BRU winter 2010-2011: latest news, routes, airlines

[RoMax]

The second daily EWR rotation is constantly going on and off. They have requested (and received) slots for such operations several times before but for some reason these flights don't materialize.

The biggest problem is the fact that they haven't enough airplanes to operate long haul. Normally it will become better when they receive more B777's.
But now it seems they will upgrade to a B777 from 30 December at least until April and maybe after April we will get the second dailly flight (or even earlier).

[Conti764]

The second daily EWR rotation is constantly going on and off. They have requested (and received) slots for such operations several times before but for some reason these flights don't materialize.

The biggest problem is the fact that they haven't enough airplanes to operate long haul. Normally it will become better when they receive more B777's.
But now it seems they will upgrade to a B777 from 30 December at least until April and maybe after April we will get the second dailly flight (or even earlier).

Not entirely...

Continental steadily reduced orders for the T7 untill the current lasting two. At a certain moment they decided the 787-8/9 is the way to go for the company. The deployment of the 787 to markets which are currently served by the T7, rather due to its range i.s.o. its capacity, will free up some 772's which can then be deployed to other markets where it better serves the company's needs. CO has a crazy utilization rate on its long haul equipment, BRU getting (temporarily?) upgraded to T7 probably indicates CO has found a gap in some of it's operations to deploy the T7 to BRU or we may get a downgrade at another European airport...

Another factor we have to take in consideration is the merger with UA. UA has 19 non-ER 777-200's in its fleet, and except for the 6 domestic 772's, they will receive an interior update. Those 772's have enough range to operate transatlantic.

The combined airline will have 75 772's in its fleet of which 56 will be the ER-version. This will relieve pressure on the 777-200 fleet and open up more options, together with 36 787-800's and 14 787-900's, 10 767-200ER's, 12 767-400ER's and CO's 41 transatlantic 757-200's.

[RoMax]

Air Baltic will fly 18 times a week to Brussels as from winter '10/'11. Past winter they operated 11 flights a week, but Air Baltic is expanding seriously and BRU is (again) one of the destinations to get more flights.

source: air transport news

[Atlantis]

Air Baltic will fly 18 times a week to Brussels as from winter '10/'11. Past winter they operated 11 flights a week, but Air Baltic is expanding seriously and BRU is (again) one of the destinations to get more flights.

source: air transport news

It will be a noon flight, arrive in BRU at 12.55h, and they are going to use their new Dash8-Q400 for that flight.

[Atlantis]

OLT is going to increase the new Leipzig/Halle flight from the current 3 weekly flights

[RoMax]

Nice to see the Q400 of Air Baltic in BRU, I like their colors on these Q400's.

What will be the new frequentie of the Leipzig/Halle route?

[Atlantis]

Ukraine International Airlines will temporaly suspend its 5 weekly flights from Kiev via Vienna due to decreased demand.

Source: Brussels Airport

[Atlantis]

Nice to see the Q400 of Air Baltic in BRU, I like their colors on these Q400's.

What will be the new frequentie of the Leipzig/Halle route?

Not known at this moment

[RoMax]

I've seen Aer Lingus flights in the afternoon on Monday, Thursday and Friday this winter. So 3 daily flights on these 3 days. Was this also past winter season?

[Bralo20]

2) US Airways

US750/1 upgrade equipment from B757-200ER to B767-200ER
US750/1 downgrade frequency from daily to 5x weekly (no flights on TUE/THU)

Downgraded again to a 752 on a 5x weekly frequency.

[airbuske]

As from october Hong Kong Airlines will start with 3 weekly passenger flights to Brussels !
They received 1, 5 million euros aid from the Flemish goverment.

Source: hln.be

If this is correct it will be the second long haul flight for Hong Kong Airlines after the Moscow flight.
Flight will be operated by an A330 is suppose.

[sdbelgium]

To make the above more clear: these are pax flights, on top of the three weekly cargo flights...

[NCB]

This confirms my suspicions that the Hainan subsidiary would launch this route before SN.

There are only 2 issues: 1. the route's range demands an A332 and 2. Hainan may or may not start the route before SN, through Hong Kong airlines.

1,5 million euro is a great subsidy, too bad SN did not take this route up.
Now let's hope that SN can get a codeshare on this as it will be very beneficial for the African connections.

[tolipanebas]

This confirms my suspicions that the Hainan subsidiary would launch this route before SN.

How hard was that to predict?

SN has been saying from the start they are only focussing on AFI and might open a route to the US too, but only if they see they can't feed enough connecting pax through their transatlantic STAR partners...

Asia has only been on the agenda of the day dreamers really, if I may say so.

1,5 million euro is a great subsidy

Interesting to see how the Flemish government gives subsidies to prestigeous routes, whereas it doesn't give them to routes which are sustaining thousands of direct and even more indirect jobs, just because they go to less sexy and low tech destinations like Ouagadougou...
The irrational obsession of Flemish politics with fanciful high-tech environments is sometimes all too obvious and their complete failure to understand how equally lucrative seemingly 'primitive' routes can be for a transit country as ours, is even scary!

too bad SN did not take this route up.

Not really.

