From June 3, Brussels Airlines will fly twice a week to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, as a stopover on flights to Nairobi, Kenya. Brussels Airlines specializes in flights to Africa. Next year, the airline will offer 18 destinations there.
Parent company Lufthansa, on the other hand, will cut several European connections and domestic flights from its 2026 summer schedule to save costs.
Flying to natural beauty
In addition to Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak on the African continent at 5,895 meters, the new destination also offers access to the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater, both UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It is the fifth destination in East Africa for Brussels Airlines, after Entebbe (Uganda), Kigali (Rwanda), Bujumbura (Burundi), and Nairobi (Kenya).
However, visiting these natural wonders by plane obviously also has an ecological impact: a return flight from Brussels to Kilimanjaro, available from €519, emits an average of 2-3 tons of CO2 per person. That is more than a third of the total annual CO2 emissions a person worldwide is “allowed” to cause, on average, to stay below 1,5° C of global warming.
Brussels Airlines is also making several changes to its long-haul network to Africa: for example, the frequency of flights to Freetown in Sierra Leone will be increased from five to six flights per week. Kigali will go from seven to six weekly flights, and Conakry in Guinea will be served four times instead of five.
More flights to Spain and Portugal, too
There are also a few changes to the summer schedule in the European network, as Brussels Airlines will be deploying two additional aircraft. Spain and Portugal will receive 17 extra flights per week, Copenhagen five, Prague four, and Budapest two.
Birmingham, on the other hand, will no longer be served, and there will now be three flights to London per day instead of four, undoubtedly because of the impact and plans of Eurostar, which wants to increase the number of frequencies.
Lufthansa cancels several connections and flights
Parent company Lufthansa will also adjust its summer schedule, but mainly to cut costs. It will cancel several European connections and flights within Germany.
For example, Lufthansa will no longer fly between Frankfurt and Toulouse, as well as Munich and the Estonian capital Tallinn. Flights between Munich and Oviedo, Spain, have also been canceled.
Meanwhile, Lufthansa is also set to offer fewer domestic flights to its main hubs in Munich and Frankfurt, with inner-German flights to be reduced by some 50 connections, due to high taxes and other fees.
Overall, the Lufthansa Group, which also includes Austrian Airlines and Swiss, among other carriers, is set to offer 14,000 weekly flights to 330 destinations in some 100 countries in 2026.
