Troubled airline files bankruptcy, travelers may not get refunds

Whereas its name leads one to deem that it in most cases is a nation’s flagship airline, Air Belgium is mainly a structure and cargo carrier that targets to hyperlink the small European nation to Asia and China in explicit for commerce.

The national airline for Belgium is Brussels Airways.

After years of mounting monetary losses exacerbated by the descend in enterprise with China in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Air Belgium canceled its supreme passenger flights in October 2023 and continued to downsize both its crew and airplane over the next year.

When efforts to search out new traders did not live up to expectations, Air Belgium used to be formally declared bankrupt by the local Walloon Brabant court on April 30, 2025.

By taking on the airline’s supreme cargo enterprise, French logistics firm CMA CGM used to be in a location to connect 124 jobs. The comfort of Air Belgium will be formally shut down and liquidated — this, in turn, makes it not in point of fact that any of the passengers who had flights with the airline will ever look refunds for the cancelations from the airline instantly.

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Unrefunded tickets now a part of business extinguish claims

"The supreme claims, corresponding to airline tickets which have not yet been refunded, are now a part of the claims below the authority of the receiver," an Air Belgium representative told Belga Recordsdata Agency on April 30.

In response to this announcement, the European Trot Agents’ and Tour Operators’ Association (ECTAA) issued an announcement calling upon European regulators to institute better airline insolvency protections to forestall same scenarios from happening one day. Based on the agency representing over 70,000 proceed back and forth brokers and tour operations across Europe, the cancelations resulted in over €8 million ($9 million) in losses of which €5 million needed to be absorbed by the tour operators and diverse intermediaries.

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"Thousands of passengers are not vulnerable to catch refunds for his or her cancelled flights, with the supreme claims now a part of the industrial extinguish lawsuits," ECTAA acknowledged in an announcement. "[…] When a proceed back and forth middleman sells an air designate as a part of a equipment and the airline goes bankrupt, the equipment organizer is required by regulations to offer an different designate to its prospects-in most cases without any prospect of improving the everyday funds from the insolvent airline."

Trot agencies ‘left to rob in the losses’

The association moreover argued that this "locations an unfair monetary burden on proceed back and forth intermediaries, who're left to rob in the losses attributable to airline screw ups."

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The distress with Air Belgium began to snowball after its earnings fell by bigger than 40% in 2020, and it started reporting annual losses of over €20 million year after year.

Initial studies confirmed that Chengdu-based carrier Sichuan Airways used to be initially in talks of stepping in as an investor willing to connect the airline however ended up getting spooked by Air Belgium’s heavy debt load.

Whereas Air Belgium stopped its final passenger flights in 2023, the cancellations of what used to be scheduled for the arriving months soundless resulted in heavy losses to tour operators and in some cases passengers instantly.

In calling for more regulations, the ECTAA drew attention to the real fact that there were approximately 1,200 such industrial airline bankruptcies in the final 25 years.

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