In March 2022, more than 1.1 million passengers chose Brussels Airport, an increase of 500% in comparison with March 2021, but a decline of 44% compared to the same month before the Covid crisis (2019). This makes March the best month of 2022 so far. The flown cargo volumes have remained stable compared to last year (+0.1%), the trucked volumes on the other hand saw a decline of 13%.
1. Passenger traffic: an increase of 504%
In March, Brussels Airport welcomed 1,128,791 passengers, which is no less than six times as many as in March 2021 (187,000 passengers) when non-essential travel was still banned, and a decline of 44% compared to March 2019 (nearly 2 million passengers). The Easter holidays have not yet had an impact on the figures for March, since the holiday exodus only began on Friday 1 April.
The share of transfer passengers is 14%, which is 4 percentage points lower than in 2019 due to the strong increase in local outgoing traffic and the decline in the number of transfers between the European destinations.
The ten most visited countries in March were, respectively, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Turkey, the United States, the United Kingdom and Morocco. The ten most popular destinations were Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Rome, Geneva, Milan, Istanbul, Malaga, Dubai and London.
2. Cargo: slight decline of cargo volumes with 3%
In March, the total cargo transport at Brussels Airport decreased slightly by 3% compared to March 2021. The air cargo volumes remained stable at +0.1%. The full-cargo segment showed a decline of -10% while belly cargo rose by 81.4% due to the increase in the number of passenger flights. The express services saw a decline of 10% due to the weakening growth of the e-commerce market in Western Europe and the temporary shift of DHL flights to other regional hubs. The trucked volumes declined by 13%.
Asia remains the largest export region and is the second-largest region for imports. Africa is, for the second consecutive month, the largest import region, with volumes that are 30% higher than last year.
In March, the milestone of 1 billion handled Covid-19 vaccines was reached at Brussels Airport. Since the start of the worldwide distribution of vaccines in November 2020, Brussels Airport has been the preferred hub for this important and delicate pharma transport.
3. Flights
In March 2022, the total number of flight movements rose by 154% compared to 2021, with 13,129 flight movements (compared to 18,126 in 2019). The number of passenger flights increased by 348% compared to 2021, which is 61% of the number of passenger flights in March 2019. Each flight had an average of 119 passengers onboard compared to 129 in 2019. The number of cargo flights decreased this month by 2.5% compared to 2021.
