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.
In this post:
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.
How soon are new routes like this bookable (either paid flights or award flights)?
Wow, YYZ is loosing both Austrian and Brussels to YUL within the upcoming year. Lufthansa Group is heavily relying on Air Canada their YYZ flights
@Real Alpha Male who let you out of the ram ranch?
Air Transat also flies to BRU from YUL.
Boring airline from a boring city...
Flew BRU-IAD on Brussels in C and good service and hard product too. Glad to see more service expansion at IAD. Anyone know about a possible IAD-WAW service on LOT? They are the only European Star Alliance carrier that flies trans-atlantic but doesn't serve IAD. Seems like quite an opportunity.
That's a long turnaround in YUL. The fact that the flight leave BRU so early makes it harder to make a connection. Still if there isn't any surcharge this makes for an interesting option out of YUL.
@Doug1000
I actually kept seeing uite a lot of SN availability on Aeroplan, MileagePlus and Miles+Bonus for itineraries connecting YYZ to various European destinations and Israel. That was since February or even earlier. I haven't looked for any nonstop strictly between YYZ and BRU, so it could be one of those married segments BS that Star Alliance runs.
That’s all well and good but over the past 18 months Brussels business class award availability has been practically non existent on all routes - does anyone have a different experience?
Great. Brussels Airlines was a perfect choice for no fuel surcharges YYZ-BRU. Air Canada will now implement them. It is getting almost impossible getting to Europe from Toronto with Aeroplan without surcharges.
Air Canada just announced flights from Toronto to Brussels this morning. Guess there is a shift in strategy.
I find it really odd that after this the only Lufthansa Group airline that will be left in Toronto is Lufthansa, meanwhile Montreal has service from Austrian, Swiss, Lufthansa and soon Brussels Airlines. First Austrian made the switch from Toronto to Montreal and now Brussels Airlines. I get that Air Canada flies to Zurich and Vienna from Toronto but is the market really not strong enough for a least a second daily flight on Swiss...
I find it really odd that after this the only Lufthansa Group airline that will be left in Toronto is Lufthansa, meanwhile Montreal has service from Austrian, Swiss, Lufthansa and soon Brussels Airlines. First Austrian made the switch from Toronto to Montreal and now Brussels Airlines. I get that Air Canada flies to Zurich and Vienna from Toronto but is the market really not strong enough for a least a second daily flight on Swiss to Zurich or a flight to Brussels, at least seasonally? I wouldn't be surprised to see Air Canada start some sort of seasonal 4-5 times weekly route from Toronto to Brussels. It seems like Air Canada is focused on offering all the flights to Toronto and letting their partners serve Montreal.