Air Belgium has just reopened its air link between Charleroi and Fort-de-France, after multiple stops following the global health situation. The company had once again stopped its flights to Martinique last fall.
Return to the West Indies for the young Air Belgium airline. After many difficulties in reaching the West Indies since the opening of dedicated lines in 2019 due to the pandemic, the carrier announces two flights per week from January 11.
Operated by Airbus A340-300, flights from Charleroi airport will take place on Tuesdays and Fridays at 10:45 a.m., arriving at 3:45 p.m. in Martinique, return flights being scheduled for 5:15 p.m. with a stopover in Guadeloupe, to arrive the next day at 9:20 a.m. in Belgium.
The Belgian company is planning in the medium term, since it has already announced the modification of these flights from March 30 to October 29, 2022, which will take place on Wednesdays and Saturdays at the same times.
Questioned by our colleagues from Tour Mag, Philippe Wilmart, commercial director of Air Belgium, confides that after having minimized the risks as much as possible, “if we did not take over Martinique now, we would never take it back”.
A reopening of the line which has been long overdue, after having been stopped on many occasions, deplores the commercial director of the company: “We are quite scalded and idle about what happened with the French West Indies (…) At each reopening, we had to stop the operations in disaster a few weeks later. This 4 or 5 times. This amounts to millions in losses and we have had clients in tears of no return after being asked to leave their hotels without delay.”
The airline, which made its first commercial flight in 2018, weathered the health and economic crisis thanks to cargo transport and now wants to look to the future with a return to normal passenger transport, the connection to Martinique s adding to those already effective despite the health context, towards the Dominican Republic and Guadeloupe in particular.
