Brussels Airport: 1.6 million passengers in April

Passengers

Brussels Airport closed the month of April with 1,627,828 passengers. This was an increase of 0.9% compared to April 2012. April was also the second month in 2013 with positive growth in the number of passengers. Despite the economic situation more passengers chose to travel by plane during the Easter holidays than last year. That had a positive effect on both European and intercontinental flights, as well as on the leisure segment, of course. The number of transit and transfer passengers was slightly lower than the previous year due to earlier reductions at Jet Airways and the disappearance of American Airlines at Brussels, though this has been partly compensated by expansion at Brussels Airlines, Qatar Airways and THAI, amongst others.

Aircraft movements

The rise in the number of passengers contrasted with a fall in the number of airplane movements. With 18,455 flights, 0.9% fewer aircraft movements were noted in April than last year. The loss was smaller than in previous months since the summer schedule came into force at the end of March. Due to the use of relatively larger aircraft the number of seats offered has increased by 0.9% compared to last year, but the occupancy rate remained the same.

Cargo

In April 36,542 tons of cargo were transported into and out of Brussels Airport – still a decrease of 5,80% but again an improvement compared to previous months. The main reason for the fall in the full freighter activity continues to be the slumping economy. There has also been a decrease in freight on board passenger flights for several months due to the reduction in available capacity. This decline in activities was partly compensated for by an increase in integrator transport, especially at DHL.

Network

For the summer of 2013 FlyGeorgia has announced two weekly flights to Tbilisi (Georgia) as of June. The Turkish airline company Pegasus Airlines will also start two weekly flights then to a new destination: Zafer (Turkey).