Jet unveils plans for Brussels hub

Unveiling its plans for the newly created hub at Brussels, Jet Airways today said it would operate five flights a day from India to the Belgian capital and provide seamless connections for onward journeys to the US and Canada.

The hub will give the airline access to the whole of Europe.

It would focus not only on connecting Indian passengers, but also carry traffic fed by Brussels Airlines from Europe and Africa to US and Canada.

Jet Airways has got ten pairs of slots at the Brussels airport, which is handling only about half of its capacity of over 30 million passengers annually.

"It has got a lot of space and capacity, which we will be using. Since (Belgian carrier) Sabena closed down, the airport was being operated only by the Brussels Airlines and some American carriers. Jet is the only Indian carrier to be creating such a hub on foreign soil," Jet Airways Chief Naresh Goyal told PTI here.

While the first of the five flights would be launched from Mumbai to Newark via Brussels on August five, the premier private carrier would start four more flights from New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Ahmedabad to connect New York, Chicago, Toronto and Los Angeles by summer next year, Goyal said.

Besides the Brussels operations, Jet Airways would also launch a flight to San Fransisco via Shanghai and is in the process of finalising a codeshare deal with Australian carrier Qantas to carry passengers to Australia via Singapore.

The Jet chief said the large Indian traffic, especially from Punjab to the UK, would be brought to Brussels by the airline and be provided with connections to airports like Birmingham, instead of Heathrow, so that they could drive down fast to their final destinations in the Midlands, Coventry, Leeds, Liverpool, Edinburgh or North and South Hampton by Brussels Airlines.(PTI)