flyingalex From Germany, joined Jul 2010, 1005 posts, RR: 1 Reply 3, posted (2 years 6 months 4 weeks 1 hour ago) and read 2683 times:
Quoting TriStar500 (Reply 1): Yes, A330-200. The news has been out for a couple of weeks though.
More like a couple of months. I remember reading about in July, possibly even earlier.
Quoting Thorben (Reply 2): EK wants to, but is denied; LH could but doesn't want to; AB goes into it and covers this lucrative market. Good move on their part.
I'm not sure how lucrative this market really is. Long-haul ex-Berlin is not easy. Luckily AB is used to not having much premium demand (something which LH would have trouble dealing with), their A332 is configured 24C/271Y, whereas LH's least-premium longhaul aircraft is the A340-300 in the 34V configuration which is 44C/222Y. There's no way they could sell that many premium seats on this route.
AB can also leverage their TXL hub to try to make it work.
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Thorben From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 4, posted (2 years 6 months 3 weeks 6 days 21 hours ago) and read 2239 times:
Quoting flyingalex (Reply 3): I'm not sure how lucrative this market really is. Long-haul ex-Berlin is not easy. Luckily AB is used to not having much premium demand (something which LH would have trouble dealing with), their A332 is configured 24C/271Y, whereas LH's least-premium longhaul aircraft is the A340-300 in the 34V configuration which is 44C/222Y. There's no way they could sell that many premium seats on this route.
AB can also leverage their TXL hub to try to make it work.
AB is not competing with the service levels of EK or even LH, they are competing with a direct flight and lower prices. In addition, EK has many great connections, and the AB flight might be a cheap way to get to them from Berlin. AB has some good connections, but I wouldn't put too much emphasis on that.
flyingalex From Germany, joined Jul 2010, 1005 posts, RR: 1 Reply 6, posted (2 years 6 months 3 weeks 6 days 19 hours ago) and read 1975 times:
Quoting Thorben (Reply 4): AB is not competing with the service levels of EK or even LH, they are competing with a direct flight and lower prices. In addition, EK has many great connections, and the AB flight might be a cheap way to get to them from Berlin. AB has some good connections, but I wouldn't put too much emphasis on that.
Which was sort of my point - in the Berlin market, it's all about the cheapest seats.
There is comparatively little business demand because so few major companies are based in Berlin. The region's economic output is below the German average, and in general there is not a lot of disposable income available. Therefore, it's not a good market if you're counting on selling lots of expensive tickets. That's why Lufthansa largely ignores it (other than the connecting routes to FRA/MUC/DUS), and why Air Berlin does well there.
Connections to EK are an interesting point - does AB even have an interline agreement with EK? EK fares ex-DXB are not particularly cheap, connections to elsewhere on the EK network would only be attractive if you can buy a through-ticket, which I am not sure you can.
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