BRU closed; CO60 (772) diverted to AMS
 

Read that there is a strike at BRU today (Friday 4/13). Last night's CO60 went to AMS and CO61 will return from AMS at 5pm.

Should be relatively easy to get people to take the train directly from AMS to Brussels and vice versa.

Rare appearance of CO's 772 at AMS.

Does this include the flights from EWR?

CO60 is EWR-BRU, the only CO flight to BRU.

Scanning the other airlines' websites,

UA's IAD and DL's ATL both went to AMS as well, while DL's JFK went to DUS.

aa.com doesn't say where their JFK and ORD went though they departed last night.

What's more interesting is that all those airlines' websites show the return flight as "cancelled".

Only CO's showing the return flight operating, from AMS.

Not too long ago, all of CO's service into AMS was 777 including EWR-AMS and both IAH-AMS flights. Now it looks like none of the flights are operated with the 777. How sad.

the service actually started with a 752. i think it was CO's first ever TATL 752 service. My friends were some of the first to take it and were motified as they had no clue a little plane could go that far nor did they care for the whole narrow body issue.

does CO no longer operate 777's to AMS becuase of loads or becuase they need the AC else where?

I could be worse.....
 

You can have more fun in AMS that you can have in BRU.

SunLover

Looking at photos on a.net, the 772s are indeed regulars at AMS until spring of 2005. No visit since then.

Why? Well, since 2005, there are new routes to PEK and BOM that require the 772s. And since joining Skyteam and codesharing with KL at AMS, CO rather get more frequencies than larger planes. That's why they're now using 772 for their daily EWR-BRU and FRA in the summer, but for AMS uses 764 (+752 summer) from EWR, and 764 + 762 (4/week) from IAH instead.

While EWR-AMS did start with a 752, I believe EWR-MAN was the first transatlantic route with 757 service, started about 10-12 years ago. EWR-LIS also had 757 service a while before the codeshare with Transavia from LGW-AMS was terminated and replaced with a nonstop CO EWR-AMS flight.

I don't recall all flights being 777 at any time. Often CO70/71 was a 777, but CO46/47 has mostly always been a 764 (with the exception of a few unscheduled upgrades) and 58/59 always a 762. Not such a dramatic capacity reduction, in fact, a bit of an increase when 102/103 operates.

When the EWR-AMS 777 service started, BF was half empty; easy reward upgrades. Nowadays the BF cabins of both 752 and 764 are packed well in advance. Interesting to see that CO moved from 1 daily EWR-AMS flight to 2 EWR-AMS and 2 IAH-AMS flights in only 5 years (albeit some flights are seasonal/not daily).

IAH-AMS has never been scheduled 777 service.

I didn't know about the Transavia codeshare LGW-AMS. Must have been terrible. It was and still is a LCC with poor pitch.

That's not true as I was flying the CO 777 between EWR-AMS as recently as January 2006. I used to live in Amsterdam and traveled back & forth constantly. I remember the last flight I took on CO EWR-AMS. I received an op-up because it was just after New Year's. That was a regularly scheduled 777.

CO isn't using the 777 to AMS anymore because they need more frequency between EWR/IAH & AMS thanks to the amount of traffic they have. Plus, CO is already stretched thin with their 777 equipment going to Asia and the rest of Europe that only gets one flight a day (e.g. BRU).

PS - NW has the AMS market saturated from the US. Maybe another reason why CO doesn't operate the 777 there anymore (besides frequency). NW does 5x daily to DTW, 3x daily to MSP, 1x daily to EWR, BOS, SEA, MEM in the summer. These planes are jam packed everyday it seems in summer. (PS - I'm on SEA-AMS this weekend and it's oversold already - along with every other flight to AMS that day from US gateways except the late DTW-AMS flight).

-RM

a.net pictures are actually good records of what planes operate to what airports. Up until April, 2005, tonnes of 772 photos there, but nothing after May 2005. The following dozens of photos are all 752, 762 and 764. In one caption of a 772 during that spring, the photographer mentioned that 772 is gone from the schedule beginning summer 05.

I am not saying you weren't on a 772. They may substitute last minute, or have a few flights scattered on the timetable using the larger planes. That can very well happen. But the 772 isn't a regular (like daily) at AMS in Jan 2006.

An agreement to end the strike has been reached, BRU is once again open...:)

Well, DUH! :eek: I see the letters AMS and I think of nothing else. :cool:

I'm pretty sure CO18/19 used to be EWR-LGW-AMS, with EWR-LGW operated by CO (usually DC-10 at that time) and LGW-AMS by Transavia with 757s. This arrangement was in place from the mid-1990s, or earlier, until CO's establishment of a nonstop EWR-AMS service. I did EWR-LGW-AMS and return with CO back about ten years ago and can't really remember much about the Transavia flight except that it was short. The connection was fairly seamless, IIRC. This was one of a number of flights to Europe that CO codeshared on around this time with their own (low) flight numbers, including AF EWR/IAH-CDG, AZ EWR-FCO/MXP, OK EWR-PRG, SK EWR-ARN/CPH/OSL, VS EWR-LHR, and a few others.