The school holidays in April had a positive impact on passenger traffic at the airport. More than 2.2 million passengers travelled via Brussels Airport in April, representing an increase of 3.8% compared to the same month last year. This growth was achieved despite the uncertainty caused by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. In the cargo segment, volumes handled increased by 6.2% to nearly 74,000 tonnes.
Holidays offset impact of situation in the Middle East
As in the previous month, the situation in the Middle East continues to affect activities at our airport There are currently no flights to Tel Aviv or Doha and, although flights to Dubai and Abu Dhabi have resumed in recent weeks, frequencies remain lower than last year. This situation once again resulted in a loss of 50,000 passengers in April.
Despite these challenges, passenger numbers have continued to show steady growth since the start of the year. The two holiday periods, early April for Flemish schools and late April for French-speaking schools, enabled the airport to welcome 2,203,773 passengers last month, up 3.8% compared to the same period in 2025.
Brussels Airport further expanded its network in April with four non-stop flights a week to Gdańsk (Poland), operated by LOT Polish Airlines. The ten most popular destinations last month were mainly sunny destinations: Spain, Italy, Morocco, Germany, Portugal, Turkey, France, the United States, Switzerland and Greece
Transfer passengers accounted for 12% of the departing passengers and recorded double-digit growth, mainly towards Europe, Africa and North America.
Air cargo volumes continue to grow (+6.2%)
In April, total cargo volumes through Brussels Airport reached 73,964 tonnes, an increase of 6.2% compared to the same period in 2025. Flown cargo rose by 6.4%, driven in particular by growth in integrator services (+1.9%) and especially in the full freighter segment (+23.5%), notably due to increased volumes to Asia.
Belly cargo declined by 8%, mainly due to cancelled flights to the Middle East. In contrast, trucked volumes increased by 5.2%.
Commercial flight movements up by 3%
In April, we recorded a slight increase of 3% in the number of commercial flight movements compared to April 2025. Growth was observed in both passenger flights (+3.1%) and cargo flights (+5.4%).
As in previous months, passenger load factors continued to increase. On average, there were 151 passengers per flight in April, one more than in the same period last year.
