Jet Airways’ was one of the biggest users of the Brussels airport till earlier this year, connecting Indian cities to Brussels, and onwards to North America. However, on the back of their new-found closeness with KLM/Air France/Delta, they stopped using Brussels as their mini hub earlier this year and moved to Amsterdam.
Now, it turns out, Brussels Airlines is ready to fill the gap between the EU headquarters and India starting next year. As per Aviation Tribune, Brussels Airlines is planning 5 days a week operations to Mumbai. Flights on this route will start in the summer schedule of 2017 (March 2017 onwards) and ticket sales will begin as of September 2016.
As from March 2017 Brussels Airlines will start flights to Mumbai.
The Indian metropolis will be connected to Brussels Airport 5 times a week. It will the first time that the Belgian airline lands on the Asian continent and it reinforces even more its hub in Brussels, in close cooperation with Star Alliance partner Air India.
Per the CCO of Brussels Airlines, Mumbai is the third most important intercontinental destination from Belgium. Has to be, with Mumbai and Antwerp both being closely involved in the Diamond trade, and close links between the two cities have always been there. So, Brussels Airlines is trying to fill a gap made by Jet Airways’ exit after servicing the market for 8 years.
Brussels Airlines indeed has been taking on the routes that Jet Airways closed from the Brussels Airport. In April this year, they started a flight between Brussels & Toronto and they already had flights to New York. Between Mumbai and Delhi, Mumbai was chosen because of the economic relations between the two cities. Brussels Airlines will fly an A330 with Economy/Business & Economy Privilege (Premium Economy) classes to this route. They did not have enough planes before to add this route, so this shows some commitment to the market.
I’d say this is awesome news. This adds more Star Alliance frequencies to India, which is already served between Europe & India by Lufthansa/ Swiss / Air India / Turkish and gives more options to the customer.
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I was on a flight with SN a few months back (within EU) and got chatting with crew just after 9W moved to AMS… And they indicated at that time that mumbai would come soon! In fact they hoped to fly sooner but their aircraft management system was lacking… Apparently SN now wants to push into Asia more… They are a fun airline! I would fly them anytime in economy 🙂