Air Belgium (KF, Brussels Charleroi) signed a strategic agreement with China's Henan Civil Aviation Development and Investment Co. (HNCA) on October 17 as it eyes to recover from the termination of its only scheduled route to Hong Kong International at the end of September.
CEO Niky Terzakis posted photos of the signing ceremony on his personal Twitter account, without disclosing any details as to the content of the agreement.
Public TV station RTBF quoted the spokesperson as saying that a press release with the details of the agreement would be published shortly.
The carrier also dismissed rumours that it was facing bankruptcy. The termination of the contract with Chinese tour operator UTour for the Brussels Charleroi-Hong Kong flights nonetheless affected Air Belgium's situation. According to the airline, the tour operator failed to provide the agreed number of passengers and demanded too low prices.
Air Belgium held a shareholders' meeting on October 18 to address the problem.
For the time being, the carrier will focus on ACMI operations using its four A340-300s. In the mid-term, it hopes to resume services to China, possibly within the framework of the agreement with the HNCA.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, out of the carrier's four Airbus quadjets, one is currently wet-leased to British Airways (BA, London Heathrow) on a long-term contract, while another is operating ad-hoc flights for Aigle Azur (Paris Orly) and the remaining two are stored at Charleroi.
