Brussels Airport has announced it will offer 135 direct destinations, including two new routes for this winter season.
The two new destinations are Sälen in Sweden and Chongqing in China. Starting 20 December, TUI fly will launch one weekly service to Sälen’s Scandinavian Mountains Airport, located near the Swedish-Norwegian border and close to Scandinavia’s popular ski resorts. Meanwhile, from 22 November, Hainan Airlines will begin operating three weekly flights to Chongqing, deepening Brussels Airport’s reach into the Chinese market.
In addition to the new routes, Brussels Airport is welcoming a new airline: Smartwings, which will launch direct service to Prague with 12 weekly flights beginning 26 October, using the more efficient Airbus A220.
While the winter network is being enriched with new cities, the total number of direct destinations is slightly lower than last year’s winter peak of 142. This reduction is largely due to strategic route cuts by TUI fly, which is discontinuing its long-haul operations from Brussels. As a result, routes to destinations such as Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, Cancún in Mexico, and Curaçao have been dropped. Other destinations such as Tromsø (Norway) and Birmingham (UK) will also be removed from the network.
Winter schedule continues to maintain existing direct flights to popular alpine and Nordic destinations, such as Innsbruck, Kittilä, Kuusamo, and Salzburg. For a sun-filled winter getaway, routes to Spain, Morocco, and Southeast Asia remain in high demand, featuring cities like Alicante, Malaga and Barcelona, alongside Bangkok, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The Moroccan city, Agadir, a popular resort destination lying on the southern Atlantic coast, will be covered by Transavia with three weekly flights starting 3 November.
Brussels Airport expects a busy start to the season. Ahead of the winter schedule’s full implementation, over 1.2 million passengers are forecast during the autumn school holidays, a 3.5% increase over last year’s holiday period.
On Friday, 17 October, when French-speaking schools start their holidays, the airport expects around 78,000 passengers. The following week, Friday, 24 October, is projected to be the busiest day of the period, with approximately 82,000 travellers anticipated as Dutch-speaking schools begin their mid-term break. To help ensure smooth journeys, the airport has issued advice to travellers to check the online tool to see the best time to arrive for a stress-free journey, book parking in advance, and take advantage of automated border control e-gates for non-Schengen flights.
