Brussels Airlines sees a strong increase in the number of incoming bookings. Ever since the lifting of the travel ban for Belgians on 19 April, the airline has noticed a positive trend. However, the past few weeks the increase in bookings grows even stronger. Thanks to the vaccination programs that are running at full speed, the implementation of the digital green certificate and the evolving of the travel restrictions, the airline has recorded weekly increases of 30% to 50%, each time compared to the previous week. Holiday destinations in the south of Europe are performing particularly well at the moment.
'We are still in a difficult period and also the coming months will be very challenging, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. We see an eagerness to travel and it is clear that many people do not want to postpone their long-awaited trip abroad with another year. Since mid-April, the booking figures have been showing us that many passengers are entrusting us with their travel once again. With 40% more reservations than the previous week, we saw a spike in bookings over the past seven days. The positive trends we see make us confident towards the future.'
Peter Gerber, Chief Commercial Officer at Brussels Airlines
This summer, the Belgian airline expects to offer 70% of the capacity it operated in 2019, being 60% for the short- and medium-distance network and 77% for the long-distance network. For the months of July and August, Brussels Airlines is preparing to welcome over one million passengers, although that figure remains difficult to predict due to the fact that many passengers are still booking last-minute. During the same months last year, the company welcomed roughly 390,000 passengers.
Top destinations this summer are situated in the south of Europe, to which Brussels Airlines is adding 150 extra flights following the high demand. The most popular countries are Spain (Malaga, Alicante, Barcelona, Valencia, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands), Portugal (Faro, Lisbon and Porto), Greece (Athens, Kos, Rhodes, Heraklion, Corfu and Zakynthos) and Italy (Florence, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia and the new destination Bari). Also on the list of popular destinations are Croatia (Dubrovnik and Split) and France (Nice, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and new destination Bordeaux).
The brand new destinations Tangier and Nador, offered by Brussels Airlines in partnership with ML Tours, are also doing well. So well in fact, that the number of scheduled flights to these destinations has now doubled: 4 flights a week as opposed to the originally scheduled 2 flights.
Earlier this week, Brussels Airlines relaunched its flights to the United States after a hibernation period of almost 15 months. The flights to New York and Washington D.C. on June 14 and 15 respectively were the first trans-Atlantic flights of Brussels Airlines since March 2020 and an important symbolic milestone for the airline. The Belgian carrier is now hoping for rapid easing of the currently applicable travel restrictions between the two continents to make travelling easy and accessible to everyone again.
LUFTHANSA 
