- Daily & Weekly newsletters
- Buy & download The Bulletin
- Comment on our articles
Related articles
Recent
Popular
Brussels Airport calls flight routes proposal "unacceptable"
Brussels Airport’s management company has described as “unacceptable” a proposal by federal transport minister Catherine Fonck that would see the airport’s capacity cut in half.
Fonck is facing the impossible task of complying with a court ruling to scrap two flight routes for aircraft taking off from Zaventem, while finding a way to allow all scheduled flights to take off. If the two contested routes disappear, only two routes remain, leaving no margin to allow all flights a take-off slot.
Fonck has presented three scenarios, one of which would cut capacity by 20% and one by 50%. Brussels Airport says any reduction in capacity is unacceptable. The third scenario is brand new, and it would take 60 days to go through the procedures for introducing it. The government has until 1 November to come up with a solution, after which it will face a fine of €50,000 a day.
According to Fonck, the airport has a capacity of 74 flights an hour but only currently schedules 60. That underestimates the problem, according to the airport company, which says the real number of flights at the moment is 70, so the effect of her measures would be even greater.
Photo courtesy Ad Meskens/Wikimedia
Comments
How can the government be fined 50 000 euro per day? It does not make sense...
It is pretty obvious that Ms. Fonck was expecting this response from the airport management. How else would they react to a proposition that would cut capacity by 50%? Now her government gets to say "See, the court ruling puts us in an impossible situation... so we need to keep the status quo." And the journalist who wrote this article just goes along with that tactic ("Fonck is facing the impossible task") without questioning its motivation.
Funnily enough, the most obvious solution that would not require capacity cuts, namely returning to pre-Wathelet flight paths, somehow did not make it into the government's proposal. An honest mistake for sure, they just forgot.
What a lame attempt at bypassing the court decision. The whole issue makes you wonder how seriously these federal secretaries take democracy in Belgium. Political games seem to take priority.
Options are: return to status quo ante; divert flights and use regional airports including Antwerp, Liege, Charleroi. So get on with it!