Brussels Airport compared to other European airports

[Atlantis]

I place it here as there is no dedicated topic for it.

Mostly we compare BRU with other airports like VIE or some in Scandinavia, but we have to start to compare it also with WAW in Poland.

Just to compare how hard WAW is growing: BRU had in 2019 >26 million pax, WAW had >18 million pax. Difference was significant.
in 2023 BRU will have 22 million pax while WAW will reach just under the 20 million pax. Meaning that WAW passed by already their top year 2019 while our airports in the West are still very far from it.

WAW is growing very fast with a strong home carrier. It has a big long haul fleet serving a lot of destinations in The States and Asia and a big small and midsize fleet of B737 Max and Embraer. WAW has only one terminal but is able to do it. From security check you are very fast to your gate.

BRU cannot be happy with the current results. It has many more airlines flying to BRU and is several times bigger than WAW.
The B-pier is very much underused.

Very soon East European airports will be more important and bigger than ours.

[crew1990]

I place it here as there is no dedicated topic for it.

Well there is the brussels airport topic wich is more dedicated

[rwandan-flyer]

I place it here as there is no dedicated topic for it.

Mostly we compare BRU with other airports like VIE or some in Scandinavia, but we have to start to compare it also with WAW in Poland.

Just to compare how hard WAW is growing: BRU had in 2019 >26 million pax, WAW had >18 million pax. Difference was significant.
in 2023 BRU will have 22 million pax while WAW will reach just under the 20 million pax. Meaning that WAW passed by already their top year 2019 while our airports in the West are still very far from it.

WAW is growing very fast with a strong home carrier. It has a big long haul fleet serving a lot of destinations in The States and Asia and a big small and midsize fleet of B737 Max and Embraer. WAW has only one terminal but is able to do it. From security check you are very fast to your gate.

BRU cannot be happy with the current results. It has many more airlines flying to BRU and is several times bigger than WAW.
The B-pier is very much underused.

Very soon East European airports will be more important and bigger than ours.

The competition in this region from hub and spoke airline is low. Balkan Bulgarian and Malev have ended flights, while Czech Airlines and Tarom are struggling. Then LOT did what Royal Air Maroc did in 2000s with its African network. Strong competition from Low Cost on point to point, so they have spread their wings into new markets, mainly to Asia and a little bit to Africa (mainly leisure flights for travel agencies) and added more flights to USA, to avoid to close the doors.

Furthermore, the entry of Poland in EU was boost for the econmy and for the revenue per capita for the population (6 684.7 in 2004, 20045.2 in 2023). The economy of Poland was already strong before the entry in UE, if we compare to Romania, Hungary or Buglaria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Poland.

BRU is located in a highly competitve area: London Amsterdam, Paris and Francfort are located between 210 & 396 km from Brussels. Up to 1h by plane, so people have the choice to come or to leave Brussels by plane (or also the train for AMS and CDG) and get a connecting on a long haul flight in airports that i have mentioned above. Thus it's quite hard for Brussels Airlines to built a big hub.

[Atlantis]

I place it here as there is no dedicated topic for it.

Mostly we compare BRU with other airports like VIE or some in Scandinavia, but we have to start to compare it also with WAW in Poland.

Just to compare how hard WAW is growing: BRU had in 2019 >26 million pax, WAW had >18 million pax. Difference was significant.
in 2023 BRU will have 22 million pax while WAW will reach just under the 20 million pax. Meaning that WAW passed by already their top year 2019 while our airports in the West are still very far from it.

WAW is growing very fast with a strong home carrier. It has a big long haul fleet serving a lot of destinations in The States and Asia and a big small and midsize fleet of B737 Max and Embraer. WAW has only one terminal but is able to do it. From security check you are very fast to your gate.

BRU cannot be happy with the current results. It has many more airlines flying to BRU and is several times bigger than WAW.
The B-pier is very much underused.

Very soon East European airports will be more important and bigger than ours.

The competition in this region from hub and spoke airline is low. Balkan Bulgarian and Malev have ended flights, while Czech Airlines and Tarom are struggling. Then LOT did what Royal Air Maroc did in 2000s with its African network. Strong competition from Low Cost on point to point, so they have spread their wings into new markets, mainly to Asia and a little bit to Africa (mainly leisure flights for travel agencies) and added more flights to USA, to avoid to close the doors.

Furthermore, the entry of Poland in EU was boost for the econmy and for the revenue per capita for the population. The economy of Poland was already strong before the entry in UE, if we compare to Romania, Hungary or Buglaria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Poland

The airlines you have mentioned are gone already for a long time.

