Belgocontrol statistics: movements November 2011

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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 the month of November 2011 with respect to the number of controlled movements at Brussels National Airport as well as at the regional airports and for overflights.

In November 2011 Belgocontrol managed a total of 81,058 movements, or an increase of 4.22% (3,282 movements) compared to the same month of the previous year (77,776 movements). This increase is only due to the progression of the regional airports and more specifically to the increase in VFR flights that represent more or less 50% of traffic in the regional airports against only about 1% at Brussels National Airport. Recreational aviation was indeed able to benefit from exceptionally clement weather conditions in November 2011.

Brussels National Airport
November 2011 registered 18,167 movements, or a decrease of 1.75% compared to the same month in 2010 (18,490 movements). With the exception of cargo traffic that registers a significant progress (14.47%), all types of flight are on the decrease at Brussels National Airport.

Air traffic controlled by CANAC 2
The CANAC 2 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 145/165 (since 10 March 2011) and 245.

CANAC 2 controlled 40,475 movements in November 2011, representing a slight decrease of 3.99% compared to the same month of last year (42,155).

The regional airports
In November 2011 the four regional airports together recorded a total of 22,416 movements. In comparison with 17,103 movements in November 2010, this results in an increase of 5,313 movements, or 31,06%. The total number of « regional » IFR flights, which was 9,989 movements in November 2010, increased with 1.196 movements, or 11.97% and reached 11,185 movements in November 2011.

The IFR flights increased everywhere except at Charleroi, where traffic decreased by 6.69%. Traffic increased by 10.14% at Antwerp, by 25.12% at Ostend and by 36.02% at Liège. The increase in Liège is partly due to the fact that the daytime traffic during the week is included in our numbers as from March 2011(*).

As regards the number of IFR movements, Charleroi ranks first (3,950), followed by Liège (3,697), Antwerp (1,934) and Ostend (1,604).

The VFR flights, which mainly consist of general aviation, increase everywhere except at Ostend (1,814 or -20.96%). The increase is steepest at Liège (3,305 or 158%) but this is partly due to statistical factors (*). Both Charleroi (3,743 or 109.11%) and Antwerp (2,369 or 35.63%) make clear headway. The steep decline in Ostend is partly the result of the harmonisation of the counting methods for the movements in the regional airports implemented in March 2011. The number of movements in the four regional airports total up to 11,231 VFR flights compared to 7,114 in November 2010 (57.87%).

Regarding the total number of movements, Charleroi ranks first with 7,693 movements, followed by Liège (7,002), Antwerp (4,303) and Ostend (3,418).