After evaluating for a few years, Jet Airways has decided to move its flights from Brussels to Amsterdam. The airline made this announcement yesterday. The airline will also pull out of Newark where it currently flies from Mumbai via Brussels.
This shift is in partnership with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Delta which will help the airline connect to more destinations from Amsterdam than it currently did from Brussels, including 11 destinations in United States of America and Canada and 30 destinations in Europe. This number is likely to go up in the next year or two.
9W232 BOM0225 – 0815AMS
9W231 AMS1120 – 2355BOM
9W234 DEL0235 – 0800AMS
9W234 AMS1120 – 1340YYZ
9W233 YYZ1950 – 0915AMS
9W233 AMS1140 – 2320DEL
All flights will be daily and operated by dual class A330-300 aircraft with 34 Business Class seats and 259 in economy. The airline currently has 4 A330-300s in its fleet.
The airline once had a solid hub at Brussels, which it launched in late 2007. In its hay days the airline had operated services to Brussels from Chennai, in addition to Mumbai and Delhi. In September 2012, the airline cancelled its services to New York JFK from Brussels.
Jet Airways had partnered with SN Brussels the hub carrier at Brussels when it started the hub. SN Brussels later became Brussels airlines and is a Star Alliance member.
As per data released by regulator DGCA, the Amsterdam – Delhi sector sees an average of 274 passengers per day as compared to 96 on Brussels – Delhi and the average is 307 and 121 for the return flights respectively.
Amsterdam (IATA: AMS, ICAO: EHAM) is the main international airport in Netherlands. The airport has 6 runways and handled 54,978,023 passengers with 438,296 flight movements in 2014. The airport is fifth busiest in Europe. Brussels (IATA: BRU, ICAO: EBBR) ranks way behind being 23rd busiest airport in Europe with three runways, recording 231,528 flight movements and 21,933,190 passengers in 2014.
KLM – the oldest airline in the world still operating is the flag carrier of Netherlands and has its hub at Amsterdam. The airline is part of Air France – KLM group and a member of SkyTeam. Delta – one of the big three in United States has a hub at Amsterdam and is also a member of SkyTeam.
After a lot of deliberations and reports, the news that the airline has started negotiations with its employees at Brussels was an indication that the airline could make the move at the end of this season.
The new flights will be effective 27th March 2016, when the Summer Schedule kicks in and the sale of the flights is to open today. The airline flies to London and Paris in Europe.
Jet Airways has leased widebody aircraft to Etihad and Turkish for medium to long term and the response the airline gets for its hub at Amsterdam could dictate how the airline decides to expand further, either with code share or by launching more flights from other cities.
NetworkThoughts 