Earlier I wrote about how Air Belgium is planning on resuming scheduled flights as of this December, after canceling their sole Brussels Charleroi to Hong Kong route in September 2018, just weeks after launching it.
Continue reading: Air Belgium’s New Business Plan & Funding
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
They're like an equivalent of a white male US senator: everything is forgiven and given a second, third, fourth chance that will probably lead to more disappointment and failure.
They could, in theory, do CRL-MIA R/T for 199EUR, à la Corsair (from ORY) and for sure it would appeal to the area around CRL, but other than that, difficult to see how this makes much sense.
What local partners in Congo? Where local airlines are all blacklisted. This airline doesn’t seem to have any direction. They tried hkg and failed. They have 4 uneconomical a340s. Rely on point to point traffic. No interline partners
I wish them all the success, but I don’t see how they can sustain this and make profit especially on the Caribbean destinations where you have low cost airlines with new planes with a better fuel efficiency. You compete with Level / Corsair / Air Caraïbes + Air France/KLM. It’s going to be tough !
Yet another piece on this airline. If Air Belgium weren't so obviously broke, I'd accuse Ben of taking payola to keep this brand in the news.
There is a real potential for the Kinshasa flight. Since D.R. Congo is an ex Belgian colony there’s an important Congolese community in Belgium. There’s a very high demand for flights to Congo, including many business travellers and since Brussels Airlines is the sole operator on that route it charges mostly ridiculously high prices.
Also demand for flights to MIA out of Belgium is quite high and there are no more direct flights so it might work as well.
There you go - your route to Africa to connect up with Peace Air! MIA-CRL-FIH. All you need is a way to get from Kinshasa to Lagos. Should be easy!
Or have you ever thought that Air Belgium is doing this because they simply love you for all the coverage, and want to provide you with more options out of Miami?
Racist much bro? Your black panthers hat is showing. Anti white hate has no place on this site.
It doubt its Christian conservative men and women making imprudent financial decisions in Brussels and probably out of touch bureaucrats using other people's money mimicking the eu in how they operate.
I saw one of their planes at YYZ on Saturday. I must say that the livery is attractive.
Just a correction, Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, not Congo. The DRC was a Belgian colony and there are heavy ties between both countries, similarly the French Antilles are French colonies and there’s big demand between French speaking Europe and them. As for Miami...no clue
As with @James W above, I'm also beginning to think that Ben is secretly working for Air Belgium's Public Relations Department, with this umpteenth article on this obsecure Belgian airline.
The routes themselves make sense, but the business model - the planes they are using, no partnerships with other airlines, etc. - is very head scratching.
They sound wildly undercapitalized. You can't start an airline with this level of cushion. Right out of the gate you are a slave to cash flow. There's no room for anything to go wrong meaning absolutely everything has to go right.
I hope they are getting a lot of money from British Airways and LOT wet lease...
JUST STOP with your sarcastic comments saying that Ben is being paid to write about Air Belgium or posting too many credit card articles. Whether it the case or not this is HIS BLOG and HE DECIDES on the editorial line. Pretty sure those whinners are never clicking on Ben affiliate links for cards to support Ben and the blog.
I doubt this latest announced incarnation of Air Belgium will survive, but it is a shame to see the airline disappear. They have been flying a lot of charters for British Airways, replacing flights BA cannot fly due to equipment dispatch issues, and a buddy who flew in J class on a BA flight operated YYZ-LHR by Air Belgium reported that the service was excellent, and better than typically delivered by BA crews on BA metal. The subbing for BA on the YYZ-LHR route explains why Air Belgium aircraft are seen so frequently at YYZ these days. Too bad they cannot really run profitably doing these charters.
That´s stupid. BRU-MIA is one of the cheapest fares already across the pond. Why compete in that space?!
TUI will cancel their Miami route by the end of August. So there will be no direct flight from Belgium. Currently they fly the Boeing 787-8 twice a week. The route started in 2013 with the 767-300.
If they can't make it work from Brussels, how is AB going to do it from Charleroi, an airport where you can't even fully load your aircraft because of the short runway.
Without a supportive Walloon Government, Air Belgium would have failed. But don't be mistaken, I think it's a wonderful project. However, the low-cost long haul model is broken. They would better buy some a320's and fly to Turkey or Greece.