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Over 5 million passengers travelled through Brussels Airport during summer 2026
As in July, the second month of the summer holidays saw a further increase in passenger numbers at Brussels Airport. In August, the airport welcomed more than 2.5 million travellers, up 1.3% from the same period last year. As is customary at the end of the summer holidays, the number of arriving passengers exceeded the number of departing passengers. In contrast to July, cargo volumes returned to growth, increasing by 22% compared with August 2025 to reach almost 71,000 tonnes.
More than 5 million travellers at Brussels Airport this summer
In August, 2,521,985 passengers travelled through Brussels Airport, an increase of 1.3% compared with the same period in 2025. Following an already busy month of July, traffic remained strong throughout the second month of the summer holidays, bringing the total number of travellers over the summer to 5.1 million. One of the factors contributing to this increase was the addition of new destinations that were not available last year, including intercontinental destinations such as São Paulo (LATAM), Kilimanjaro (Brussels Airlines), Halifax (Air Canada) and Chengdu (Air China). In addition, Transavia’s fourth aircraft based at Brussels Airport helped expand the range of flights to several destinations in the Mediterranean region during the summer season.
As is usually the case at the end of the holidays, the number of arriving passengers exceeded the number of departing passengers. Transfer passengers accounted for almost 15% of departing travellers.
The ten most popular countries in August were Spain, Italy, Türkiye, Greece, Morocco, Portugal, France, Germany, the United States and Switzerland.
Cargo volumes return to growth
The total cargo volume handled at Brussels Airport amounted to 70,764 tonnes in August, an increase of 22% compared with August 2025.
Flown cargo volumes increased by 8.5%. This strong growth was mainly driven by an increase in the full-freighter segment (+24.8%) and in belly cargo on board passenger aircraft (+28.3%). Trucked cargo volumes also increased. Integrator services, by contrast, declined by 12.0% this month.
Asia, Latin America and North America remain the three main import regions, with all three recording growth in August. On the export side, volumes to Asia and Latin America also increased, while Africa, the third-largest export region, recorded a slight decline.
Slight decrease in the number of flight movements
In August, the number of commercial flight movements decreased by 0.4% compared with August 2025. The number of passenger flights remained stable, with a slight increase of 0.1%, while the number of cargo flights fell by 4.6%.
There were an average of 154 passengers per flight, compared with 152 in August 2025, reflecting the increasingly efficient use of available capacity.
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