Brussels Airport has released its passenger traffic and cargo data for February 2025, revealing a decline in total passengers travelling through, but improvements in total transported cargo, in comparison to February 2024.

Passenger numbers via the airport were reported at 1,528,190, 1.6% down from the same period the year before, which the airport claims can be attributed to three problem factors.

For one, a nation-wide strike on February 13 which halted flights departing or landing throughout the entire day. Also, schedule changes in Dutch-speaking schools moved the mid-term holiday into March, while the French-speaking schools switched to the last week of February, so there were more departures than arrivals. As a result, figures for leisure travel in and out of Belgium for those breaks fell, in comparison to 2024.

The airport also cited the fact that 2024 had one extra day in the month, due to leap year, that was included in the counts for traveller data.

In the cargo sector, total volumes grew by 0.3% reaching 59,177 tonnes. Flown cargo volumes reached 49,580 tonnes, with a 1.4% increase and belly cargo increased by 6.3%, as well as integrator services which were up 13% from February 2024.

The airport did see a 12% decline in the full-freight segment, and trucked volumes were also down 5%.

The overall flight movements dropped slightly as well, -0.5%, with the number of passenger flights decreasing by 1.5% and the number for cargo flights remained almost the same.

Brussels Airport is the second most important economic growth pool in Belgium, creating 64,000 direct and indirect jobs, so monthly performances and year on year comparison are vital to assess.