Folks,

I feel I have to jump in here, now that everybody is getting excited on the nice LX C seats and the convenience of A/T transfer at Brussels. I'm BRU based and a M&M HON (not that anybody at SN would care), so I should probably be happy that one can fly BRU-NYC directly with a decent product and earning LH status miles. Let me tell you: I'm not. Only, if an airline takes intelligent decisions that ensures its sustainability, should we be happy, for if they don't, they will make us pay for it by subsequently reducing service, "improving" their loyalty programs or disappearing (with their sold tickets and accumulated miles) altogether -- an event not unheard of in Belgian aviation.

The JFK flight is something network planners at SN have probably been dreaming about ever since Sabena went bust with a similar kind of strategic reasoning that one could see on TV in Belgium, when the whole idea was announced at the very press conference dedicated to communicate the disastrous 2011 results of Brussels Airlines (no figures were announced, but it was very clear, that "the loss" was significant and that LH had not been amused).

Well, against this backdrop Stevie (Viscount Etienne Davignon, mind you), brings his two CEO-co-gophers (an ex-consultant who's firm went bankrupt at the same time as Sabena and a retiring Sabena-dinosaur) and steels them the show by announcing that they will be introducing a NYC service, because they 'analyzed it and found out that half of their Africa passengers are originating in the US' and if they fly JFK-BRU themselves they can 'earn from both tickets' (I mean, he is the Chairman, and he actually said that.) .

One of the executives was given some time to talk about his ideas on how to become profitable at the airline -- that one is also great, although admittedly OT: 'we analyzed it' (again) and 'found out that during the winter months there is actually less traffic' (now what a find that is!) and now they want to introduce a very innovative scheme of seasonal variation in their schedule and workforce. (Guys: wake up! this is 2012 and although it might appear to you that LH as a shareholder is almost as practical as the Belgian state was to Sabena in covering your non-profitable operations, a tad of state-of-the-art professionalism is required to survive in the era of LCC, Emirates & Co.).

Sorry for the diversion, back to JFK and the viscount, who has been running the public show for Brussels Airlines, ever since he had received some kind of royal mandate to maintain a Belgian national airline in 2002. He sent away Christoph Mueller, Sabena's last CEO, who had in vain and with time running short tried to clean up all the mess that 70 years of government management and a few years of Swissair-faux-grandeur had done to the Brussels aviation market. I'm mentioning that, because it was him, who is now successfully running Aer Lingus, who had made the decision to discontinue the direct JFK service of ailing Sabena -- along with several other correct network decision, laying the ground for a possible survival of SN after Sabena.

Ten years on, lots of memory lost, after another loss-making year 2011, with recession dawning on us and the long-haul travel market, other airlines (inc LH) struggling starting to reduce their long-haul offering, Brussels Airlines has the brilliant idea to launch a "me-too" New York service. Here is my take on it:

- NYC is already served 4 times daily out of Brussels, by AA (to JFK), by alliance partner CO (to EWR) and by SN-code share partner 9W (to both of JFK and EWR). I don't even want to count the weekly connections to New York out of Paris, Amsterdam and Düsseldorf, all within convenient high-speed train services to their respective airports from Brussels and other Belgian cities. This is one competitive market and while (as a passenger) I like the 399 Y fare, it's impossible to run this operation profitably at this fare level -- but that level it will be.

- Flight timing is as standard as it gets: departure out of Brussels is within minutes of all other New York services, arrival into Brussels is so early, afternoon rush hour taxi rides through Manhattan and Queens will add an extra thrill to your travel. A very early departure ex BRU (if the local market plus the Africa connecting passengers were large enough) would be an innovative product, as would have been a late afternoon departure, complementing (instead of duplicating) the Star Alliance TATL coverage.

- Connectivity to the famous SN Africa services is sub-standard; connection times of more than 4 hours (for the better timings), and up to 12 hours for others make this a drop-out from CRS displays to destinations that are partly served directly (ACC, DKR, ...) or via other hubs at much better / equivalent connectivity. As a matter of fact, it's a connectivity deterioration vis-à-vis the current situation with a feed out of NYC by CO or AA.

- Beyond connectivity in the US will be a joke, given UA's virtual absence from JFK; it's not understandable why the Westbound flight doesn't feed into a later hub wave at EWR, or replaces the early CO flight (who could have tried IAH-BRU instead, tapping into some higher-yield petroleum markets Texas-Africa).

- So now we've got the Swissair (oh pardon the pun) Swiss business class seat, which is a admittedly a great seat configuration from a passenger perspective, and SN is going to roll it out 'all over its network', i.e. Africa. So they are moving from 30/254 C/Y configuration to a 30/238 configuration, losing Y revenue potential on routes dominated by ethnic travel.

I think, this is not an econmically sustainable concept and they are going to lose an arm and a leg on that route. I - frankly - can't understand, why LH lets them do that.

My two cents,

Jan