THE direct Belfast City Airport to Brussels air link is to be axed next month - less than a year after its launch.
Belgian airline Brussels Airlines, a member of the Lufthansa Group and Star Alliance, says is pulling the five-times-a-week service.
It is understood business and leisure passenger numbers failed to reach expectations on the route to the self-styled capital of Europe.
And it scuppers and plans Brussels Airlines had to link Belfast to the other European cities it serves.
At the time of its launch Lufthansa Group's regional director Christian Schindler said he hoped the Belfast-Brussels flight "could be a forerunner for other Lufthansa routes in the future".
In 2015 the total Ireland-Brussels traffic totalled 428,000 passengers, but all but a tiny fraction of that was out of Dublin.
In a statement, Brussels Airlines said: "We stop flying the route at the end of March, as it did not perform as we had anticipated.
"Passengers who had already been booked have been offered alternative options."
Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson said in a Tweet that he was disappointed by the news, adding that he hoped other airlines would be willing to take up the route "and keep Northern Ireland connected to heart of Europe”.
