Brussels Airport: over 1.1 million passengers in January

Passengers

In January, Brussels Airport handled 1.1 million passengers. The number of originating passengers departing in January was up 0,9%. On the long-haul flights, this small growth can be attributed mainly to Brussels Airlines and other Star Alliance partners. In the intra-European segment, low-cost recorded positive growth.

The number of transfer passengers dropped by 2.9%, contributing to a slight decrease of the total number of passengers for January with 0.8%. This is accounted for by the disappointing worldwide economy, leading to the cancelling of a few scheduled long haul flights since the end of last year. The fact that the 2012 Christmas holidays fell differently compared to the year before, had an impact on the split of the holidaymakers between December and January.

Aircraft movements

The number of aircraft movements continued to decrease in January by 4.4%. The number of passenger flights (-4%) decreases more rapidly than the number of passengers. This is explained by the use of larger planes and a higher average load factor (from 134 seats per flight to 139).

Cargo

With 32.624 tonnes carried, the cargo volume at Brucargo was down 6.9 percent on January 2012. However, this indicates a positive turn in the trend of the past few months. Integrator traffic (so-called parcel delivery services) even recorded a remarkable 15% growth. Full-freighter traffic continues to suffer, in line with the rest of Europe.

Network

On the 1st of January, Qatar Airways increased its frequency by a sixth and seventh weekly flight to Doha. As of June, Brussels Airlines starts operating a five weekly service to Washington, in collaboration with its American partner United. This brings the weekly number of flights to Washington to 12. In March, Finnair Cargo will be starting its hub operations out of Brucargo.