Based on market demand and ongoing travel restrictions, the airline will offer an adapted and downsized summer schedule, which will consist of approximately 30 percent of Brussels Airlines' originally planned summer schedule in Europe and 40 percent of the long-haul summer programme. Between 15 June and 31 August, the company will gradually add destinations to its flight network to reach 59 destinations in 33 countries in Europe, Africa and the US by August.
On 15 June, Brussels Airlines will re-launch its flight operations after an interruption of 12 weeks. Based on the market demand and the applicable travel restrictions, the airline has designed a limited network for the summer season to meet market demand for both holiday and business travel.
The offer will gradually be built up from 15 June onwards to reach 240 weekly flights by August, which represents 30% of the originally planned summer schedule in Europe and 40% of the long-haul programme. In Europe, a total of 45 destinations will be served in 20 countries, including Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, France and Denmark. On its long haul network, the airline will (subject to local governmental approval) serve 13 out of its 17 African destinations and in the US New York JFK will join the schedule again. One new destination that was planned to be inaugurated in March will join the network during the course of next year: Montreal in Canada.
The airline expects to welcome holidaymakers and customers visiting family and friends after the long lock-down period, but is also offering some important business destinations such as Berlin, Geneva and London.
Currently, and until the end of the week, the reservation systems will be updated with the new network. Only then will the new schedule be reflected in all the systems. Passengers whose flights change will be informed and guests can as of 2 June use the “My Booking” function on brusselsairlines.com to consult their new itinerary. Brussels Airlines apologises if this process takes a couple of days. Due to the many changes in the network and the high amount of rebooking, the update of the reservation systems unfortunately takes some time.
In the months to come, the company plans to further expand its network beyond the summer. This schedule will be announced at the beginning of June.
Brussels Airlines continues its flexible reservations policy in order to offer its customers further options. Customers who had already booked a flight can still rebook it to another date and/or destination without change fees. Customers can postpone their travel plans until 31 December 2021.
In order to prepare for the planned restart, Brussels Airlines puts in place measures to protect its customers and staff during the travel journey, such as additional disinfection of the aircraft and the use of mouth masks. Several other measures are being evaluated together with the authorities and aviation experts.
"We are very much looking forward to restarting our activities and welcoming back our guests and part of our staff. We are taking all measures to protect them during their journey with us. This summer, we will start small to follow market demand, but we plan to expand our network from September onwards as demand rises again and restrictions are lifted. By the end of this year we hope to offer 50% of the flight schedule as planned before the coronavirus crisis broke out.” Dieter Vranckx, CEO Brussels Airlines.
