Brussels Airlines announced on Tuesday that they will temporarily suspend all flight operations from March 21st through April 19, 2020. The carrier’s schedule will be gradually reduced this week until the suspension of all flights by Saturday.
On Tuesday, Brussels Airlines announced the temporary suspension of all flight operations from March 21st through April 19th, 2020, joining sister Lufthansa Group carrier Austrian Airlines who announced the temporary shutdown of operations on Monday. Brussels Airlines will gradually decrease their flight schedule throughout the week until all flights will be suspended by Saturday, March 21, 2020. The controlled and structured reduction of operations this week will allow for the repatriation of the carrier’s guests and crews and the airline will keep minimal capacity on standby for further emergency repatriation efforts, if necessary. In Tuesday’s announcement, Brussels Airlines CEO, Dieter Vranckx said,
“We will continuously monitor the situation and communicate accordingly, planning a restart of our operations on 20 April to welcome our guests onboard again. As a responsible company, we need to take the decision to temporarily cease our operations. It will allow us to reduce the negative financial impact of our company.”
Brussels Airlines’ team members have been working in a 30% “temporary technical unemployment regime” since March 16, 2020 and the carrier is working with their social partners to expand the partial temporary unemployment to 100% during the shutdown. Exceptions will be made for repatriation flights and to prepare the carrier for the expected restart of operations on April 20, 2020.
Brussels Airlines is the national carrier of Belgium and a member of the Lufthansa Group. The airline serves over 80 destinations from the European capital including 65 European, 17 African and three North American cities as well as Tel Aviv, Israel. Brussels Airlines operates around 250 daily flights with a fleet of 48 aircraft and serves over 10 million customers annually. Founded in 2002, the airline is a member of the Star Alliance and is 100% owned by Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
Source: Brussels Airlines
Editor's Note: We stand by the entire Brussels Airlines team and all airlines during this difficult period as the entire world fights to limit the transmission of, and ultimately recover from, the global COVID-19 pandemic. Once it has been defeated, we look forward to the emergence of an even stronger and more robust global commercial airline industry.