Brussels Airlines is looking back to a successful 2024 summer holiday season. Numerous efforts to ensure reliable operations have worked out well, ranking Brussels Airlines in the top 5 of most punctual major airlines in Europe. 99% of the flights operated as scheduled, almost three out of far flights departed with less than 15 minutes delay so far this year.

The Belgian national airline will keep investing together with its partners to improve reliability even further in the future.

During the summer months, July and August, Brussels Airlines transported more than 1.7 million passengers on almost 12,000 flights. As always, summer is the busiest season in the aviation industry. This year, Brussels Airlines is happy to announce improved regularity and punctuality numbers.

Factors

99% of all Brussels Airlines flights operated as scheduled during July and August. Some cancellations occurred, mainly due to external factors like the tensions in the Middle East that led to flight cancellations on the route to Tel Aviv.

72% of all flights departed within 15 minutes from the scheduled departure time so far this year. Amongst all major European airlines, Brussels Airlines is in the top 5 most punctual airlines so far in 2024 according to data from aviation analytics agency Cirium.

Flight delays were mainly caused by weather such as thunderstorms, shortage of Air Traffic Control staff in some European countries and occasionally long lines at border control at Brussels Airport.

“At Brussels Airlines, we want to be the most reliable airline operating from the most reliable hub. We’ve taken numerous initiatives together with all our partners such as Brussels Airport and the Belgian federal police to improve our regularity and punctuality. I’m happy to see that our efforts paid off. There are still areas of improvement such as the further roll out of the electronic gates for passport control for flights to Sub Saharan Africa. This will lead to shorter waiting times at border control and thus less flights we have to delay while waiting for some passengers”, Tilman Reinshagen, Chief Operating Officer at Brussels Airlines, says in a press release. 

Luggage

Not only did more flights leave as scheduled and on-time, Brussels Airlines and its partners also improved other parameters. The number of delayed luggage has dropped by 14% compared to last year. Less than 0.8% of all checked bags didn’t get to their destination on-time.

Many passengers transfer in Brussels, for example to one of the 18 Sub-Saharan African destinations of Brussels Airlines. 96.6% of the transfer passengers made their connection, which is an improvement of 26% compared to last year.

Digital innovations to take care of passengers

Despite an already very high regularity, Brussels Airlines remains committed to continue decreasing the number of cancelled flights and taking care of passengers who are confronted with irregularities.

During summer, some digital innovations have been rolled out in the Brussels Airlines’ app, in order to better assist passengers at all stages of their journey, and certainly during irregularities.

Chatbot Charlie

Chatbot ‘Charlie‘ on brusselsairlines.com has been enhanced with new features, allowing the chatbot to assist guests better during irregularities. The easier people can find answers to their questions via these digital tools, the more customer care agents are available for more complicated cases, leading to shorter waiting times.

Brussels Airlines is also implementing a new system that automatically detects changes in flights and sends messages to guests. Soon, passengers will receive notifications for events such as gate changes, boarding times, and delayed baggage.

“When most people enjoy their well-deserved holidays, our employees go above and beyond to ensure our guests can fly worry-free. I would sincerely like to thank everyone in our teams for their efforts. Aviation is a very complex industry, and making so many flights leave on-time is a big accomplishment we can all be proud of”, Reinshagen says.

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