Air Belgium S.A. is a Belgian scheduled and

charter airline Air charter is the business of renting an entire aircraft (i.e., chartering) as opposed to individual aircraft seats (i.e., purchasing a airline ticket, ticket through a traditional airline). Regulation Charter – also called air taxi or ad h ...

headquartered in

Mont-Saint-Guibert Mont-Saint-Guibert (; wa, Mont-Sint-Wubert) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. On January 1, 2012, Mont-Saint-Guibert had a total population of 7000. The total area is which gives a population densit ...

and based at

Brussels Airport Brussels Airport, nl, Luchthaven Brussel, vls, Vliegpling Brussel, german: Flughafen Brüssel is an international airport northeast of Brussels, the capital of Belgium. In 2019, more than 26 million passengers arrived or departed at Bruss ...

History

Foundation and early years

In the summer of 2016, the company was started with CEO Niky Terzakis, who worked previously for

ASL Airlines Belgium ASL Airlines Belgium,aslairlines.be - ASL AIRLINES BELGIUM formerly TNT Airways

, formerly

TNT Airways Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reage ...

. The intention was to link Belgium to destinations in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by #Name, other names, is the list of capitals in China, capital of Shaanxi, Shaanxi Province. A Sub-provincial division#Sub-provincial municipalities, sub-provincial city o ...

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei, Hubei Province in the China, People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the List of cities in China ...

Zhengzhou Zhengzhou (; ), also spelt Zheng Zhou and alternatively romanized as Chengchow, is the capital and largest city of Henan Province in the central part of the People's Republic of China. Located in north-central Henan, it is one of the National ...

and

Taiyuan Taiyuan (; ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ; also known as (), ()) is the capital and largest city of Shanxi Province, People's Republic of China. Taiyuan is the political, economic, cultural and international exchange center of Shanxi Province. ...

from its base at

Brussels South Charleroi Airport Brussels South Charleroi Airport, nl, Luchthaven Zuid-Brussel Charleroi, german: Flughafen Brüssel-Charleroi (BSCA), also unofficially called Brussels-Charleroi Airport, Charleroi Airport or rarely ''Gosselies Airport'', is an internationa ...

. The first flight from Brussels to Hong Kong was planned to take off in October 2017, however this was postponed as the airline lacked an

air operator's certificate An air operator's certificate (AOC) is the approval granted by a civil aviation authority (CAA) to an aircraft operator to allow it to use aircraft for commercial purposes. This requires the operator to have personnel, assets, and system in pla ...

(AOC). In December 2017, Air Belgium announced that the first flight should now take place in March 2018 from

instead of

due to lower airport taxes and easy accessibility; it was also announced that, for business class and premium passengers, the airline would operate from a new dedicated terminal which would be built at the executive terminal, while economy passengers would use the regular terminal. On 14 March 2018, it was announced that the airline had received its AOC from the Belgian civil aviation authority and planned to begin operating scheduled flights from mid-April. On 29 March 2018, the airline flew its first revenue service by operating its

Airbus A340-300 The Airbus A340 is a long-haul, long-range, wide-body passenger airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. In the mid-1970s, Airbus conceived several derivatives of the Airbus A300, A300, its first airliner, and developed the A340 qu ...

in Air Belgium livery on behalf of

Surinam Airways Surinam Airways ( nl, Surinaamse Luchtvaart Maatschappij), also known by its initials ''SLM'', is the flag carrier of Suriname, based in Paramaribo. It operates regional and long-haul scheduled passenger services. Its hub is at Johan Adolf Penge ...

from

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

Paramaribo Paramaribo (; ; nicknamed Par'bo) is the capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's ...

. On 25 April 2018, the airline announced a delay to its own inaugural flight (to Hong Kong) from 30 April to 3 June 2018 due to not having the rights to operate in Russian

airspace Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is the ...

. Since the commencement of the service for the first destination, it started operating a scheduled service between Charleroi and

. Moreover, the other aircraft of the fleet was provided to

Air France Air France (; formally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global air ...

for a daily service between Paris-Charles de Gaulle and

Libreville Libreville is the capital and largest city of Gabon. Occupying in the northwestern province of Estuaire, Libreville is a port on the Komo River, near the Gulf of Guinea. As of the 2013 census, its population was 703,904. The area has been inh ...

during the 2018 summer season. On 21 September 2018, the airline announced that scheduled operations between Charleroi and Hong Kong would be suspended during winter, and the airline would instead focus on charter operations. The route should have restarted at the end of March 2019, but two weeks before the planned date Air Belgium instead announced that they would be terminating the route and working towards starting new services to mainland China in mid-2019 and the Americas in late 2019 or early 2020. On 16 July 2019, the airline announced plans for flights to

Fort de France Fort-de-France (, , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Fodfwans) is a commune and the capital city of Martinique, an overseas department and region of France located in the Caribbean. It is also one of the major cities in the Caribbean. History ...

and

Pointe-à-Pitre Pointe-à-Pitre (; gcf, label=Guadeloupean Creole, Pwentapit, , or simply , ) is the second largest (most populous) city of Guadeloupe after Les Abymes. Guadeloupe is an overseas region and Overseas department, department of France located in the ...

by December 2019, with further plans to fly to

Kinshasa Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one o ...

and

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Developments since 2020

On 30 January 2021, Air Belgium announced that cargo flights will start with four

Airbus A330-200F The Airbus A330 is a wide-body aircraft developed and produced by Airbus. Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner in the mid-1970s. Then the company began development on the A330 twinjet in parallel with the A340 ...

based in

Liège Airport Liege Airport, nl, Luchthaven Luik, german: Flughafen Lüttich , previously called Liege-Bierset Airport,, nl, Luchthaven Luik-Bierset is an international airport located west of the city of Liège, Wallonia in Belgium. The airport mainly fo ...

, on behalf of French shipping company

CMA CGM CMA CGM S.A. is a French container transportation and shipping company. It is the world’s 3rd largest container shipping company, using 257 shipping routes between 420 ports in 160 countries. Its headquarters are in Marseille, France The name ...

, which purchased the airframes and contracting with Air Belgium to fly them. On 1 July 2021, Air Belgium announced it would add two

Airbus A330-900 The Airbus A330neo ("neo" for " New Engine Option") is a wide-body airliner developed by Airbus from the Airbus A330 (now A330''ceo'' – "Current Engine Option"). A new version with modern engines comparable with those developed for the Boeing ...

s to its fleet and operate services between Brussels Airport and Mauritius from 15 October 2021. In November 2022, Air Belgium announced the need of a

recapitalisation Recapitalization is a type of corporate reorganization involving substantial change in a company's capital structure. Recapitalization may be motivated by a number of reasons. Usually, the large part of equity is replaced with debt or vice versa. ...

to avoid

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

after accumulating severe losses. The airline already received €19 million during the same year from its Chinese minority-owners which have been already used up as the airline's primary charter business did not fully recover in the wake of the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

.brusselstimes.com - Charter airline Air Belgium needs €10 million to stay afloat
10 November 2022 The airline subsequently also announced to cut and suspend several passenger routes.

Destinations

, Air Belgium operates or has previously operated scheduled passenger flights to the following destinations:

Fleet

Current fleet

, Air Belgium operates the following aircraft:

Former fleet

The airline previously operated the following aircraft:

References

External links

* {{Navboxes , list = {{Airlines of Belgium {{IATA members, europe {{Association of European Airlines Airlines of Belgium Airlines established in 2016 Companies based in Walloon Brabant Charter airlines Belgian companies established in 2016