Brussels in Belgium presently serves as a ‘scissor hub’ for Jet Airways, for which it dedicates all four of its Airbus A330-330s configured with 34 Première and 259 Economy seats, totalling 293 seats per aircraft. These four A330s, registered VT-JWR/S/T/U, fly to only 4 cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Newark, and Toronto, through the scissor hub at Brussels. No aircraft are parked, no crew are stationed, but the role of Brussels is to allow passengers from Delhi and Mumbai to fly onward to either Newark or Toronto, and vice-versa, while also catering to passengers originating at, or destined for Brussels.

The beauty of this hub is how all four A330-300s from Newark (9W227), Mumbai (9W228), Toronto (9W229), and Delhi (9W230) arrive at Brussels in just a 5 minute window, between 7:45 – 7:50 in the morning, everyday, only to leave 2:30 hours later, together. The four aircraft arrive and depart together.

Passengers from Mumbai transit through Brussels onward to Newark, and vice-versa. Passengers from Delhi transit through Brussels onward to Toronto, and vice-versa. But passengers from Mumbai will need to be transferred at Brussels to the other aircraft to continue to Toronto, and vice-versa. Passengers from Delhi will need to be transferred at Brussels to the other aircraft to continue to Newark, and vice-versa.

Everyday, Jet Airways contributes 8 flights to Brussels, flying in a daily capacity of 2,344 seats, or 855,560 seats annually, of which nearly 75% of seats are filled up to contribute to nearly 650,000 passengers originating, departing, transiting, or transferring at Brussels. 33 Brussels based staff are employed, 75% of which are Belgians.

In the calendar year 2014, Brussels had 22 million passengers use its airport, of which nearly 3% was contributed to by Jet Airways, despite the airline contributing to just over 1% of aircraft movements. Further, of the top ten overseas (outside Europe) destinations from Brussels, New York (JFK & Newark/EWR), Mumbai, Toronto, and Delhi feature in the list. While New York is at the first position, Mumbai is at the 6th place, Toronto in the 8th, and Delhi at 10th.

Jet Airways is the only airline to directly connect Brussels to Toronto, Mumbai, and Delhi, and is one of just four airlines to directly connect Brussels to New York / Newark. Jet Airways enjoys nearly 32% market share on the Brussels – New York/Newark direct route, and 100% on the other three routes.

Nearly 30% of the passengers flying to/from the top ten overseas destinations from Brussels are carried by Jet Airways.

Jet Airways’ operations have thus meant much to Brussels.

Jet Airways has cited commercial reasons for shifting the airline’s European gateway to Amsterdam,  which is just 160 kilometres to the north of Brussels, effective March 27, 2016. The airline states that a new strategic code share partnership with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Delta Air Lines will significantly enhance connectivity between India – Europe and North America.

However, the airline will be dropping its flights to Newark from its new European gateway, and while all three flights (To Delhi, Mumbai and Toronto) depart Amsterdam at nearly the same time, they will arrive at Amsterdam in a window of 1 hour 15 minutes. Jet Airways will continue to commit the A330-300 to the European gateway, but will free up one aircraft, allowing it to deploy it on a pattern that is not yet publicly known.

In contrast to Brussel’s 22 million passengers in CY2014, Amsterdam’s Schipol airport handled 55 million passengers in the same period, perhaps promising Jet Airways better commercial prospects.

(Picture on top shows an A330-200, the shorter variant of the A330-300 discussed in this piece).