Brussels Airlines

Is Brussels Airlines safe?

Yes. Brussels Airlines has never had a fatal accident and has not lost an aircraft of its own since it started flying in 2002. It is certified in Belgium under European (EASA) rules and is audited under IATA's IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary programme. We score it 86, in line with its parent Lufthansa (87). The points it loses come from an older fleet, a few engine and maintenance events on its Airbus aircraft, and an African network with harder airports than most European airlines face.

It is a mid-sized airline. In 2025 it flew 68,540 flights and carried 9.2 million passengers, according to the Lufthansa Group annual report, with a hub at Brussels and 18 destinations in sub-Saharan Africa.

What about Sabena and Virgin Express?

How we treat the predecessors matters here, because Belgian aviation history includes some deadly years. Sabena, the national airline from 1923, went bankrupt in November 2001. Its regional subsidiary became SN Brussels Airlines in 2002, merged with the low-cost Virgin Express and has flown as Brussels Airlines since 2007. We count the record from 2002 onward against Brussels Airlines, including SN Brussels Airlines, because it is the same certificate and company. We do not count Sabena: it was a different company that no longer exists, and its last fatal accident, a Boeing 707 freighter that crashed near Lagos in 1968, is far outside our 20-year window anyway. The aviation-safety database we use has no fatal or hull-loss records for Virgin Express.

One write-offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary is linked to the Brussels name. On 19 August 2015, a Boeing 737-300 that Brussels Airlines had leased to Korongo Airlines, its partner airline in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was hit by loose slabs of runway surface on take-off at Mbuji-Mayi. Nobody was hurt, but the aircraft was retired. Korongo operated the flight under its own certificate, so it does not count here.

The serious incidents

Belgian investigators have opened several cases on Brussels Airlines aircraft, and they are why the incidents factor sits at 82. The 2023 wheel burst and the 2024 tail strikeTail strikeWhen the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during take-off or landing, usually because the nose was raised too far or too early.More in the glossary below count in the accident record instead.

• 30 April 2017: an Airbus A330 lost a wing-to-fuselage fairing in flight from Brussels to Freetown. A witness saw the part fall; the crew only learned about it after landing.
• 11 December 2018: the same A330 had an engine failure while cruising at 40,000 feet. The crew restarted it and flew on to Brussels, where the other engine failed and relit by itself several times on approach. The aircraft landed safely with both engines running (BEA notice of the Belgian investigation).
• 4 May 2023: an A319 started its descent too early on a VOR approach to Brussels and flew below the minimum obstacle clearance altitude; air traffic control did not notice the early descent at first.
• 21 June 2023: an A320 had a wheel burst while lining up at Vilnius, and wheel fragments damaged the landing gear and flaps. Lithuanian investigators found fatigued and corroded tie-bolts without the required anti-seize compound, and a photo taken two weeks earlier showed at least two bolts missing.
• 24 September 2024: an A320 from Ibiza bounced on landing at Brussels, the crew went around, and the tail hit the runway. It was still on the ground three weeks later.

A 2020 near miss at Paris-Charles de Gaulle involved a Brussels A320 taking off, but the French investigators traced it to a HOP! jet's windshear go-around in a strong crosswind, not to anything the Brussels crew did. On 24 October 2025, a member of the ground crew was seriously injured during a pushback at Birmingham; the UK AAIB is investigating. We found no safety fines against the airline.

The Vilnius findings concern us most, because missing bolts are a maintenance question, not bad luck.

How old is the Brussels Airlines fleet?

Older than average. At the end of 2025 Brussels flew 47 aircraft: 14 A319s, 16 A320s, 6 A320neos and 11 A330s. Only the six neos are a current generation, about one aircraft in eight. The airline does not publish an average age; the Lufthansa Group as a whole averaged 14.4 years. The renewal is slow: Brussels plans 13 A320neos by the end of 2028, and the A330 fleet grew in 2025 with an eleventh aircraft rather than new-generation widebodies.

Flying Brussels to Africa

The African network is what makes Brussels different. Kinshasa, Entebbe, Freetown, Dakar, Luanda and Banjul appear in its incident records, and those airports have fewer approach aids, less weather information and more thunderstorms than Brussels. An A330 cracked a windshield in hail near Entebbe in May 2025; turbulence near Luanda injured eight people in April 2014. None of this has led to an accident, and the same Belgian certificate, crews and maintenance apply on every route.

How to fly Brussels Airlines safely

• Keep your belt fastened on African long-haul routes. Tropical storms near the equator are the most common source of turbulence injuries on these flights.
• Check "operated by" on European routes. In busy seasons, SN flight numbers can be flown by wet-lease partners with their own certificates.
• For the youngest aircraft, pick the A320neo. On short-haul routes the booking shows the type; the A319s are the oldest jets in the fleet.

How we scored it

A clean accident record (94) and EU oversight (92) carry the score. An older fleet (67), the 2017 to 2023 incidents (82) and the African network (80) put Brussels Airlines at 86, level with Austrian Airlines and just below Lufthansa.