Brussels South Charleroi Airport: 6.5 million passengers in 2012

Brussels South Charleroi Airport (BSCA) announced today its 2012 passenger stats. The airport welcomed 6,5 million passengers which is an increase of 10% compared to the 5,9 million passengers registered in 2011. The increase is in line with the airport management's forecast despite the difficult economic circumstances. Passenger loyalty to the airlines operating at BSCA and the satisfaction of all airport users are pointed out as major reasons to this repeated increase in passenger numbers.

During 2012, 12 new destinations were added to the airport's routes offer: Nice and Palma de Mallorca were launched by Jetairfly (TUI Belgium), Wizz Air started scheduled flights to Ljubljana, while Ryanair opened routes to Alghero, Budapest, Chania, Corfu, Münich-Memmingen, Rodez, Turku and Warsaw Modlin. The most significant raise in passenger numbers, compared to 2011, was realized on routes to Budapest, Palma de Mallorca and Pula due to important flight frequency increase. (Jetairfly started flying to Palma on top of the existing Ryanair flights, while Ryanair launched a double daily route to Budapest. Wizz Air, who operates the Budapest route since 2004, also increased frequencies to the Hungarian Capital.)

The 2013 forecast is rather conservative. BSCA does not foresee a significant increase in passenger numbers although new routes will be opened: Jetairfly has announced to open a route to Malaga, Wizz Air will start flying to Cluj, while Ryanair announced new routes to Clermont-Ferrand, Rijeka & Zakyntos. By continuous improvement of its customer service, BSCA intends to confirm its Top 3 position in the World's Best Low Cost Airports ranking in 2013.