Summary

  • 400 kg of cocaine was seized at Brussels Airport from TUI Fly Belgium flights.
  • TUI Fly Belgium has a monopoly on direct connections from Cancún & Montego Bay.
  • The airline will enter the Brussels-Curaçao market later this year, which could mean an increase in drug transport by air.

Customs at Brussels Airport seized almost 400 kilograms (kg) of cocaine over the last week few days after passengers from two separate flights landed in the Belgian capital from the Caribbean.

Simple Flying believes that the flights concerned are two separate TUI Fly Belgium services from Cancún (Mexico) and Montego Bay (Jamaica) operated by the carrier’s sole Boeing 787 aircraft.

400 kilos seized at Brussels Airport

Brussels International Airport (BRU) in Zaventem is the largest airport in Belgium and is, therefore, a higher risk in terms of drug transport through the facility. In a statement sent to Simple Flying, Belgian Customs said (translated from French):

“Today, customs seized 8 suitcases containing cocaine at Zaventem Airport on a flight coming from Cancún, in Mexico. Last Friday, 4 suitcases full of cocaine were also stopped from Montego Bay, in Jamaica. 400 kg of narcotics were intercepted in just a few days.”

Brussels Airport Terminal

Photo: Brussels Airport

The only airline that operates services between Montego Bay and Brussels is TUI Fly Belgium. The same is the case for services between Cancún and the Belgian capital, where the leisure airline also holds a complete monopoly on the direct connection.

Cocaine-ridden TUI Fly Belgium?

TUI Fly Belgium flights from Montego Bay to Brussels run once a week on Thursdays, operated by a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Arriving in the Belgian capital on Friday morning, the four suitcases were intercepted. The aircraft operating the flight was registered PH-TFL. The aircraft, according to ch-aviation data, has been wet-leased in from TUI Fly Netherlands.

TUI B787-8 taxiing

The service landed slightly late, touching down at around 11am local time following the 9 hour transatlantic flight. The plane is about 10 years of age, having been delivered to the airline in December 2014. It features a dense ‘economy plus’ layout, distributed as shown below:

  • 154 seats in economy
  • 126 seats in economy ‘plus’ (which has more legroom)
  • 25 seats in premium economy

Services from Cancún run thrice weekly on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, touching down in the European city the followng day. The Cancún flight was also operated by PH-TFL, landing on time at 11:54 local time on Monday. It was at this point that customs found eight suitcases filled with cocaine.

Previously, TUI Fly Belgium operated two Boeing 787 aircraft under its own register, but shifted one of them, OO-LOE, to TUI Fly Netherlands as demand is simply greater for long-haul flights from Amsterdam, Dutch-language aviation news site Luchtvaartnieuws reported.

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Curaçao and the drug trade by air

Previously, Air Belgium operated services to Curaçao in th Dutch Antilles before it suspended all passenger flights last year. In December, VRT Nieuws reported that customs had seen a significant drop in the amount of drug-filled packages transported by air at Brussels Airport since the flight had been suspended, largely as a result of the route’s suspension.

Air Belgium Airbus A340-300 Inflight

Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

The “high-risk flight,” operated on a triangular route with a stop in Punta Cana from Brussels to Curaçao but nonstop on the way back, was previously offered twice weekly at most. The service was suspended in March 2023, citing low demand for the Dutch Caribbean island and high fuel prices.

Customs noted that in 2022, they intercepted nearly 1000 packages containing drugs, while in 2023 this number dropped to just 300. Stephan Legein, General Administrator at the customs service said at the time:

“Belgium is a top country in terms of synthetic drug exports.”

The connection between Brussels and Curaçao will, however, be reinstated this November as TUI Fly Belgium takes up the route. In turn, the airline is dropping the route to Montego Bay in late-October 2024, replacing it with a triangular routing twice a week with the following schedule per Aeroroutes.

  • Tuesday: Brussels-Curaçao-Punta Cana-Brussels
  • Saturday: Brussels-Punta Cana-Curaçao-Brussels

What do you make of this? Let us know in the comments below.

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