Starting in late March 2027, Brussels Airlines will fly to Cairo 5 times a week. The airline is responding, in part, to the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum.

In addition, starting at the end of June, a weekly flight to Kilimanjaro will be added, and there will also be increased capacity to popular European vacation destinations such as Funchal in Madeira, Málaga and Nice.

Ryanair, on the other hand, is set to scale back its operations in Belgium. At the same time, the CEO of the Irish low-cost airline is warning of price increases. “Over the next 12 months, we’re going to see the biggest increase in airfare prices in Europe – I’d say, in history,” said Michael O’Leary.

Over 100,000 artifacts in collection

The route between Brussels and Cairo, which will begin on March 29, 2027, will initially operate only during the summer season. However, Brussels Airlines aims to expand this to year-round service in the future.

By adding the Egyptian capital to its list of destinations, Brussels Airlines aims, among other things, to capitalize on the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum near the Pyramids of Giza late last year.

The museum, built by the Belgian construction company Besix and housing more than 100,000 artifacts, is expected to attract millions of visitors each year.

Extra flight to Kilimanjaro

Starting in late June, a third weekly flight to Kilimanjaro will be added – which is noteworthy, since Brussels Airlines has only been flying to Tanzania since June 2026.

In addition, there will be extra capacity to popular European vacation destinations, such as Funchal on Madeira, Málaga, and Nice. The Norwegian city of Evenes will also be served during the summer season from now on.

Brussels Airlines says the new capacity is coming about thanks to a restructuring within the German parent holding company. “Lufthansa is taking over flights to Munich and Frankfurt, which will allow us to utilize the capacity that has become available,” says spokesperson Nico Cardone.

Significant expansion of Lufthansa’s service offerings

The Lufthansa Group has also unveiled the summer schedules for most of its airlines – including Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, ITA Airways, Edelweiss, and Discover Airlines.

The group calls it “the largest expansion since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020,” featuring, among other things, 10 new intercontinental destinations.

The focus is on the Americas, with new direct flights to Edmonton, Canada; Columbus and Phoenix, U.S.; and Caracas, Venezuela. There will be additional flights to Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro, and Montreal, and Dubrovnik will resume service to Frankfurt.

Asia is also in the spotlight, with 2 new destinations in Japan from Frankfurt: Nagoya and Tokyo-Narita.

Swiss is adding Toulouse to its route network and introducing additional flights to destinations including Budapest, Hamburg, Paris, and Nice. Austrian will offer the group’s most extensive selection of flights to Greece, and it will resume service to Shanghai and launch the Vienna-Beirut route from June through September.

Ryanair continues to criticize Air Travel tax

The Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair, on the other hand, is continuing to scale back its Belgian operations during the winter season. In total, Ryanair is cutting 6 aircraft, 20 routes, and more than 1 million seats to and from Belgium.

“And all because of the foolish increase in the airline tax by Bart De Wever’s federal government,” said Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary. According to him, another million seats will be cut in the summer of 2027 if the airline tax remains in place.

The airline tax in Belgium will rise to €7 next year. “That’s a 250% increase compared to the €2 in 2025,” O’Leary criticizes. “If Belgium wants to raise the tax, we’ll move our planes to countries where there’s no tax,” such as Italy, Slovakia, and Sweden.

Scaling back of Belgian operations

Ryanair is now scaling back its operations at Charleroi Airport to 13 aircraft. Six aircraft will be removed – along with 200 jobs and 13 routes. The pilots, flight attendants, and cabin crew affected can be reassigned to other Ryanair bases. There will still be 75 destinations served from Charleroi during the winter season, which begins this coming weekend.

Brussels Airport is also seeing significant cuts. Ryanair has not based any aircraft there since 2022, but it still operates flights to it from overseas bases. This coming winter, only the route to Dublin will remain. This represents a loss of 7 routes (Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, Marrakesh, Porto, Rome, and Valencia), according to O’Leary.

The Ryanair CEO reiterated that the airline has a growth plan for Belgium in the works, under which the number of passengers traveling to and from the country would increase by half in the coming years to 16 million per year, aircraft would once again be stationed at Brussels Airports, and hundreds of jobs would be created.

However, that growth plan will only materialize if all of Ryanair’s demands are met, including the elimination of the airline tax and more flexible rules for night flights at Brussels Airport.

Tickets that are up to 20% more expensive?

At the same time, O’Leary also expects “dramatically more expensive” airline tickets in 2027. According to him, ticket prices could rise by up to 20% because of high fuel prices.

For a long time, airlines were partially protected against this because they purchase their fuel well in advance at lower prices – a practice known as hedging. But those contracts are expiring, so airlines will increasingly have to absorb the higher prices – and pass them on to passengers.

“We ourselves are 85% unhedged for next year, and most other European airlines are in a similar situation,” says O’Leary. He expects that many airlines will start charging fuel surcharges next summer “by 10, 15, and possibly even 20%.”

“I advise anyone who wants to travel next summer to book as early as possible. Because prices will only go up,” O’Leary added, although airline executives often use profit warnings to manage market expectations.

Bluff poker or not?

It’s also anyone’s guess to what extent his warnings about further reducing Belgium’s offer should be taken 100% seriously, or whether this is purely a negotiating tactic.

According to various aviation experts, Ryanair always has between 11 and 18 aircraft at Charleroi and traditionally reduces its fleet there during the winter. Furthermore, Charleroi remains one of the most profitable bases, so a complete withdrawal is unlikely.