Belgocontrol statistics full year 2011: traffic on the rise

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Belgocontrol, the autonomous public company in charge of the safety of air navigation in the Belgian civil airspace and at the Belgian public airports, presents its results for 2010 with respect to the controlled movements at Brussels Airport as well as at the regional airports and for overflights.

In 2010 Belgocontrol managed a total of 1,055,157 movements, which represents a decrease of 25,933 movements, or - 2.40 % compared to the year before (1,081,090 movements). Traffic at Brussels Airport decreased by 2.58 %, and the regional airports register a decline of over 4 %. Our CANAC radar centre observed a slight decrease of 1.09 %.

In spite of these results, which are still negative on the whole of the year 2010, traffic evolution is rather encouraging: traffic numbers began to rise as from August, while the number of movements only went downhill since the economic and financial crisis reared its head in October 2008. It is important to keep in mind two exceptional factors that influenced traffic negatively in 2010: the eruption of the Icelandic volcano in April that paralyzed most of the European airspace for a whole week, as well as the early wintry meteorological conditions that disrupted air traffic from the end of November to the end of December.

Brussels Airport
In 2010 Brussels Airport managed a total of 225,682 movements, or a decrease of 2.58 % (5,984 movements) compared to 2009, when 231,668 movements were registered. Traffic growth at Brussels Airport was negative until July 2010, but it became positive again at the end of the year (+ 2.98 % in October, + 4.05 % in November and + 3.31 % in December) despite the difficult meteorological conditions.

Air traffic controlled by CANAC
The CANAC centre manages all movements in the controlled civil airspace above Belgium, from ground level to flight level 245, and above the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, between flight levels 135 and 245. CANAC controlled 530,211 movements in 2010 and registered a slight decrease of 1.09 % (5,841 movements) compared to the preceding year, when 536,052 movements had been registered. Like it is the case for Brussels Airport, air traffic controlled by the CANAC centre tied in with the increase at the end of 2010 (+ 2.86 %, + 2.90 % and + 1.71 % respectively for October, November and December).

The regional airports
In 2010 the four regional airports together recorded a total of 299,264 movements, of which 133,582 were IFR flights. Compared to the 312,960 movements, including 122,076 IFR flights in 2009, this represents a decrease on the whole of the traffic (IFR and VFR) of 13,696 units or 4.38 %.

The IFR movements however, increase by 11,506 units or 9.42 %. They are on the rise at Charleroi, Ostend and Liège and remain stable at Antwerp. There were 165,682 VFR movements in 2010, which represents a decrease of 25,202 movements (- 13.20 %) in comparison with the 2009 statistics (190,884). The considerable decrease in VFR traffic is mainly due to three factors: the economic crisis, which is not favourable to recreational aviation, the weather conditions with a fairly rainy summer and an early winter in 2010 and in conclusion, the development of the regional airports and the increase in IFR flights, which is an evolution to the detriment of VFR flights.

Regarding the total number of movements controlled by Belgocontrol, Brussels South Charleroi ranks first with 95,594 movements, followed by Ostend (87,181), Antwerp (67,815) and Liege (48,674). We remind you that in Liege, Belgocontrol assures the air traffic control only at night during the week and 24/24h during weekends. The movements controlled by the military by day during the week are therefore not included in our statistics.

As regards the number of IFR movements, the ranking looks different. Brussels South Charleroi is in pole position (51,187), followed by Liege (30,985), Ostend (28,151) and Antwerp (23,259).

At Antwerp-Deurne 67,815 movements (23,259 IFR and 44,556 VFR) were registered in 2010. This means a decrease of 11,113 units (- 14.08 %) compared to 2009.

Brussels South Charleroi registered 95,594 movements in 2010 (51,187 IFR and 44,407 VFR), which is a decrease of 4,884 units (- 4.86 %) compared to the 100,478 movements that were recorded the year before.

At Liège-Bierset 48,674 movements (30,985 IFR and 17,689 VFR) were recorded in 2010, which represents an increase of 6.30 % (2,886 movements) compared to 2009, when 45,788 movements were registered.

Ostend recorded in 2010 87,181 movements (28,151 IFR and 59,030 VFR), compared to the 87,766 movements in 2009, representing a decrease of 585 units (- 0.67 %).

All regional airports count their movements in the same manner: every airport registers two movements in case of go around, touch and go and local flights. In those three cases, they count one arrival and one departure. ILS and landing are considered as one single movement. Antwerp, Charleroi and Liege consider the flight through the CTR or the TMA as one movement. However, because the TMA of Ostend generates an intense training flight activity and its TMA is considerably bigger than the airspace of the other regional airports, the traffic that flies through it is counted as two movements: one entry and one exit of the zone.

Full statistics and graphs

Belgocontrol press release 1.02.2011