Talks with Lufthansa

After some information released from Lufthansa in a German newspaper about Brussels Airlines being absorbed into another company, our CEO met our pilots delegates in August to give some explanation about this “Brusselswings” concept. That would merge the networks of the different airlines in the Lufthansa Group (Lufthansa, Germanwings, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines).

He explained different possible ways to integrate our company into a Lufthansa group strategy, but unfortunately there is at the moment no official information about a decision or ongoing talks between the companies. However, a first A320 operated by Eurowings is already based in Vienna, the Austrian hub.

Long-Haul

The company has officialised the phase-in of a 9th A330 to operate 5 weekly flights to Toronto from April 2016.

A 10th A330 will be phased-in during winter 2016-2017. Destination Lagos, Libreville or Mumbai are under study.

Since the beginning of the winter season, Brussels Airlines does not operate to Nairobi anymore.

This change made it necessary to review the flight distribution of the other East African schedules as we often operated those flights in triangle. A temporary agreement was found for the winter schedule. A stop over at Kigali has been planned instead and we expect the local apron to become crowded soon when Rwandair will receive their new long haul A330s for this summer. As a result, we now operate flights very close to the maximum allowed duty. A temporary agreement was found for the winter schedule until the training can be done in order to operate the flights with extended crews as from the the next summer season.

Engine failures

The medium-haul airbus fleet has suffered several engine incidents this year, which  increases the rate of engine failures well above the average. Investigations are in progress with the engine manufacturer.

Korongo operations

Korongo ceased its operations in September, 3 years after its first flight. Brussels Airlines could not invest in extra aircraft, and according to the management, an airline with a single aircraft was not viable. This raises questions on the validity of the business plan, which originally included a single B737 and 2 BAe146 that were obviously not adapted to African operations.

Some pilots from Korongo joined temporarily the Brussels Airlines fleet.

Pressure on the crews

Given the high rate of aircraft utilisation, the lack of spare aircraft and a limited stock of spare parts, repair of technical defects is often delayed. Pressure is high to dispatch aircraft on time and  sometimes aircraft fly with several items in the MEL. This problem was already noticeable on the long-haul fleet but the medium-haul is also impacted now.

The long haul fleet manager and technical pilots recently issued a communication to stress the importance of the correct and immediate reporting of aircaft defects in order to plan the repairs as soon as possible.

Avro

The revised Avro phase out plan has been presented to the pilot delegation. The first RJ100 will leave the company in the first quarter of next year. In 2016, 21 Avro crews will do their A320 conversion.

The company advertised vacancies for ab initio pilots as several A319/320s will be phased-in earlier than the Avro phased out. Positions are open to A320 rated pilots, even without previous operational experience.

Christophe Sambre, Vice-President Brussels Airlines