Poland entered the EU in 2005 if I remember well. It took them very long time to have a good amount of passengers. Don't forget also that around 2012, LOT was almost bankrupt.
It's only the last few years that WAW was growing so fast if we compare this with our airport. LOT is of course state owned.
But I have said it already a few times that LH is not smart in this case too. They keep SN small and probably keeping also traffic away from BRU to direct it more to it's own airport, while in the East an airline and airport is faster growing then themselves.
LOT is offering nice fares to fly with them to the Far East.
I agree that competition there is much lower when you compare with the countries around, but at the same time it's not bcs Wizzair and Ryanair are really big there. Like I wrote, till 2019 the annual pax figures was not that high at WAW, it's since last year that they are booming and growing faster.

It's always good to look over the border to see how others are doing and how they are doing. We are standing still. It's too slow and it's a reality

[sn26567]

I place it here as there is no dedicated topic for it.

Mostly we compare BRU with other airports like VIE or some in Scandinavia, but we have to start to compare it also with WAW in Poland.

When there is no specific topic to handle a subject, you can always create one, which I did for you.

[b720]

You can’t compare.. 2 very different markets. Location as well. As mentioned above, BRU is in the Center of europe with a lot of competition 60- 90 minutes train trip away actually. In many cities that’s the time to get to the main airport from city Center. Besides Warsaw is in the periphery of the EU hardly competition in the vicinity. And Poland is much larger than Belgium, home market grows significantly the more prosperous the country becomes..

[DannyVDB]

Hi all,

Not so sure the number of inhabitants of the country itself is important.

You need to compare catchment areas: BRU is not only the 11,5 million Belgian inhabitants (fairly well distributed around BRU), but also the Southern part of The Netherlands, Luxembourg, small part of Germany and (part of) Northern France. I think overall quite comparable to 'the numbers' in Poland.

Of course catchment areas are overlapping and BRU recently was successful in attracting more people from Southern Netherlands for example. But the other way around also exists, AMS and CDG are attracting people from Belgium, etc. This type of 'neighboring' competition is not existing in WAW of course ...

Cheers,
Danny

[Atlantis]

You can’t compare.. 2 very different markets. Location as well. As mentioned above, BRU is in the Center of europe with a lot of competition 60- 90 minutes train trip away actually. In many cities that’s the time to get to the main airport from city Center. Besides Warsaw is in the periphery of the EU hardly competition in the vicinity. And Poland is much larger than Belgium, home market grows significantly the more prosperous the country becomes..

You can compare. As long as you compare airports with around the same number of annual pax. What you can't compare are the inhabitants. Poland is indeed much bigger but much poorer in the huge country side they have.

The previous government was investing a lot in aviation. We will see what the current one will do (I'm talking about the Polish one).
What we can see in West Europe is that airports starts to be the victim of all the green actions, local actions, etc. They can't grow anymore. LHR and AMS are a good example of it. Third runway is cancelled at LHR and AMS has to downsize.
When you are big like them is not a huge problem but midsized airports like BRU can have a big problem with it. Those ones will become regional airports.

WAW on the other side, just like others, can grow and this we can see in the annual figures. They are growing faster than ours. Also the benefit of them is that they offer a wide range of long haul destinations. Transfer time is rather short as long haul is leaving around noon and later afternoon.

What is also interesting to compare is that BRU has NATO, EU institutions and a big number of foreign HQ based on the territory. This is absolutely not the case in Poland.

LOT and SN has both a lot of etnic flights. LOT to The States and London while for SN it's Africa. This is an airport to keep an eye on it for the next coming years.

VIE, ATH, MXP, OSL, ZRH, CPH are other airports with the same number of annual pax as BRU.

It's still visible on the BRU figures that the impact of shrinking the SN fleet and the "still" not returned all Asian flights has a huge impact even DL is still on 50% of their capacity and the question is if they even will return ATL. Other airports are growing by 14% to 17% while BRU is growing by 10%.

2024 looks much better regarding long haul but a more aggressive politic in attracting carriers would help. Belgians are too modest and too polite. In the current circumstances is not helping.

[longwings]

You can compare. As long as you compare airports with around the same number of annual pax. What you can't compare are the inhabitants. Poland is indeed much bigger but much poorer in the huge country side they have.

Population size is relevant. As economic standards improve throughout the country and catch up to more developed countries in the EU, it is absolutely unavoidable that WAW will handle more passengers than BRU in the near future.

Those who blame it on BRU management do not understand how economic development works.

[Atlantis]

You can compare. As long as you compare airports with around the same number of annual pax. What you can't compare are the inhabitants. Poland is indeed much bigger but much poorer in the huge country side they have.

Population size is relevant. As economic standards improve throughout the country and catch up to more developed countries in the EU, it is absolutely unavoidable that WAW will handle more passengers than BRU in the near future.

