Brussels Airport: over 1.1 million passengers in February

Passengers

In February Brussels Airport handled 1,155,653 passengers. Viewed over the entire month, this represents a 1.8% decrease on February 2012, but calculated per day the average number of passengers grows from 40,600 to 41,300. This can be explained by the impact of the leap day: in 2012 the month of February counted 29 days. In the long-haul segment the airport records continued growth driven amongst others by Brussels Airlines and other Star Alliance carriers. In the short-haul segment, growth was driven by low-cost and leisure flights. Transfer traffic decreased slightly due to the discontinuation of a few long-haul services at the end of last year.

Aircraft movements

The number of aircraft movements continued to decrease in February (-7%). This is partly attributed to the effect of the leap day in 2012 and partly to the use of larger planes and a higher average load factor compared to last year.

Cargo

In February, Brucargo handled 31,838 tonnes of cargo. The unfavourable economic situation weighs heavily on the volumes carried. Moreover, the Chinese New Year celebrations, traditionally a quiet period in air cargo traffic, fell in February which had a further negative impact on the results.

Integrator traffic on the other hand did exceptionally well with a growth of over 10%. This can be partly attributed to the recent opening by DHL of a 6 weekly day-time service between Brussels Airport and the carrier’s cargo hub in Cincinnati.

Network

New services announced for the 2013 summer season include a fourth daily flight by Austrian Airlines and a seventh weekly service by Egyptair. Brussels Airport also welcomes the expansion of the Jetairfly fleet with two new Embraer 190 aircraft. In total, Jetairfly now has 12 aircraft based at Brussels Airport: 2 Embraer 190, 8 Boeing 737 and 2 Boeing 767 long-haul aircraft.

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