Brussels Airport: 1.17 million passengers in April, down 23% on pcp

Due to the presence of ash clouds from a volcanic eruption in Iceland the Belgian airspace and large parts of the European airspace had to be closed for several days, causing thousands of flights to be cancelled. The impact of the ash clouds was bigger on intra-European traffic than on long haul.

For the summer season several new routes are being opened and frequencies on existing routes increased: Ankara (AnadoluJet) on 17 May, Shanghai (Hainan Airlines) on 28 May, Reykjavik (Icelandair) on 4 June, Montreal (Air Canada) on 14 June, Alghero (Alitalia) on 15 June and Beirut (Middle East Airlines) on 22 June. Early July Brussels Airlines starts direct flights to four new destinations in Africa: Accra, Cotonou, Lomé and Ouagadougou.CargoCargo traffic was down 3% due to the ash cloud. In spite of this, the full freighter segment was up 10% and cargo carried on board passenger flights by 14%. Only integrator traffic continues to record negative growth. Aircraft movementsThe number of movements in April totalled to 15,720: a decrease by more than 20% compared to the 19,699 flights registered in April 2009.