she could take her luggage with her, since it is never larger and heavier than hand luggage allowed on board. She just doesn't want the hassle of going through security and "handling" herself her luggage in and out of the luggage bins and she is prepared to wait a bit for her luggage to be delivered.
Same for me (nearly thirty years younger). I don't want the hassle associated with hand luggage. And I always find something interesting or useful to do on my computer when/if I have to wait for my checked luggage. The only snag at certain airports is that some don't have any seats in the baggage delivery area.

To come back to "unbeatable" Ryanair and the two old ladies : people have been so brainwashed by FR that they think that every airline "works" like them, including paying for checked luggage.

Now as to the new brussels airlines on board classes : their names are too complicated for a "normal" travel to remember them. Several years ago, Air France did the same : class names nobody could remember. They switched back to good old business and economy. For SN, it would have been so easy to call the 4th class b.saver, b.budget, b.basic or b.slim (slim being synonymous of "lean" in English and meaning "smart" in Dutch, but those who were in charge of finding a new name were not smart enough to come up with something simple.

And if SN had really wanted to stick out of the "LCC-outfits", they would have offered for free coffee, tea, water and a few biscuits (a speculoos if they really wanted to be cheap) in the two cheapest classes. How much would that have cost per pax ? Probalby less than the positive commercial impact of it.

[Flanker2]

If even Tolipanebas thinks that there is a problem with the names of the products, it says enough.
They worked on their brands for so many years and everybody got used to it, now when they needed them most, they tossed them overboard...

Nowadays "zero" is also quite popular.
B.zero anyone?

[Inquirer]

Guys, please,

can we have an objective discussion and not turn this into another R vs B battle, filled with personal insults back and forth? If you read through this forum, you'd almost think there are only 2 companies flying at BRU, which is obviously not the case! This not only leads to these constant clashes between employees of both airlines, but also makes any meaningful analysis of this new product strategy impossible, as it wrongly omits all the others from the comparison!

We all know ryanair has done some tweeks to their spartan product yet competitors are obviously doing a good job in pointing out it is still not enough and still not the same as they offer.
Similarly ryanair tries its very best to neglect the fact competitors have come a long way on pricing too, still comparing their -let's be honnest here too- not really low cost fares any longer to 'average' fares which are not so average any longer too these days: take that from somebody who's in charge of a very considerable travel budget, has flexibility needs and is paying nowhere near what O'leary claims I'd be paying at his press conference in BRU.
What I can tell you is that both sides are having a great time with their propaganda war and are often giving quite a bit of spin on the truth. I also think they like giving the impression of being involved in a duopolistic clash in BRU, because it gives the impression there are only 2 choices, making people forget about all the others almost.
Don't fall in their trap so easily, I'd say.

Let me try to get back to topic by throwing in some 'personal findings'.
I've done a fair bit of searching on the fare crawler at work, and I've come to these basic conclusions:
1- B.air is indeed offering much lower starting prices than before on as good as all of their European routes because they have opened up lower booking classed then they used to have before.
2- by doing so they have managed to position themselves much higher in the fare comparison table, systematically overtaking airlines like for instance vueling and quite often also Easyjet.
3- for what concerns flights in JAN and beyond, they also often have the upper hand against ryanair: until DEC the advantage remains with ryanair, but in both cases, the difference is quite unspectacular, say the low double digit price range.

And that last point is also something which I have already tried to bring accros before: It may be a surprise to those who fly just for fun alone, but you don't really need to have the absolutely cheapest fare to be successful, you need to be seen as offering a good deal: otherwise, airlines like a vueling, an easyjet an air lingus or in fact anybody else but ryanair would be long out of business, which is obviously not the case.
Just as not everybody drives a LADA, sleeps in the local YMCA or dresses in clothing from Zeeman, not everybody is interested in shaving off the last 20 euro of his ticket if that additional saving comes with some particular inconveniences which seem too important to cope with for him.

