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 globe.
As much as I’d love for this concept to be successful, I’ve been skeptical about the viability of this since the beginning. Not because an all-business class airline can’t work, but rather because the Maldives isn’t the market where this concept makes the most sense. In this post I wanted to take a look at just how unreliably Beond Airlines seems to be operating, and how much it has cut its network.
At a minimum, it’s an indication of how the airline doesn’t seem to be doing as well as hoped. But it’s also something that prospective customers should consider, since booking a ticket on Beond Airlines in advance seems to be like buying a lottery ticket, in terms of whether your flight will actually operate.
In this post:
Beond Airlines keeps suspending routes, canceling flights
Beond Airlines primarily operates routes to & from Male (MLE). When the airline launched, it first flew to Munich (MUC) and Zurich (ZRH), with both routes operating via Dubai (DWC), as a refueling stop. In the meantime, 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 Arab Emirates. Then the airline also added Riyadh (RUH) as a destination, and plans to add Milan (MXP) flights as of July 3, 2024.
It’s interesting to look at how the network is doing as of now (June 18, 2024). Looking at Beond Airlines’ website:
- This spring, Beond Airlines suspended its Munich route due to lack of demand, and it plans to bring it back in October 2024, after a seasonal suspension
- The airline has been marketing that it flies 2x weekly to Zurich; however, the last flight from Zurich was operated on June 4, and now the booking system doesn’t show another flight in the market until July 2, so it has just mysteriously been suspended for around a month
- The airline has been marketing that it flies 4x weekly to Dubai; the current schedule shows a flight on June 20, and then the next flight on July 2
- The Riyadh service is the only one that seems to be operating reliably, and that service will increase from 2x weekly to 3x weekly as of July 2024
- The airline shows that it will launch Milan flights on July 3, with 2x weekly flights, though let’s see if that route actually launches
I would have to assume that these flights are being canceled due to soft demand. I’d be very cautious about booking a flight with Beond Airlines, since I’ve seen several reports of people learning just days in advance that their flight was canceled, and in some cases only being given the option of a refund or an economy flight on another airline.
I should also mention that looking at Flightradar24 for Beond Airlines’ aircraft, the carrier’s on-time performance is absolutely abysmal for situations where it does bother operating its flights. And that’s for situations where the plane is flying — for example, the A319 didn’t operate a single flight between June 7 and June 13, and just sat on the ground for six days.
It’s also interesting to note that Beond Airlines’ schedule is open all the way through October 2025. Most airlines open their schedule at most a year out, while Beond Airlines is opening it around 16 months out. Is this because most people plan their travel to the Maldives further out, or is it because the airline is desperate to raise cash however it needs to? I don’t know…
This doesn’t seem like a healthy company to me
I’ve shared my take on why I don’t think Beond Airlines will succeed. It’s not that I don’t want the airline to succeed — I do — but it’s just not a logical business model, at least for an airline based in the Maldives. There are plenty of other markets where I think an all-business class airline would succeed before the Maldives.
So I’m not surprised to see that Beond Airlines has basically axed its network at this point. The airline isn’t operating any Europe flights for several weeks, and the only destination that’s proving to be consistent is Riyadh. I guess the airline is at least saving on its alcohol costs.
Earlier this year, View from the Wing had an interview with the Beond Airlines CEO, and the title started with “Skeptic Turned Believer?” This interview basically sums up why I often don’t value these kinds of interview opportunities, because so many CEOs will just say what they think they have to say, regardless of whether or not it’s the truth.
The CEO claimed that “European markets are on the spot we want to be” in terms of performance and load factor. This was in February, and just a couple of weeks later, the airline announced it would suspend Munich flights, and now the airline has suspended Zurich flights. I’m curious what suddenly changed?
I suspect that the CEO was just saying what he thought people wanted to hear, which is that the service is doing great and airline will keep operating these routes… until it doesn’t.
Another major issue with Beond Airlines’ business model is that the Maldives is a seasonal destination. The CEO argued that demand for travel to the Maldives only fluctuated by around 8%, and the bigger fluctuation is with fares. Yet Beond Airlines hasn’t actually materially adjusted its fares for summer, and obviously the premium demand is way down, based on the fact that the airline is axing routes.
The CEO also argued that Beond Airlines’ product is so special that “people are willing to wait.” Well, I hope they’re willing to wait weeks or even months, based on how the airline adjusts its schedule…
Bottom line
All-business class airline Beond Airlines isn’t operating reliably at all. Earlier this year, the airline suspended its Munich route, and now the airline has suspended its Zurich route for several weeks. The airline is also only operating a small portion of its Dubai schedule. The only route that seems to be operating reliably is Riyadh.
I’m curious for how much longer the airline can sustain this kind of an operating model. Let’s see what happens with the Milan service that’s supposed to launch on July 3…
What do you make of Beond Airlines’ situation?
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...
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.
What about eu261 for the cancelled outbound flights?
The Maldives now basically saying they want to ban Jews from their country isn’t going to help tourism either.
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.
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.
How do you know?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
This seems like another Air Belgium. Launching services into a market it has not properly researched.
Maybe they should try a route to TLV.
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!
Maintaining a reliable schedule was Beond their capabilities
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 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.
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.
Stop pretending it was anything other than what it was: A visceral hate for Jews.
Israelis*
They should open direct flights to Israel.
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.
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...
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.
@ 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.
@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).
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.
“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?
@ WaywardAlpaca -- Fixed, thanks!
this is why we fly Delta