Ghentleman

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-lu...-idUSKCN11Y1IK

They're paying just €2.6 Mio for the remaining 55% of shares they didn't have already. There will be discussion around this, as the low price is because of an outstanding loan from LH to SN that LH refused early payment of.
Will be integrated into Eurowings. Not a word about what to do with the (highly profitable) Africa and US, Canada, India long-haul routes
Expect some turbulence ahead.

Lefly

Thank you.
SN is what I have to use going south EU, mostly for UM service... and this for me is not a good news

I fear cuts on small routes and some sort of service decline.

tgj1974

Yeah, this is not good :-(

HadesNL

They might keep the brand / profitable longhaulroutes (africa) / complimentary shorthaul as seperate SN (akin LX OS) and non-essential rest reformatted in Eurowings.

It would be:
Specializing routes (+routes that are inherent profitable/essentials)
SN BRU for africa
OS VIE for eastern europe / tropical islands
LH/LX FRA/MUC/ZRH for worldwide destinations

Flying Lawyer

What you said probably makes sense. LH knows how to make an airline profitable full stop. They gave evidence with the takeover of Swiss which was neither a profitable as Swissair nor as Crossair nor as Swiss before takeover. This might probably work with Brussels Airline (or the old Sabena) too

8420PR

I doubt SN will be replaced 100% by EW. More likely is a similar setup to SWISS and Edelweiss in Switzerland, and Austrian and Eurowings in Austria. Eurowings would take over and expand the holiday flights, with SN keeping the majority of their network.

Also worth noting that it was the SN board of directors who decided not to pay LH back the outstanding loan, and I think while LH has three members on the board they don't have a majority. The CEO of SN said in June he was hopeful LH would buy the rest of SN.

However after being burnt by BMI I really think LH made a good deal on SN, which is perhaps too good for LH (at the expense of other SN shareholders). Though in 2011 when the deal was made the outlook for SN was different than today, so LH was taking a relatively big risk. The SN board of directors are legally bound to work to benefit all shareholders (and not just LH's 45%) - there is the potential for court cases if it can be shown this was not the case.

Personally I don't expect much will change, as I think LH and SN are already well integrated.

joshwex90

I wonder if they'll integrate the airline more (ala LX/OS). I'm not HON, and likely never will be, but considering a HON flying SN didn't have access to F terminal

whiskey_sk

well, for starters they could integrate their IT at least, namely the reservation systems...

oliver2002

That was done this June.

Interesting that when LH bought SN in 2008, it was valued at 250 miilion €: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/lufth...lufthansa.html

Ghentleman

As it's hard to get new slots in FRA and MUC and BER not ready yet (end of 2017?) I see room for growth in BRU on long-haul. SN has been slowly adding routes (Toronto, Mumbai) recently, I see LH growing it more aggressively. Direct flights to China, Japan, West-Coast US could greatly enhance the SN offer, without eating into LH's market but rather taking it from AMS, CDG, LHR.

oliver2002

The YYZ/BOM thing was to switch the capacity of the 9W operation to SN/AI. AI will soon start DEL-BRU. SN should concentrate on what they do well: Africa for example.

snic

Does anyone have an idea of how well the JFK-BRU route is doing? I have award tickets on this for next summer, and it would be a shame if LH cancelled this route soon after the takeover is finalized. The only reason they'd do that is if the route is not profitable.

char777

I highly doubt SN would drop such a crown jewel route like JFK. If what's been said on these sites is true, SN's moneymakers are its Africa and North America routes. Even if SN were looking to drop something, it would probably be the seasonal IAD before JFK, or they would maybe switch to EWR to fill with UA connections if they were really struggling at JFK. I believe SN is also still looking to acquire more A330s, which is a good sign for continued longhaul success.

I see LH switching some of the shorthaul SN flights to Eurowings not unlike what they're doing with LX. I think the fears of LH gutting SN's longhaul network or getting rid of SN altogether are highly exaggerated.

oliver2002

Big press event today: SN is going to be 100% owned by LH, regional A320 and longhaul A330 fleet will operate under the Eurowings platform, the SN Brand will remain:

https://press.brusselsairlines.com/l...ture-together#

joshwex90

So will Middle East routes (such as TLV) transfer to EuroWings?