Brussels Airlines has today announced some changes to their transatlantic route network, which are either good or bad depending on how you look at it.
Brussels Airlines Launching Flights To Montreal
Brussels Airlines has announced that they’ll offer summer seasonal flights between Brussels and Montreal in 2020. The route will operate 5x weekly from March 29 through October 24, 2020, so they’re at least using a long “season” for these purposes. The schedule will be as follows:
SN561 Brussels to Montreal departing 10:15AM arriving 12:05PM
SN562 Montreal to Brussels departing 6:25PM arriving 7:10AM (+1 day)
Brussels Airlines will use an A330 for the route. The airline is part of the Lufthansa Group, so they join Lufthansa, SWISS, and Austrian, in offering service to Montreal.
What’s the motivation for the Montreal route? Not only is Montreal the most important market in Canada out of Belgium, but it also has a high demand for connections to sub-Saharan Africa, where Brussels Airlines is really strong.
Brussels Airlines Cutting Flights To Toronto
Brussels Airlines will be cutting their seasonal Brussels to Toronto flight as of January 7, 2020. While this isn’t directly being done to make room for the Montreal flight, I imagine the two aren’t unrelated.
Brussels Airlines is part of the Star Alliance transatlantic joint venture, which includes airlines like Air Canada and United as well. Initially I was surprised by this development since Air Canada also flies to Brussels out of Montreal but not out of Toronto.
However, Air Canada has now also announced that they’ll launch a Toronto to Brussels flight, as of May 1, 2020.
Brussels Airlines Washington Flights Becoming Year-Round
Currently Brussels Airlines flies seasonally to Washington, though that is changing. As of February 20, 2020, Brussels Airlines will fly year-round between Brussels and Washington. The service will be offered daily in summer and 4x weekly in winter.
Bottom Line
These Brussels Airlines network changes seem logical enough. The airline is adding Montreal and cutting Toronto, given stronger demand to both Belgium and Africa out of Montreal. Furthermore, they’ll be flying to Washington year-round, rather than just seasonally.
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