TUI Airline grows capacity and adds four Brussels routes in summer 2027

TUI fly Belgium plans to increase seat capacity by 3% for summer 2027, adding four destinations from Brussels as the wider TUI Airline business strengthens flight-only sales and seeks to make more efficient use of its aircraft.

The programme presented at a press briefing in Brussels on 6 November envisages around 1.9 million one-way seats and approximately 11,000 one-way flights, with flight numbers increasing by 4% compared with summer 2026. The Belgian network will comprise 54 routes serving 49 destinations, supported by a fleet of 19 aircraft.

Four new destinations from Brussels

The additions are Billund in Denmark, Ljubljana in Slovenia, and the Moroccan cities of Essaouira and Fez. All four routes will depart from Brussels Airport. The presentation highlighted Billund’s association with LEGOLAND, alongside the expansion of the airline’s city and leisure offering in Europe and Morocco.

TUI also plans more flights to established holiday markets, including the Canary Islands, Palma de Mallorca, Alicante, Reus, Crete, Kos, Rhodes, Madeira, Marrakech and Agadir. Launch dates and frequencies for the new routes were not specified in the slides.

The presentation by TUI Airline Chief Commercial Officer Peter Glade and TUI BeNe Region Managing Director Arjan Kers underlined a commitment to Brussels and Ostend as the airline’s Belgian bases. Its wider network comparison lists Antwerp as a base closure relative to summer 2026. Capacity changes—including increases, reductions and withdrawals—will affect 36% of the Belgian operation’s summer 2026 routes.

Flight-only sales take a larger role

The Belgian programme forms part of a broader transformation of TUI Airline from a transport provider for the group’s holiday business into an airline with greater commercial responsibility of its own. The slides describe 2025–2027 as a three-year commercialisation programme, leading towards a unified profit-and-loss framework from 2028.

As early bookings tend to disappear, flight-only sales are central to that strategy. TUI is bringing together distribution, network planning and revenue management, while harmonising products and fare families across its airline operations. The presentation highlights a cross-airline distribution engine on TUIfly.com, dedicated management of flight-only inventory and greater coordination between independently sold seats and those allocated to package holidays.

TUI says it has established a commercial team and introduced a new network-planning approach for summer 2027. Its objective is to develop an airline that is profitable in its own right while continuing to support and differentiate the group’s holiday products.

More productive aircraft and a reshaped network

Across TUI Airline (the 10th-largest European airline with 133 aircraft, among which 18 Boeing 787 Dreamliners), the May–October 2027 programme provides for 17 million outbound seats, up 4.6% against the planned summer 2026 programme, and approximately 42,000 flights, up 4.1%. It includes 25 new routes and 11 new destinations.

The group intends to expand proven profitable routes, withdraw from weaker markets where it has a limited presence and reduce triangular routings. Better aircraft utilisation, particularly outside the peak summer period, is another priority. Capacity changes will affect 32% of the existing network overall.

Wider network highlights include a twice-weekly Boeing 787 service between Düsseldorf and Curaçao, alongside new Amsterdam links to Praia and Kilimanjaro. Those Amsterdam services are planned in combination with Sal and Zanzibar, respectively.

In the Netherlands, TUI’s fleet plan envisages replacing six Boeing 737-8s with seven 737-10s, with Amsterdam identified as the type’s launch base from the second quarter of 2027. The Dutch programme targets around 15% more seats per aircraft. In the UK, Gatwick is identified as the largest growth base.

For Belgium, the strategy translates into measured capacity growth and a broader Brussels offering, within a group-wide effort to improve aircraft productivity and strengthen commercial performance.