Brussels Airlines Turns To Air Europa For Boeing 787 Flights To New York

Belgian flag carrier Brussels Airlines

(SN) currently lacks long-haul capacity. It has signed an agreement with Air Europa

to provide some excess capacity on its New York route to free up an Airbus A330. That aircraft can then be deployed elsewhere on Brussels Airlines’ network, mitigating some of the impact of the partly grounded fleet.

What’s going on at SN?

A sudden lack of capacity is usually the kind of story that emerges during the peak summer season for airlines. That’s because aircraft are being used more frequently and for longer, leaving the number of spare planes few and far beyond.

Photo: Brussels Airlines

That said, it’s February and Brussels Airlines is having a bit of a tough time. Speaking to Simple Flying, a spokesperson confirmed that the airline is suffering from a wave of both “planned and unplanned maintenance work on our long-haul fleet,” causing a strain on available capacity. It typically keeps a spare aircraft available to cover for such issues, but even that isn’t enough in the current situation.

Brussels Airlines could not provide a number to quantify the aircraft listed as being inactive as the situation is not as clear-cut as that. It says:

“The number of planes is difficult to say, as in the coming weeks we already planned to have maintenance carried out on several of our aircraft. So, some that are flying now will be grounded in the following weeks and vice versa.”

A mix of ch-aviation data and Flightradar24 information reaps the following information regarding the Brussels Airlines long-haul fleet in recent times.

Photo: M.J.J. de Vaan | Shutterstock

Brussels Airlines dismissed rumors of engine issues and said that the lack of capacity was simply down to “unforeseen maintenance work.” It adds that the start of the year is typically when heavier maintenance work is carried out anyways, so a combination of these two poses an operational challenge.

Air Europa flying to JFK

Spanish airline Air Europa has been called on to deploy one of its Boeing 787-9s on services between Brussels and New York JFK. Brussels Airlines operates one daily flight on this sector and represents its only route to the United States beyond its summer seasonal Washington service.

It is a particularly important route for connecting traffic through Brussels to African destinations, although joint venture and Star Alliance partner United also facilitates this through its Newark links.

Brussels Airlines says the agreement will last until mid-May and will exclusively cover flights on the BRU-JFK route. A spokesperson clarified:

“For a variety of reasons but mainly because it’s a route they fly anyway [between Madrid and JFK] and that makes it easier if their plane needs maintenance in between two flights.”

Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock

While the hard product onboard will be different to what Brussels Airlines customers are used to on the A330, the soft product will try and be matched, the company says.

“Passengers on Air Europa-operated flights will continue to enjoy a similar in-flight experience, including Brussels Airlines’ standard food and beverage offerings. Additionally, Brussels Airlines staff will be present alongside the Air Europa crew to assist passengers.”

The aircraft in question is six-year-old EC-MTI. It entered into commercial service for Brussels Airlines on Saturday (February 22).

It must be noted that there is a little bit of irony attached to an Air Europa wet-lease for service to JFK. In fact, as I reported last summer, Air Europa had to rely on wet-leased capacity to service its own route between MAD and JFK due to engine woes on its Boeing 787s.

Despite this, it seems to have more confidence this year. It upped service on that route to daily for the upcoming summer period, having last done so in 2019. Air Europa seems to have put its worst engine-issue days behind it, helping out other airlines with a similar lack of capacity.