Highest passenger numbers ever recorded at Brussels Airport

Brussels Airport welcomed 2.3 million passengers in July, a historic record! The previous record, which dates back to July 2000, was exceeded by 86,000 passengers, i.e. 4 percent. Remarkable fact: this record was achieved with about 22 percent less passenger flights than in July 2000.

Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport Company: “It is a special moment for Brussels airport to close the month with 2.3 million passengers, the busiest month ever for our airport. Due to the professionalism and passion of the 20,000 coworkers at Brussels Airport, the airport had no difficulties handling the flow of the, on average, 74,000 departing and arriving passengers per day. At the security screening, up to 1300 passengers per half hour were processed on peak hours, with an average queuing time for the passengers of a mere 5 minutes.”

Passengers

In July, we once again record a two-digit growth: the number of passengers increased by 14.8% on July 2013. This corresponds with 300,000 extra passengers. In this summer month growth was mainly driven by local traffic, which was up 17% on last year. With a growth of 7.1%, transfer traffic too performed strongly. The end of the FIFA World Cup and the Ramadan, as well as the poor weather in mid July, urged many of our countrymen to take a holiday abroad, which resulted in additional growth in the second half of the month.

All passenger segments contribute to the growth. A large share of the passenger growth is accounted for by the low-cost segment. The remainder is attributed mainly to the strong performance by Brussels Airlines and the very positive growth in intra-European traffic.

Cargo

Cargo volumes carried from Brussels Airport stabilized in the month of July. Belly cargo (cargo carried on board of passenger flights) increases by 7.4%, confirming the positive trend started at the end of last year. Full-freighter cargo however remains under pressure worldwide. This is compensated by the continued growth in the integrator segment (DHL). The 32% growth recorded in July is in line with the upward trend it has maintained for the last 19 months.

Movements

The number of flights grew by 8.6%. This is mainly attributed to an increase of the number of passenger flights by 9.1%. Due to the use of larger aircraft and an improved passenger payload, the number of passengers per flight increased to 119 passengers per flight (+ 5.2%).

A remarkable fact is that the record set in July 2014 was achieved with no more than 19,533 passenger flights or 22% less flights than in the previous record month of July 2000 when 24,939 passenger flights were carried out with, on average, 90 passengers on board.