Many of the passengers flying out of Brussels to Asia travel to and from Bangkok, creating a currently untapped opportunity for point-to-point flights, says Bernard Gustin, co-chief executive of Brussels Airlines.
Brussels Airlines co-CEO Bernard Gustin delivers an address at the recent ceremony marking the airline’s entry into the Star Alliance in the Belgian capital.
The robust market potential for non-stop services between the European Union’s capital and Bangkok seems to have been overlooked by carriers such as Thai Airways International (THAI), he said.
More than 1,000 international organisations including the EU Commission, the European Parliament and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) are based in Brussels.
Brussels is also home to many non-governmental organisations, lobby organisations, 1,100 journalists and 300 diplomatic missions. More than 1,000 multinational firms also have their EU headquarters in the city.
About one million foreigners live in Brussels and many require long-distance travel including to Southeast Asia, said Mr Gustin.
He has advised fellow Star Alliance airline members including THAI to evaluate the market opportunities to establish direct links between Brussels and Bangkok and between Brussels and Tokyo.
“I said to Star members to assess the potential and if they come to a positive calculation, we are extremely happy, with support from Brussels Airport, to welcome them and work with them,” Mr Gustin told the Bangkok Post.
Most Asian airlines including THAI see the Belgian capital as a secondary market, and focus more on pairing their home bases with major cities on the continent such as Paris and Frankfurt.
India’s Jet Airways is an exception, flying from Brussels to Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.
THAI president Piyasvasti Amranand said the flag carrier did not have enough aircraft capacity to operate non-stop flights to Brussels.
“Maybe we have to go back and look at Brussels and see why a lot of carriers do not fly non-stop from Asia to the EU capital,” he said.
THAI’s fleet, which will go through some modernisation, cannot be readily expanded, he added.
THAI flew to Brussels more than a decade ago via Frankfurt but competition from Lufthansa and the now-defunct Belgian flag carrier Sabena forced it out.
One option for THAI to resume a service from Bangkok to Brussels would be to fly via Athens, but that would be subject to securing traffic rights, said a senior THAI executive.
Mr Gustin said Brussels Airlines - which is 45% owned by Germany’s Lufthansa - was unable to fly to Asia itself as it was still affected by the crisis that has hit the global aviation industry.
“The crisis requires you to concentrate on what you can do best … that is our European and African operation,” he said.
Brussels Airlines now serves 62 destinations - 48 in Europe and 14 in Africa.
“Once the crisis is over, we will, of course, embark on expansion and assessing some destinations in the US and Asia. We need to be cautious.”
Asian flights would also require different long-haul aircraft than the Airbus A330-300s deployed on Brussels Airlines’ African network, said Mr Gustin.
Bron: Bangkok Post
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