I’ve written about Beond Airlines, which bills itself as the world’s first premium leisure airline. The airline has an all-business class Airbus A319 that it operates on routes to and from the Maldives. The company has some lofty goals (to put it politely), and eventually wants to operate dozens of planes to destinations around the…
Continue reading: Beond Airlines Keeps Canceling Flights, Has Unreliable Schedule
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“The airline has started operating the Zurich to Dubai sector as a fifth freedom route, meaning you can book flights exclusively between Switzerland and the United States” — do you mean United Arab Emirates?
I don't know what the actual motivation and goal of the people who run Beond are. But I know it's not to run a profitable air carrier. It seems more like a front for some other hidden purpose known only to the people bankrolling it.
No, Lucky, I did not say that I was 'skeptical turned believer.' I posed the question whether I would turn from skeptical into a believer.
And I wrote that Beond was going to have a problem in the off-season, which is exactly what you're finding.
And what did I conclude?
"They need to fill planes at high fares, and that should be possible if they can offer a convenient and reliable premium product with a schedule advantage. That’s going to take more planes, which gets more expensive. And then they’ll need a place to send those planes when business dries up as the destination gets wet. It’ll be a challenge, but I hope they make it and that I have a chance to fly them."
So I'm not sure why you misrepresent me here.
A refueling stop kills the advantage of flying to destinations 3000-4000 miles away esp. in business class which requires everyone to sit up for landing and takeoff.
add in that carriers like EK fly to the Maldives multiple times per day and the competition is not sitting still.
and the Maldives decisions about Jews certainly doesn't help its image.
@ Gary Leff -- Sorry for interpreting it different than you intended. To me, the headline suggested that the CEO's "insights" perhaps gave you a more favorable impression of the business model than I had. If I had written a headline where the first words were that (even with a question mark), my intention would be to convey that I at least see merit to the claims, But clearly that's not what was intended, so my apologies.
For whatever reason, Beond just never seemed that interesting to me. Don’t get me wrong, an all-business A319 is always pretty cool, but it just seemed to sort of appear overnight, a few travel influencers got invited to some flights, then…..nothing. I’m surprised if that many people have even heard of it, and I’ll also be surprised if it lasts much longer.
10/10 livery though!
A YouTuber (Noel Philips) recently posted a review. He flew ZRH-DWC. Total of 11 pax on the flight and he was the only travelers stopping at Dubai instead of continuing to Maldives.
So an empty flight to an empty airport for him. Seemed like good in flight service though!
And Noel got a call the day before his flight telling him they moved the departure time up to 8 hours earlier!
@Ben: You interpreted it just as I think most people would. Thank you for your writing being more straight forward (you are always sure to re-state your intent/view).
This seems like another Air Belgium. Launching services into a market it has not properly researched.
It has one aircraft. You can’t have a sustainable business model when there’s no back up in case of mechanical problems. Even a weather delay will disrupt he entire operation. What do they have ? 5 staff ?
Give it a month
Jews ?? They said Israelis which also includes Christians and Muslims. Stop equating all jews with Israel. There’s no requirement to add religion to your passport.
They “said” Israelis, but then backtracked when they realized - shocker - 20% of Israelis are Arab! They didn’t want to implement the law when they realized it affected their fellow Muslims, so logically they only wanted to exclude *Jewish* Israelis.
That would probably be a very profitable route. But the Maldives shot themselves in the foot with their moronic ban of Israelis and subsequently turning all Jewish tourists away from visiting.
Do Swiss like Maldives? Yes? Would they fly Beond? Not so sure. I mean, why?
In business lounge in Male I heard tourists from Switzerland talking -- one group was flying Edelweiss, the other Turkish airlines. The TK passengers were explaining why flying TK is a better choice than WK, even without direct flight. We were silently listening, smilingly agreeing, being TK passengers for exactly the same reasons.
Stop pretending it was anything other than what it was: A visceral hate for Jews.
Sometimes you have to wonder if new airlines are needed, what makes inverstors think they can succeed where most people have failed? Markets are overcrowded and competition is huge, only giants can win in the aviation game, sad but true.
They seem to do trial and error with regards to their route network, which is a weird thing to do with 1 aircraft. At least they seem to have found something that halfway works with their 3-per-week Riyadh. But their flights to Europe with the stopover in between are completely pointless.
As another reader suggested, there must be another reason why this airline exists, which is hidden from the public view.
So why TK is better ? I flew WK ZRH to Phuket recently with Miles and It was great service and I enjoyed it.
Note : My airlines of choice and status is with QR.
Rumors say employees aren’t getting paid, many people were made redundant or left the job voluntarily… there is talk about toxic work culture, bullying and power struggle - shady business for sure.
In general, TK has more spacious seat (yes, the dated TK J class seat has more space than WK), way better food, and on top of that the price to Maldives was with TK significantly lower.
The service can vary on both, sometimes very good, sometimes not so.
The Maldives now basically saying they want to ban Jews from their country isn’t going to help tourism either.
As Warren Buffett once said, it takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. By cancelling flights a few days out and offering only a refund or an economy rebook, they're not going to be around for twenty years. This behaviour will totally alienate their target market. If they want to make it work they have to operate every flight, even for a single passenger - even an empty leg - and the investors will have to deal with the pain. If you invest in an airline, pain is something you must learn to accept.
No surprises there, since Maldivians live in an autocratic Islamic theocracy. The luxurious islands with free-flowing booze and scantily clad beach bodies are a different universe to that occupied by the people who actually live there.
Yes that is correct. I was one of the founding members of the airline and I had to leave. It is bad. Stay away from it