Those who blame it on BRU management do not understand how economic development works.

The catch area of Poland and around Poland is 180 million people.
Czech republic also declared that they cannot build and not afford a big hub.

[DannyVDB]

Hi Atlantis,

Where do you get that figure? I don't think 180 million is a correct figure ...

Cheers,
Danny

[oldblueeyes]

As usual, in such evolution the trend is your friend.

The reality of the Eastern European Middle Class is that their disposable income for leisure and travel is higher than the one of many Western Europeans.

Some key elements here:
- Poland has due to the country size and its role as a hub for many markets in the region larger company structures - middle and higher management salaries are higher than those in the Benelux area
- taxation is lower so net is additionally boosted
- most Eastern Europeans live in their own homes; of course the younger generation may have credits to pay this off but there is a lot of real estate wealth transferred and those not having to pay for housing have this part of their income free to spend

Furthermore Poland is a geographically large country and the natural catchment area of the airport including Baltics, CEE etc needs an aviation hub ; not the case in BRU being in a dense populated region with good alternative infrastructure allowing alternative options.

Also BRU is a minor airport between 4 hubs in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt, serving well local needs but not more. Warsaw is the major airport for CEE and it's competition are the German hubs and Turkish.

There two major bias i see typically in smaller Western countries:
- they consider themselves "important" because of whatever institutions , historical heritage etc - and do not realize that over time size matter
- the perception about the economic facts of Eastern Europe are those of poor countries, especially when seeing the low end of the Eastern society coming over to do non qualified jobs ; guys do not forget, there are smart and well educated people in the East as well and they have very good economic reasons to stay home
- as a hint : 30 years ago a Belgian worker may have been able to spend more money on his holiday than a Eastern European engineer, economist or doctor; now things changed and if there is only one hotel room available the Eastern European would be always able and wiling to pay more ; it' just a food of thought for many doing decent jobs in West - their relative purchase power is already squeezed out

[Kapitein]

BRU will grow the coming years.
2024 we see already improvement.
2025 will be important with a possible few returns from some airliners.
And after 2025 more to come

[Atlantis]

Hi Atlantis,

Where do you get that figure? I don't think 180 million is a correct figure ...

Cheers,
Danny

The figure was given by the Polish government regarding the future CPK mega hub they want to construct. This figure is not only of course for Poland ɓcs there are 37 million people living but they add also the neighbour countries with very small airports. They see Poland as the center of future aviation

[oldblueeyes]

The former PIS government sees Poland as center for everything.

Reality is that Russia is isolating itself from Europe so they may have a much less optimistic outlook.

[Boavida]

Thus it's quite hard for Brussels Airlines to built a big hub.

It's not 'hard' for Brussels Airlines. They are not even trying. And with 'they' I mean SN and above all its owner LH.

LH wants to keep BRU and SN small by sucking all long-haul traffic out of BRU to their hubs FRA and MUC.

Today alone, 12 flights from BRU to FRA/MUC. I repeat: 12! Twelve flights sucking the traffic out of BRU in stead of investing in more direct SN long haul destinations.

Simple as that.

[rwandan-flyer]

Thus it's quite hard for Brussels Airlines to built a big hub.

It's not 'hard' for Brussels Airlines. They are not even trying. And with 'they' I mean SN and above all its owner LH.

LH wants to keep BRU and SN small by sucking all long-haul traffic out of BRU to their hubs FRA and MUC.

Today alone, 12 flights from BRU to FRA/MUC. I repeat: 12! Twelve flights sucking the traffic out of BRU in stead of investing in more direct SN long haul destinations.

Simple as that.

Yes but as some people said, the competition is stiff around Brussels : London, FRA, Amsterdam and Paris. Some airlines which wants to expand in Europe will start to serve these cities before going to Brussels. They have all informations. Singapour Airlines knows how many people traveling to or from Brussels via London and FRA by planes and how many travel via Amsterdam and Paris by train or car. If they think that the demand justifies the opening of long haul flight, they will open route. Thai and Cathay didn't resume flights BRU, maybe they think that the current demand is too low.

I think that BRU can developp only a niche market like Helsinki which is focus in North America and Asia. Bru will probably able to have a little bit more capacities to North America, Asia and Africa, but i don't think they will be come a "small" Amsterdam or Paris, with big network outside Europe.

You can’t compare.. 2 very different markets. Location as well. As mentioned above, BRU is in the Center of europe with a lot of competition 60- 90 minutes train trip away actually. In many cities that’s the time to get to the main airport from city Center. Besides Warsaw is in the periphery of the EU hardly competition in the vicinity. And Poland is much larger than Belgium, home market grows significantly the more prosperous the country becomes..