I know some here say they don't mind those inconveniences and that's possible indeed (hey, some people like to sing in the rain and made fame doing so, like Gene Kelly ), but I know for a fact that many people do mind (and run for their life when it suddenly starts to rain), and that's exactly the point to differentiate on: to everybody his own choice of comfort.
When you do mind about basic comfort, yet only want to pay a small premium for it like most people do,B.air shows up as good as always as offering the best deal around out of BRU (vueling almost never, easyjet a few times, not to mention the other airlines at BRU like AZ, CSA, SK etc), so I have a very strong feeling this new range of products is indeed going to bring them loads of new passengers, mainly from all those other airlines, yet it will also significantly reduce customer bleeding towards ryanair, which probably is a plus too: the ballance will thus very likely be quite positive, something which can't come as a surprise because I am convinced their 10% passenger growth over H1 is due to them testing the market by targetted price cuts. I didn't see it being reported here yet, but I have noticed for a fact they have been running trials of their 69 euro ticket approach on certain routes like BSL for instance since several months.

In all, I think this is a good idea, contrary to what some her try to make of it and maybe it should be indicative that after more than 2 days of these new fare classes being available online, we still haven't had anybody post examples of what a massive scam the new fares are according to him, because when I came to check this forum, I expected exactly that, although I make myself no illusions that it will still happen.
Seems however the others will have no hard time finding counter examples then, which proves the whole point I try to make.

Have a good weekend!

[tsx]

In the small but nice detail, in Light & Relax, taking an earlier flight is free of charge.
It was not clear at PR time. This can make this fare quite interesting in some cases (e.g. GVA)

On comparing the experience with LCC, or between companies, it's not only the product description ... but also depends on other passengers and the "mood" setup from the start (checkin or boarding)

I'm always wondering why people are still queuing hour in advance on LCC flights even with assigned seats (Easyjet,...) and then pushing around to make sure they get their precious hand luggage inside overhead bins, while on standard carriers, it's not the case, even if they have hand-luggage only policies (e.g. LX).

Same can be said for gate agent, which have been, in all my LCC experiences, quite aggressive. On the other side, I almost never have to take out a ID card when flying SN, a small detail for me, but appreciated as it make me feel welcome on board (rather then being suspected of fraud).

[airazurxtror]

I've done a fair bit of searching on the fare crawler at work, and I've come to these basic conclusions:

3- for what concerns flights in JAN and beyond, they also often have the upper hand against ryanair: until DEC the advantage remains with ryanair

You forget that there is no fixed minimum price at Ryanair (like 69 euros return at Brussels Airlines).
The Ryanair prices vary, and the best prices for January will likely be available only in October-November.

PS : to say it again, I am not and have never been an employee of Ryanair - nor of any other airline.

[Inquirer]

You forget that there is no fixed minimum price at Ryanair (like 69 euros return at Brussels Airlines).
The Ryanair prices vary, and the best prices for January will likely be available only in October-November.

Sure, but as already pointed out some weeks ago, it will be hard for them to undercut a 69 euro return ticket by very much from BRU, won't it? Take into account airport taxes at both ends and there's still what: 25 euro to play with, for 2 segments? So 12,5 euro per leg? Not really something to create a sales rush with, is it or to lure people into waiting to book with, IMHO.
Besides, you needn't be having the absolute lowest fares to attract passengers; what's important is that the spread isn't too big and the product differences between the 2 airlines seem to justify this spread.
This seems to be the case, regardless the period and who has the absolute upper hand at any given time.
But again, don't limit your scope to just the 2 in this discussion: have a look at all the others and their relative positioning in the line up of booking engines: airlines like vueling for instance suddenly have a problem, it seems!

PS : to say it again, I am not and have never been an employee of Ryanair - nor of any other airline.

Oh I believe you, but take it as a complement: a social media manager wouldn't be able to do a better job here for Ryanair than you do: they should give you unlimited free travel for your continued effort.
Some others on this site should be entitled to travel at B.air too, btw.
Maybe for a balanced forum, all we need is a vueling addict, an easyJet crewmember qnd somebody taking it up for all the others too?

[Inquirer]

I'm always wondering why people are still queuing hour in advance on LCC flights even with assigned seats (Easyjet,...) and then pushing around to make sure they get their precious hand luggage inside overhead bins, while on standard carriers, it's not the case, even if they have hand-luggage only policies (e.g. LX).

Haha, funny you mention that, it's something I have always noticed too whenever flying Easyjet to say BSL.
And the funny thing is, you see the very same people the next week on the Brussels flight to BSL, yet then they don't do it??? Old habits never died, they say. Or maybe all it takes is a bunch of real low cost passengers to start the dreadful queuing and pushing, after which everybody joins in, because I have to admit that in the end I join the queue too when I see it form.