Just 5 years since it launched its first passenger services, the Belgian airline Air Belgium has announced that it will be scrapping all passenger flights and be seeking protection from creditors. However, the airline intends to continue its air freight and aircraft leasing activities.
Home News
Ailing airline Air Belgium is canceling all passenger flights
Published:
Air Belgium was set up in 2016. Since 2018 the airline has been offering passenger flights. However, in a statement released on Monday Air Belgium announced that these will now cease. In recent years the airline has faced both the coronavirus crisis that had a serious adverse effect on airlines the world over and more recently high fuel costs and inflation following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In Monday’s statement Air Belgium wrote that "Passing the increase in our fixed costs on by increasing the price of passenger tickets was out of the question. This is why in March Air Belgium took the decision to cancel flights to unprofitable, highly price-sensitive destinations such as the Caribbean and the French Antilles."
Since the spring of this year, the focus of the airline’s passenger activities has been on South Africa and Mauritius. The aircraft that were formally used for passenger flights were redeployed to air frieght work or leasing in the hope that this would but the airline back on an even keel. However, this has failed to have the desired effect and now passenger flights are being scrapped all together.
Air Belgium has asked the Commercial Court for protection from its creditors during its reorganisation. Currently 500 people work for Air Belgium. Whether they will all be able to continue working for the airline once the reorganisation has been completed is still unclear.
What if you have booked a flight with Air Belgium, what now?
All bookings on flights before 3 October will be honoured. The return flights will be provided either by Air Belgium itself or via other airlines.
Flights scheduled to depart from 3 October that have already been paid for may be canceled and refunded quickly Air Belgium said.