Almost 4.6 million passengers passed through Brussels Airport in July and August, airport officials announced on Monday.
This represents an increase of 5% compared to 2022, and the total is slowly approaching the 5.4 million passengers recorded during the two summer holiday months in 2019.
At that time, however, the academic year had not yet been changed in French-speaking Belgium, whereas the school year now ends at the beginning of July and resumes at the end of August. In general, Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport Company, considers this summer to have been a "success".
"The wide range of destinations to the four corners of Europe and the world appealed to many holidaymakers, who certainly also wanted to escape the almost ubiquitous rain in Belgium in July," he noted.
In August, 2,260,496 passengers passed through Zaventem Airport – an increase of 5% compared with August 2022. There were almost 200,000 more passengers arriving than departing, which is logical at the end of the holiday period. The five most popular destinations last month were Spain, Turkey, Greece, Germany and Italy.
There was an average of 148 passengers per flight – three more than in August 2022 – thanks to larger aircraft and a higher occupancy rate per flight.
Also in August, air freight volumes fell very slightly (-1%), totalling 49,189 tonnes. The full cargo segment recorded an 8% decline, in line with the global trend, while freight transport on passenger flights recorded a 2% increase, as did the express services segment (+4%), the Brussels Airport Company added.
