Japan’s ANA Restarting Two Nonstop Flights to Europe

I try not to make it a habit of flying through Brussels International Airport (BRU). For being located in a wealthy part of the world, it’s complete rubbish. (But hey, at least they have a supermarket on-site).

Nevertheless, while flying through the Belgian capital in 2015, I coincidentally noticed the following advertisement:

With leisure travel surging throughout much of the world — be it due to the newfangled concept of “revenge travel,” or simply because people want to go somewhere, anywhere, Japan’s ANA (All Nippon Airlines) is restarting two Europe flights that it had dropped as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As you probably guessed, one of those routes recommencing is Tokyo – Brussels. Per Business Traveller, the flight, which has restarted as of 11 March, is a three-class Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, going from Tokyo Narita to Brussels. For the time being, it will only be operating two days per week, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The other European route that ANA is bringing back heads to Munich International Airport (MUC), Germany’s third largest city, and the business center of the state of Bavaria.

Munich’s airport is also what I consider the opposite of Brussels’ airport, in other words, it’s good. MUC is clean, easy to navigate, and in fact, has its own on-site supermarket.

And for all of you plane spotters, to get your best photos from area’s artificial hill, take a short train ride here (I apologize for the inferior photo quality for Munich; I was taking really low-res photos at the time since the memory card capacity was no bueno):

ANA will be flying from the more convenient (for visitors/residents of Tokyo) Tokyo Haneda Airport to Munich three days per week, Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays. From MUC, the flights will leave every Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. The Tokyo – Munich route returns on 26 March.

Note: Both the Brussels and Munich legs will take much longer than pre-pandemic, but it has nothing to do with COVID-19. Rather, it has everything to do with avoiding Russian airspace, as a direct result of the Russia-Ukraine war.