In November Brussels Airport handled nearly 1.4 million passengers, up 4.1% on last year. In the current economic climate and considering the declining average growth rates at other European airports, this is a strong performance.
The strongest growth is registered in the long haul and transfer segments. Intra-European business traffic and low-cost are also doing well. Once again, growth was largely driven by Brussels Airlines.
Cargo
Cargo did extremely well in a worldwide cargo market that is currently in decline. The positive growth of 1.8% is mainly driven by integrator traffic and the new cargo services operated by the major cargo carriers.
Aircraft movements
The number of aircraft movements decreased by 1.8% which is explained by the use of larger aircraft and by the fact that several services are discontinued during the winter season.
Network
In November, Thai Airways started a three weekly service to Bangkok and Jetairfly opened a weekly service to Phuket/Bangkok.
A large number of increased frequencies and new destinations for the 2012 summer season have already been announced. The major developments are:
- Brussels Airlines add a 6th A330 to their Africa fleet and a new daily service to New York
- the return of Cyprus Airways, 6x/week to Larnaca
- new destinations for Jetairfly: Ponta Delgada (Azores), Ohrid, Skopje, Fez
- Air France and easyJet: new route to Toulouse
- Aegean Airlines to Corfu and Heraklion
- Hainan Airlines to increase frequency to Beijing after stopping services to Shanghai
- British Airways with a 7th daily service to London
- Estonian Air with a 2nd daily flight to Tallinn
- JAT Airways with 6 weekly nonstop flights to Belgrade
- Germanwings with 3 daily flights to Stuttgart
November 2011 | Nov-11 | Nov-10 | Growth |
Passengers | 1,377,532 | 1,323,443 | 4.1% |
Movements (‘000) | 18.1 | 18.5 | -1.8% |
Cargo (‘000 tonnes) | 41.6 | 40.8 | 1.8% |
Year-to-date November 2011 | Jan-Nov-11 | Jan-Nov-10 | Growth |
Passengers (‘000) | 17,536,726 | 16,003,125 | 9.6% |
Movements (‘000) | 217.0 | 209.0 | 3.8% |
Cargo (‘000 tonnes) | 432.7 | 436.7 | -0.9% |