Strong start to 2014

In the course of the month of January, Brussels Airport welcomed 1,214,897 passengers, an increase of 6.1% on January 2013. With this result, the airport once again records strong growth.

Passengers

Passenger growth in January is in line with the earlier growth of 6.2% registered in December 2013. Part of the growth can be attributed to the mild winter conditions, with few disruptions to traffic.

Strongest growth in January was recorded in the intra-European scheduled services segment, where Brussels Airlines flights in particular showed a strong performance, as well as in the low-fare segment. Long-haul too recorded positive growth, and here too Brussels Airlines sets the trend.

Aircraft movements

The number of movements increases slightly in January, driven mainly by the non-commercial traffic. The number of passenger flights decreases slightly in line with the use of larger aircraft and an improved passenger payload. The number of cargo flights on the other hand increases by 6%.

Cargo

With 34,613 tonnes of cargo carried and a  growth of 6.1%, the positive trend of the last months of 2013 continues in January. Within the full-freighter segment, integrator traffic in particular is doing very well. Belly cargo on board of passenger aircraft too recovered strongly in the past few months, a trend that is being confirmed at the start of 2014.