VIE, ATH, MXP, OSL, ZRH, CPH are other airports with the same number of annual pax as BRU.

It's still visible on the BRU figures that the impact of shrinking the SN fleet and the "still" not returned all Asian flights has a huge impact even DL is still on 50% of their capacity and the question is if they even will return ATL. Other airports are growing by 14% to 17% while BRU is growing by 10%.

2024 looks much better regarding long haul but a more aggressive politic in attracting carriers would help. Belgians are too modest and too polite. In the current circumstances is not helping.

Vienna

Austria host a large Asian diaspora.

13 499 Filipinos live in Austria (30 000 according to the Filipino ambassador to Austria) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipinos_in_Austria
Up to 31 Chinese live in Austria https://migrant-integration.ec.europa.e ... austria_en
Around 31 000 indians live in Austia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria%E ... _relations

You have also add Austrians going in holidays outside Europe

Austrian Airlines has quite good network in Asia, but Vienna is also served by China Airlines, Eva Air, Air India, Iran Air, Kuwait Airways, Saudia, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, FlyNas, Korean Air. From Africa, you have Air Algérie, Tunis Air, Egytpair, Ethiopian Airlines, some LCC flights and Austrian Airlines serves Cairo, Mauritius.

Athens

Greece is also home of a large diaspora outside Europa, mainly from Midde East and from Asia (Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Philippines, India, China, Bangladesh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Greece)


Athens is also the gateway to visit Greece. Greece is bigger market for tourism than Belgium (almost 10 times more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Greece).

Then Greek has huge diaspora in North America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Americans) and Australia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Australians) which enables to Greece to have a good network to Asia (helped by the important Asian community in Greece) and North America.

Oslo

Oslo has not a big long haul network, but a huge domestic market with 4 airlines operating : SAS, Nowergia, Widerøe and Danish Air Transport and serving 30 destinations with daily flights (https://avinor.no/en/airport/practical- ... -transfer/). It's a big country by size but with lots of mountains and thus some trips can be very long by trains or cars. Also Oslo has huge European Newtork, manly seasonal in the South of Europe: Spain, France and Portugal.

Milan and Zurich

They are 2 financials hubs in Europe. Milan is the economy capital of Italy. Milan is a huge market for tourism and its catchement area includes Turin, Genova and South of Switzerland and host large diaspora, with a huge total population (between 8,5 and 12 million in the greater Milan) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan

Zurich host important companies (biotech, cyber security, pharma,...). And Swiss has a good newtork. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%BCrich#Economy

Copenhagen

CPH is a main hub for SAS Scandanivan with a good network in Asia and North America and of course Europe. Thus it attracts some Star Alliance airlines from Asia (Thai, Singpour Airlines, Air China, Air India) but also Ethiopian Airlines. There are also lots seasonal flights to Europe. Danemark hosts also big foreign communities outside Europe mainly from Asia (China, Phillipines, Irak, Bangladesh Vietnam, Pakistan, Iran, India) and Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudanese, Morrocco) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Denmark, which helps CPH to get a good international network.

Brussels has also some good arguments : EU capital, financial hub, huge diaspora from Africa, big tourism market. However all airports that you have cited have a very few competition in their area. I don't think that Bratislava or Budapest are huge threats for Vienna. Same thing with, Genova Turin or Lugano for Milan.

As i said around Brussels, you have the largest airport in Europe : Paris Roissy, London Heathrow, Francfurt and Amserdam. Some of them can be easly reached by train or by car

[oldblueeyes]

Thus it's quite hard for Brussels Airlines to built a big hub.

It's not 'hard' for Brussels Airlines. They are not even trying. And with 'they' I mean SN and above all its owner LH.

LH wants to keep BRU and SN small by sucking all long-haul traffic out of BRU to their hubs FRA and MUC.

Today alone, 12 flights from BRU to FRA/MUC. I repeat: 12! Twelve flights sucking the traffic out of BRU in stead of investing in more direct SN long haul destinations.

Simple as that.

Brussels is a part of Lufthansa Group.
It's not like they would be in a conglomerate where everybody is doing what it wants.
As a counterpart, up to now, no one in the group is competing with it on thin routes towards West Africa.

You should not forget where Brussels is coming from on a European level - 2 half fleets : one regional with AVROs and one P2P (ex Virgin) - and it's clear strategy is to earn money first on its bread and butter routes : European P2P, where they would be a late harmonizer all320 size or maybe 737 Max.

On long haul you should not forget that in the TATL JV the LH group is earning money even the routes are flown by UA or Air Canada.

And you should not forget the elephant in the room : ITA. Their expanding long haul fleet of 6xA359, 17x339 and 9x321LR needs to be filled as well