Brussels Airport has released its traffic report for May 2026, and the numbers will reassure travel-managers planning Belgian itineraries this summer. Passenger throughput reached 2.3 million—up 3.2 % year-on-year—even though a nationwide general strike on 12 May forced the cancellation of roughly 25,000 seats and kept one in three aircraft on the ground. Cargo volumes told an even brighter story, climbing 12 % to 75,847 tonnes on the back of booming Asia-bound freight and resilient North-American demand. Airport CEO Arnaud Feist credited “operational agility” for limiting the strike’s impact: contingency rosters kept 46 % of the regular flight programme intact, and a pop-up landside service centre rerouted thousands of passengers onto alternative departures. The data show leisure flows leading the rebound—Spain, Italy and Greece occupied the top three slots—while the United States re-entered the airport’s top-ten list for the first time since 2020, helped by extra frequencies from United Airlines and Brussels Airlines. For corporates, the headline is capacity. Average load factors hit 147 passengers per flight in May, four more than last year, signalling tighter seat availability for last-minute bookings. Long-haul connectivity to the Gulf remains fragile: services to Tel Aviv and Doha are still suspended and frequencies to Dubai cut in half, forcing many travellers to connect via Frankfurt or Paris. On the cargo side, full-freighter traffic surged 53 %, a boon for export-heavy sectors such as pharmaceuticals and high-tech, both of which rely on Brussels Airport’s temperature-controlled facilities. Looking ahead, airport authorities confirmed that runway-intersection works—part of a €750 million capacity upgrade—will resume in late August but are not expected to affect the busy July holiday period. In parallel, trials of CT-based cabin-bag scanners will start in Pier A this autumn, eliminating the need to remove liquids and electronics by 2028. Global mobility teams should book peak-season flights early, factor in possible rerouting via European hubs for Middle-East destinations, and advise travellers to allow extra time for landside-to-airside transfers while works continue on taxiway J.
Source: Aviation.Direct
