Brussels Airport: 18.5 million travellers in 2008

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Over 18.5 million passengers used the airport in 2008: an increase of 3.6 percent on 2007 (17.8 million passengers). With this result, Brussels Airport for the second year in a row does better than most other large and medium-sized airports in Europe.

Passengers
At the start of 2008, passenger traffic registered remarkable growth rates. This strong growth was mainly driven by the success of the new long-haul services and the arrival of new low-fare carriers. However, as a result of increasing fuel prices and a slowing economy, the monthly growth gradually came to a halt reaching zero growth by September and negative growth figures in the last quarter. The average growth figure in the first three quarters was 7% whereas growth rates plummeted to minus 6% in the fourth quarter.

Cargo
In the spring of 2008 DHL moved the larger part of its activities to Germany.
The resulting growth loss of 44% in the express cargo segment was partly compensated by the cargo volumes carried on board of passenger and full-freighter flights that together showed an 11% increase on 2007. At the close of 2008 Brucargo registered 661,100 tons of cargo carried, a decrease of just over 15%. The impact of the economic recession on the cargo figures was partly compensated by the strong growth in the first two quarters.


2008 traffic figures
('000)
2008 2007 Growth
Passengers 18.516 17.877 + 3.7%
Cargo (ton) 661.1 783.7 -15.6%
Cargo not including DHL (ton) 447.0 402.3 +11.1%


December 2008
('000)

Dec 2008 Dec 2007 Growth
Passengers 1.149.2 1.263 -9.0%
Cargo (ton) 43.2 72.1 -40.1%
Cargo not including DHL (ton) 28.6 41.5 -31.1%

Brussels Airport 20/01/2009