easyJet to Brussels

[no, no, no]

Heard today that in a French newspaper easyjet are reportedly going to enter the Brussels market and are negotiating rates with the airport at the moment.

Considering there are no low-cost carriers on London to Brussels (only BA and bmi) this doesn't surprise me, but are easy stretching their model a bit too far on a market which is hugely business driven?

[Young Paul]

It used to be the case that MEP's etc were paid a fixed allowance of (I think) £500 per flight - regardless of how much they paid for the ticket. So they used to try and buy tickets as cheaply as possible, and keep the change.

On the other hand, we had a recognisable senior European figure on a flight recently who said that he didn't buy business class tickets because he didn't want to waste taxpayers' money on needless frills.

To be quite honest, I really think it makes more sense to get the train from London to Brussels (or Paris, for that matter). The capacity on CDG route has plummetted in the last few years - for example, at one stage, British Midland had a 737-400 with 150 seats doing eight rotations a day. Their capacity on the route is substantially lower now.

[WHBM]

Unfortunately Brussels seems to have a history as a graveyard for operators (someone once described Belgium to me as a completely unnecessary extra country in Europe - should be split up between France and The Netherlands !), whether it's Sabena themselves, the Belgian charter operators, or any startup routes into there. Even Eurostar have terrible load factors from London to Brussels (less than half what they get on Paris) and their service frequency there is less now than they started with.

So advice to Easy is, don't bet the farm on it. But have a go at FR down the road (a long, long way down the road). And DON'T take any ex-SN staff on, you need to avoid all their attitude problems that contributed to the downfall of a once-proud airline.

BTW, Eurostar, one of the great hopes of transport investment of the 1990s, has turned out to be a real disappointment, basically because of the excessive fares charged. Paris by train is always more expensive than flying for me, regardless of departure point in London, and regardless of whether I'm booking a month or an hour before departure. Eurostar passenger numbers have been falling by the year for the last several years, and many of the trains built for the service have been moved elsewhere or are underemployed, whereas I believe airline pax numbers to Paris are starting to climb back to old levels.

[BahrainLad]

According to de Gualle, Britain created Belgium to perpetually annoy the French and Germans.

[Flightmapping]

WHBM,

AFAIK, Eurostar pax figures have been climbing up since Stage 1 of the CTRL opened last year, taking 40 mins off the journey. Think they had something like a 20% yoy increase. Agreed that pax figures are still behind expectations, but ES is still the biggest carrier on both of these routes. According to ES:

"Eurostar has become the number one choice for trips on the London-Paris and London-Brussels routes. The latest available figures showed that Eurostar have a 66% share of the London-Paris rail/air route, compared with 13% for its nearest competitor, British Airways. On the London-Brussels route, Eurostar has increased its share to 48%, whereas all its competitors saw their share fall. Nearly 1.7 million customers traveled on Eurostar in the final quarter of 2003"

Yes, they could do better fare offers - they are lousy for one-way, unless you use that Saturday night "party" fare. I'm sure they'd put a lot more bums on seats if they adopted Yield management pricing, but then surely you could say ditto for any train company?

[WHBM]

Flightmapping:

I'm afraid that Eurostar are good at selective statistics. If I go from say Liverpool to Paris by train, Eurostar count me as a London to Paris passenger (even if I have a through ticket) whereas if I take the Easyjet flight from Liverpool I am excluded from the comparison.

I'm sure that Eurostar are indeed the "number one choice", and will continue to be as long as they provide the only train service whereas they count BA, Air France, BMI, Easy, even just from London, each as separate operators. I also find a 20% increase surprising as they have not increased the number of trains at all to Paris and I didn't think they had that much spare capacity in them (though they certainly do to Brussels!). The trains at popular times are not so much full because of great demand, more full because Eurostar have reduced the service considerably from the original expectation. Original plan was Paris every half hour and Brussels hourly, all day.

The yield management system is a French one and is widely despised by the UK partners in the scheme for depressing passenger numbers. It's strange that this same system, called "Socrates" (who I always thought was Greek!), gets it so much better for French internal travel.

