About 7,000 passengers have been affected by the postponement of the extension of the flight schedule at Brussels Airlines, spokeswoman Maaike Andries confirms on Wednesday. The Belgian airline would normally expand the number of long-haul aircraft from two to five from August. But as a precaution, because the company is short of cash and no solution has yet been found about state aid, it has been decided not to continue that expansion for the time being.
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These are therefore long-haul flights in the first week of August. Those for the second week are still on the agenda for the time being, in the hope that there will be a solution by then.
Some 7,000 people had already reserved for the canceled flights. Brussels Airlines is now looking for a solution. “First of all, we are looking for an alternative flight. But it is also possible to postpone the trip or refund it if the passenger so wishes, ”says the spokeswoman.
Precaution
Andries does not want to go into detail about how dire the financial situation at Brussels Airlines is. She emphasizes that the decision not to extend the flight schedule is a precautionary measure. “All our operations are currently cash positive. We also have some reserves. By not expanding, we want to be sure that we can continue to operate the current flight schedule and provide that certainty to travelers, ”it sounds.
Nothing will change on the short-distance network for the time being. Even though the corona pandemic might throw a spanner in the works here. Due to the changed travel advice in recent days, where some destinations in Europe have been given the code red, Brussels Airlines sees bookings at those destinations fall sharply. “It is not excluded that we will therefore have to tinker with the frequency of those flights. It makes no economic or ecological sense to fly with almost empty aircraft, ”argues the spokeswoman. But there is no question of completely deleting certain destinations. And this measure is also completely unrelated to the company’s financial situation, it sounds.
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