Belgocontrol statistics: movements October 2011

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Belgocontrol, the autonomous public company in charge of the safety of air navigation in the Belgian civil airspace and at the Belgian public airports, presents its results for the month of October 2011 with respect to the number of controlled movements at Brussels National Airport as well as at the regional airports and for overflights.

In October 2011 Belgocontrol managed a total of 97,187 movements, or a decrease of 0.85% (831 movements) compared to the same month of the previous year (98, 018 movements). After a slight pick-up in September, the air traffic growth is slowing down in October 2011. This slowdown affects all Europe where almost no growth is registered.

Brussels National Airport
October 2011 registered 20,625 movements, or a decrease of 0.39% compared to the same month in 2010 (20,705 movements). This stagnating air traffic, which is at a very low level yet, is mainly due to the fall in the charter activity that loses nearly 30% compared to October 2010, whereas air freight and scheduled flights register a rise of 5.7% and 2.9% respectively.

Air traffic controlled by CANAC 2
The CANAC 2 centre manages all movements in the controlled civil airspace above Belgium, from ground level to flight level 245 and above the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, between flight levels 145/165 (since 10 March 2011) and 245.

CANAC 2 controlled 49,459 movements in October 2011, representing a slight increase of 0.51% compared to the same month of last year (49,201). The overflights are less impacted than the traffic at Brussels National Airport and even if the growth is very low, the number of movements is higher than the figures of October 2009 and 2010.

The regional airports
In October 2011 the four regional airports together recorded a total of 27,103 movements. In comparison with 28,041 movements in October 2010, this results in a decrease of 938 movements, or -3.35%. The total number of « regional » IFR flights, which was 12,334 movements in October 2010, increased with 617 movements, or 5% and reached 12,951 movements in October 2011.

The number of IFR flights only increases in Liège and in Ostend by 26.91% and 6.86% respectively, but decreases in Charleroi (-2.63%) as well as in Antwerp (-10.25%). The increase in Liège is partly due to the fact that the daytime traffic during the week is included in our numbers as from March 2011(*).

As regards the number of IFR movements, Charleroi ranks first (4,622), followed by Liège (3,759), Ostend (2,617) and Antwerp (1,953).

The VFR flights, which mainly consist of general aviation, are falling everywhere except in Liège where the progress of 73.54% is mainly due to statistics (*). The drop is the most noticeable in Ostend (3,419 movements or -39.55%). However, the decline is more moderate in Charleroi (3,798 movements or -11.72%) and in Antwerp (3,440 movements or -7.90%) despite rather genial weather conditions in October 2011 that usually are favourable to VFR flights. The steep decline in Ostend is partly the result of the harmonisation of the counting methods for the movements in the regional airports implemented in March 2011.

The number of movements in the four regional airports total up to 14,152 VFR flights compared to 15,707 in October 2010 (-9.90%).

Regarding the total number of movements, Charleroi ranks first with 8,420 movements, followed by Liège (7,254), Ostend (6,036) and Antwerp (5,393).

Belgocontrol 29 November 2011