I much rather see them use their 5th A330 to serve 4 new AFI destinations and thus make their niche market offering even more attractive to LH and the STAR partners, than to waste very limited resources on fairly common routes, already sufficiently served by partner airlines.
If you have limited money to invest, better invest it wisely, and you can't invest more wisely than AFI right now!

Now let's hope that SN can get a codeshare on this as it will be very beneficial for the African connections.

A codeshare is likely, but don't overestimate the feed from such a route.

On the PEK flight, 9 out of 10 transfer pax connect to a flight to another EU destination and I'd imagine this to be the same (or even worse here), so don't count on more than 5 pax a flight at best, or about 1 per SN flight!

Besides, Asia to Africa is increasingly being attacked by the Gulf carriers, which have the all important advantage of being situated right on the most direct flight track (not to mention their pricing advantages), so this kind of traffic shouldn't be at the centre of attention. Even LH is increasingly starting to diversify their network, in an attempt to make it less vulnerable to competition from EK and its likes by putting more attention on connection flows from North America to Africa/Europe, or Europe to South America for instance.

[Desert Rat]

They received 1, 5 million euros aid from the Flemish goverment.

.

This is funny...

[RoMax]

They received 1, 5 million euros aid from the Flemish goverment.

.

This is funny...

Actually I think it's a good thing. Hainan is evaluating Brussels, Berlin and Budapest as future Eurpean hub. For the moment BRU would be the most logical choice, but for exemple the Flemish goverment will do some important efforts to get the EU hainan hub in BRU. It's not just this one route that makes the different for the Flemish government, but a Hainan hub could be very important. Don't forget it's a Chinese airline...
Believe me, this is not the last new route we've seen by the Hainan group.

[Atlantis]

too bad SN did not take this route up.
Now let's hope that SN can get a codeshare on this as it will be very beneficial for the African connections.

SN has to do what they are good at: flying to Africa. The fifth A333 was more then welcome. And there is room for a sixth A333 because the market is there.But first see in the next months how the new four routes are doing.

Now flying to a whole other continent will be not a good idea if you see that AF/KLM, BA, Tap, Delta Airlines, etc are flying more and more to the black continent.

And why are we seeing more Star airlines at BRU, because SN joined it December '09 and because they are THE carrier with a long history in Africa.

[Atlantis]

They received 1, 5 million euros aid from the Flemish goverment.

.

This is funny...

Actually I think it's a good thing. Hainan is evaluating Brussels, Berlin and Budapest as future Eurpean hub.

MR_Boeing,

Trust me, Hainan will stay in BRU.

Months ago we had a Chinese delegation in BRU. One of the discussions was about a real Chinese hotel in BRU. They had already a participation in the Sodehotel in Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe (ex-hotel of Sabena).

The decission is now there that HNA is going to invest 30 million euro!!!! in this hotel and they are going to renovate it completely. It will be a hotel of 20.000 m². Also the name will be changed in Tangla Brussels with 126 luxuary rooms and two toprestaurants. By the end of this year they are going to start with the construction works and will be finished by 2012-2013.

On top of that: BRU will get for the first time one of the biggest Chinese banks on our soil.

[RoMax]

Trust me, Hainan will stay in BRU.

Months ago we had a Chinese delegation in BRU. One of the discussions was about a real Chinese hotel in BRU. They had already a participation in the Sodehotel in Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe (ex-hotel of Sabena).

The decission is now there that HNA is going to invest 30 million euro!!!! in this hotel and they are going to renovate it completely. It will be a hotel of 20.000 m². Also the name will be changed in Tangla Brussels with 126 luxuary rooms and two toprestaurants. By the end of this year they are going to start with the construction works and will be finished by 2012-2013.

On top of that: BRU will get for the first time one of the biggest Chinese banks on our soil.

I've never doubt about the fact that Hainan would stay in BRU, but I only said what they say, so that they are evaluating BRU, TXL and BUD as future hubs. Normally it will be BRU (if you see the flights/routes and investements of Hainan in Brussels...), but some aid from the local government is always welcome and it would make the choice easier for Hainan. The government would not give 1.5 million if there would come nothing more than "just a 3 weekly flight".
This goverment aid is something to be sure Hainan will choose BRU and will expand their network/hub in BRU. The result will be very good for Flanders (Hainan => China...), so it's worth to invest in it.

BTW, the news is spreading: http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/news/?ID=35567

[tolipanebas]

Anybody an idea how much SN got for the 4 new routes it recently launched, creating work for a couple of hundred people, both directly and indirectly, in Belgium alone, all while sustaining the jobs of almost ten thousand people working with and for SN?

ZERO euro!

Now, I ask you, why are our governments always so eager to fund foreign initiatives (which I have no problem with, BTW), yet don't like to take their wallets out to help Belgian airlines in the same way?

I should have thought being home-grown should always give you the edge with your own government, but apparently not so in Belgium, sadly. Too bad this country has so little confidence in its own capabilities and that of its own people/enterprises.

In this context, it is interesting to note how the Flemish government refused to help fund SN when it was set up in 2002... with almost 8 years of hinsight to provide guidance, it would indeed have been a complete waste of money, wouldn't it?