Brussels — Brussels Airlines will ground its fleet as of March 21, 2020, temporarily suspending service until April 19, 2020.
The carrier says its flight schedule will be gradually decreased over the course of this week, to reach a temporary full suspension of flights by this Saturday.
According to the airline, the decision to temporarily suspend all flights comes as a result of Belgian authorities advising against travel, in addition to a marked increase in national authorities in Europe and beyond restricting flights into their territories.
As of March 17, 2020 all of the carrier’s intercontinental departures to Africa will be postponed to the afternoon, for connectivity reasons with the short haul network.
The carrier will continue to keep a minimal capacity on standby base for repatriation flights should this be required.
“We will continuously monitor the situation and communicate accordingly, planning a restart of our operations on April 20, 2020 to welcome our guests onboard again,” says Brussels Airlines CEO Dieter Vranckx. “As a responsible company, we need to take the decision to temporarily cease our operations. It will allow us to reduce the negative financial impact on our company.”
A continued and extended goodwill policy for customers is in place, offering guests the opportunity to reschedule their flights to a later date.
Passengers on cancelled flights scheduled to depart this week will be automatically rebooked. The airline requests that passengers with flights this week check the status of their rebooking at brusselsairlines.com under “My Booking”.
Customers who have provided their telephone number or e-mail address during the booking process, as well as members of the airline’s frequent flyer program will be automatically informed about changes.
Passengers whose scheduled flights do not take place in the next seven days are requested to refrain from contacting the company’s customer service centre in the coming days so that agents can assist those with imminent flights. Guests requiring a new booking will have until June 1, 2020 to decide on a new travel date with the added flexibility of changing their ticket to a different destination.