[smartercharter]

There is a definate requirement for more LGW/BRU capacity as at present there are only a few flights a day with BA. If Easy used LGW based a/c I am sure the route would prove extremely popular!

[aeulad]

BA do not operate the LGW-BRU route, SNBA do with their Avros/146s. Flights are twice daily, and the route is CODESHARED with BA.

Regards

Mike

[Flightmapping]

WHBM,

That's a very good point. Last time I went to BRU, I flew from BHX. If I'd chosen to go Eurostar, I would be counted as a London ticket. Note that Virgin have quite a good combined offer of feeder train + ES for £69 rtn.

I would expect the growth comes from empty seats being filled - I've only done ES once, and it was about 50% full. AFAIK, most UK long distance trains also operate at about 40% load factor (and I think even that takes into accound 100%+ loads at peak times). They still have a great deal to learn from the no-frills airlines.

Would Stelios ever gamble on Easyrail (they own the domain, but I guess that could just be IP protection). Sorry, I'm wondering ot

[In trim]

I don't know if there is any truth to this rumour at all. However, all the postings above are commenting on the logic of operating London-Brussels. You only have to look at the easyJet network to realise that this would not necessarily be the basis of opening a new airport.

Look at Berlin and Dortmund. Yes, there is a London link. However, both of these airports are opening up with multiple other links within Europe which don't touch the UK. e.g. Berlin - Basle, Copenhagen, a number of Spanish destinations, Athens, etc.

easyJet is not solely a UK-originating network.

[Flightmapping]

See

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=48&story_id=7726

I think its more than a rumour, but fair point about other routes.

I would guess that like with PAR, LTN would be the most likely option to pick up people from places like Milton Keynes, Bedford etc. STN has CRL; LGW has SN & Central London has Eurostar

[SNNEI]

Evening all,

Please lets be a bit more kind to the belgians : it's really a very nice country and very worth visiting:) and of course, these people brew some very nice beer!

Antwerp (or Antwerpen/Anvers.. however you call it) is a bloody good town too! (Goeienavond Antwerpenaars.. leuke stad!)

It seems Easyjet are really taking the war to Ryanair's door, and with the possibility of killing off Virgin express, I'd say they consider this a serious possibility/opportunity.

[Jordan D]

The thing with operating LON-BRU, is that Eurostar has such as hold on the market, that its simply not viable enough ... I know that Easyjet is only London based, but with very good deals that Eurostar are offering these days, especially including connections etc., it works out quite well

That and the much shorter journey time, check in, hassle and city entrance/exit points.

Jordan

[bmibaby.com]

Lets suggest for a moment, however, that EasyJet don't launch a London service from Brussels (although a second operator on the route following SNBA, VEX & Ryanair pulling off BRU/CRL-LON services) there would be a huge benefit to launching services to other EasyJet cities into Brussels.

Lots of the southern European routes, the German routes, the new eastern European routes & maybe even some of the UK regional airports would all benefit from EasyJet service.

[no, no, no]

bmibaby.... don't you work for the same people who bmi people work for?
if so surely you'd realise that there are already 2 operators on LON-BRU - BA and your own bmi!!!!!!!!

[Wings737]

WHBM said: "And DON'T take any ex-SN staff on, you need to avoid all their attitude problems that contributed to the downfall of a once-proud airline."

Well.... first of all and for your information, Easy already has hired A LOT of ex-sabena pilots, and they are VERY satisfied of their "attitude", skills and professionalism.

And if you really think that it's the pilot behaviour that lead Sabena to the bankruptcy, you must be either misinformed or ignorant.

Yes, there is a market for Easyjet into Brussels!!! Even for bussinessmen that we carry more and more often as we can see in Paris!!! Since sabena went down, Brussels airport traffic never recovered and is waiting for a real lowcost company to get in and develop!!

I wish Easyjet will be this company!

Wiiiiiiiiiings

[bmibaby.com]

no, no, no you're absolutely correct that my post should have mentioned "third" instead of "second".

EasyJet has always avoided BRU partly because of its expensive costs for gate leasing and take off & landing charges. Has this recently changed?