Sobelair a former Belgian Charter Company (Sobelair)

Member Name: isvikthere

Product:	Sobelair
Date:	22/07/03 (155 review reads)
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-------------Update January 2004----------------

On monday January 19th, Sobelair went bust. Struggling for months to find new investors and cash, to settle outstanding debts and trying in vain to get the lease prices for their airplanes down to marketlevel, last monday the Sobelair charter company unfortunately followed in the footsteps of its former mother company Sabena and went bankrupt.

The three airplanes Sobelair did own - all the others were leased from the German Company DSF - will probably be sold off to settle part of the outstanding debts with priority to backpay for the employees.

The final blow was given by the fact that some of the biggest clients of Sobelair, the Belgian Tour operators Thomas Cook Belgium and Jetair (of the TUI group) withdrew their support for Sobelair, by stating that they lost their faith in the charter company and would seek for transportation of their travelers with aircraft carriers flying under their own banner.

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WHAT

Sobelair is a Belgian airline charter company created in 1946 initially specialising in flights to the Congo. Until a few years back they used to be a daughter company/subsidiary to Sabena, Belgium's national airline that went bust in October 2001. The crisis caused by the September 11th attacks was the fatal blow to a company that already struggled hard to survive especially after the disastrous merger with Swissair, that went bankrupt too.

Now Sobelair flies on its own wings, although this isn't exactly true as Sobelair owns no airplanes themselves. In fact they rent them all from one German leasing company called DSP. Fierce negociations are currently going on between DSP and Sobelair to bring the rent prices down to today's market level.

Otherwise Sobelair is faring rather well since being a charter company they seldom fly with planes not fully booked. Sobelair
9;s speciality is holliday travel, with the centre of interest being the Mediterranean area although since a while they also fly to holliday destinations in Central America (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Netherlands Antilles) and there was also a recent return to Africa (Egypt, Kenya). But all flights to Johannesburg have been cancelled since end June for reasons unknown to me.


THE PLANES

They use only Boeing aircraft of three flavours :
737-300 (149 passengers with a crew of 5)
737-400 (170 passengers with a crew of 6)
767-300ER (272 passengers with a crew of 10) - I imagine this is for the long haul flights.


THE SERVICE

I've travelled several times with them now, be it all inside Europe, and all flights seemed very similar. The seats are grouped in rows of six , each time three seats separated by the gangway. There are no different classes so everyone sits in the same conditions. Which aren't too luxurious as the seats are placed in a way that leaves you not that much room for legs, leaning the seats back invades the space of the passenger seated behind you, and the seats can't lean that far back anyway. Also the armrests have to be shared. There is no private stereo or movie show. For a flight of 2-3 hours it is acceptable though. What you still get, and this in contrast with budget airlines the likes of Ryanair etc., is a free meal. Yes, it all comes in plastic but the quality and the variety is good and there are always free drinks with it. Non-alcoholic beverages that is, because for alcohol you have to pay extra. I once felt like having an extra coffee, and since the trolleys were already back in storage the hostess took the trouble of preparing me a filter coffee. I've seen severeal people calling upon them for some cures for airsickness which they provided without a glitch. I think the trend is towards non-smoker flights these days but on the flights that still allow it some 12-16 smoke
r seats are reserved at the back of the airplane.

But the meals help to make time pass quicker and I suppose it keeps the flight attendants occupied. These flight attendants are correct, helpful and professional with no fake or excessive friendliness. Over the speaker the captain takes his time to wellcome you on board and gives you the weather forecast and an overview of the flightplan, he sometimes even takes the time to point out some sights to be seen outside the portholes.

The security drill with demonstration of the lifejackets, oxygen masks and location of the emergency exits is always entertaining and is given at each takeoff, so if ever the flight goes through stopovers you're treated to it more than once. At check-in are not to strict on handluggage so if ever you're packing a little too much it's no problem whatsoever.

On flights coming from outside the European Union you have the occasion of buying tax free goods, an overview of the offer on board is displayed in a brochure which you find in the back of each seat. Apart from some Sobelair gadgets in this catalogue you find mostly luxury goods like perfumes, jewellery, alcohol and cigarettes.

As I haven't been on a long-haul flight with them yet I can't comment on the differences between those and the European flights.

http://www.sobelair.be

Cheers,
ViK

--NOTE

Sobelair is even offering a "Virtual Airline" Service to people that are crazy about Flightsimulation programmes. You find the site where you can register as a "Virtual Sobelair Pilot" here :

http://www.sobelairva.net/

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