After New York in 2021 and Los Angeles in April 2022, French bee will serve Miami from December 15, 2022. “On does not want to stop there. Once we have started the mechanics on the United States, we must continue hammered Jean-Paul Dubreuil, the leader of the eponymous group, which owns the French bee company and its big sister Air Caraïbes. With Marc Rochet, the president of Air Caraïbes as well as Muriel Assouline and Sophie Hocquez, the management team of French bee, he returned to the rapid development of his low fare company.
Launched in 2016, with a line to Punta Cana since transferred to Air Caraïbes, French bee now offers Saint-Denis de La Réunion, Papeete in Polynesia and therefore soon four destinations in the United States: New York (up to 7 flights per week ), Los Angeles (first flight April 30, 2022, up to 6 flights per week), San Francisco (up to 3 flights per week) and Miami (up to 3 flights per week).
French bee is also the first airline with a 100% A350-900(4) and A350-1000(1) fleet. A final A 350-1000 will arrive next winter. The company has therefore purchased six latest generation aircraft in six years, including four during the health crisis. These devices require approximately “200 million euros” of investment.
French bee no longer wants to grow
After such dazzling development, Jean-Paul Dubreuil believes that the company “has reached its critical size. On don’t don’t aim 150 planes. We have gone through with our development plan. Is ‘big is beautiful‘, I am not sure. From now on, the company aims above all to return to balance, after the last two very complicated ones because of the pandemic.
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Credit: Dubreuil GroupShe hopes to get closer to it at the end of 2022. After “a capital increase of 15 million euros”, the entrepreneur ignores “if it’s going to be enough because of the price of oil. There is an iequation between our selling prices and the price of oil, which represents 28% of our expenses. We will have to increase the price of the ticket. »
For the moment, prices have already undergone a rise of 10%. But Marc Rochet does not see not how the companies will be able to escape a (new) increase of 14% and 15% “soon. He also states that “theAmerican airlines do not increase long-distance fares.courier because this represents a residual market for them. But they have raised prices on domestic flights. If opposite, the Americans do not move their prices, it is very complicated for us. »
A very diverse group
At Orly airport, the group considers that it is not looking for slots. On the other hand, it works on interline connections with low cost, in particular Vueling, but also Easyjet.
Marc Rochet also indicates that “French bee has commitments for the summer of 2022 equivalent to those of 2019, or even higher. It is thanks to our dvery sunny destinations, very easy, far from the Ukrainian conflict. We are currently thn full heart of customers’ choice. The fact of having new destinations makes it possible to spread out risk. »
A spread that also applies to the Dubreuil group. In this company of 5,500 people, the aerial part represents only 22% of the 2.1 billion in turnover in 2021. “We are cwant to be as diversified when we are going through a crisis like that,” confirms Jean-Paul Dubreuil.
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