Reopening Brussels Airport after the 22/03/2016 terror attacks

[lumumba]

Just 2% growth in June, first full month where BRU was operational again (albeit still capacity restricted)?
That sounds very low for a low cost airport: any explanation given for this stagnation?
I think Brussels will have done better (based on previous months' figures), so CRL are loosing market share in Belgium!

Almost a 7% decline was to be expected. The above statement about CRL was clearly extremely over-optimistic and shows that CRL is re-covering at a better pace than BRU

CRL is re-covering from what?

[Passenger]

CRL is re-covering from what?

Indeed lumumba. CRL was not in the news worldwide with a devastating bomb blast. CRL was not closed for business for a full two weeks. Therefore, to state that CRL "recovers better from 22/03 then BRU" is a very subjective statement, not supported by comparable figures or facts. BRU has its own figures and CRL has its own figures, but there it ends.

[lumumba]

CRL is re-covering from what?

Indeed lumumba. CRL was not in the news worldwide with a devastating bomb blast. CRL was not closed for business for a full two weeks. Therefore, to state that CRL "recovers better from 22/03 then BRU" is a very subjective statement, not supported by comparable figures or facts. BRU has its own figures and CRL has its own figures, but there it ends.

I even think that because what happened in Brussels and the closure,Charleroi had more passagers...

[sean1982]

CRL is re-covering from what?

Indeed lumumba. CRL was not in the news worldwide with a devastating bomb blast. CRL was not closed for business for a full two weeks. Therefore, to state that CRL "recovers better from 22/03 then BRU" is a very subjective statement, not supported by comparable figures or facts. BRU has its own figures and CRL has its own figures, but there it ends.

yeah sure, because when the bomb went of in BRUSSELS, passengers traveling to BRUSSELS-SOUTH didn't wonder about it. Ask the people in Brugge how the bomb in BRU affected them, even though they're 100 km from the "epicentre". To assume that BRU and CRL are not connected on some level is ludicrous.

[Passenger]

yeah sure, because when the bomb went of in BRUSSELS, passengers traveling to BRUSSELS-SOUTH didn't wonder about it. Ask the people in Brugge how the bomb in BRU affected them, even though they're 100 km from the "epicentre". To assume that BRU and CRL are not connected on some level is ludicrous.

Contrary to what you say, I did not say that BRU and CRL are not connected on some level. Everyone agrees on that. But the bomb blasts were at BRU, not at CRL. "Brussels Airport" was on the news daily and worldwide, and in the worst possible way. "Charleroi Airport" was only in the news as "some airlines have moved their operations to Charleroi Airport". Sure, CRL had some negative dropout because, on request of your former employer, the airport was renamed from Charleroi Airport into Brussels South Charleroi Airport. But even without "Brussels Airport" in their name, being a Belgian airport was enough to suffer a setback.

Therefore, to use a few departure statistics to proof, and I quote, "that CRL recovers better from 22/03 then BRU", that 's really nonsense.

[Inquirer]

Just 2% growth in June, first full month where BRU was operational again (albeit still capacity restricted)?
That sounds very low for a low cost airport: any explanation given for this stagnation?
I think Brussels will have done better (based on previous months' figures), so CRL are loosing market share in Belgium!

Almost a 7% decline was to be expected. The above statement about CRL was clearly extremely over-optimistic and shows that CRL is re-covering at a better pace than BRU

First of all thank you for revealing once more you read very carefully what I say in every possible topic and even go as far as to take note of it for future use in semi-related ones, despite repeatedly telling everybody it am not worth spending time on reading.

Secondly, indeed, I am not to shy to admit I was too optimistic about BRU, because I had assumed that Brussels AIRPORT would be following in the footsteps of it's home based company Brussels AIRLINES and be able to post significant growth figures once again, something which they haven't been able to do at all!

All of these elements from BRU, CRL and Brussels Airlines combined paint a picture showing that:
1_ the March attacks have a big impact on our country's aviation industry as well as our economy.
2_ CRL is quite affected too, yet obviously to a much lesser extend than BRU.
3_ the very swift return to growth of Brussels Airlines -at BRU even (!)- is even more remarkably than it already looked in such a wider context of BRU shrinking and CRL stagnating!

As others have said here meanwhile: it will be most interesting also for other topics to see Brussels Airlines most recent figures for June, especially given the fact we know from the past -and contrary to BRU, obviously now- that it's a safe bet to transpose CRL's stagnating performance onto its extremely dominant customer there too.

De Tijd meanwhile has an in depth article about the operational results of BRU:
http://www.tijd.be/ondernemen/toerisme/ ... 1468480695
Highlighting the fact that at present the only meaningful net growth in BRU (and possibly even in Belgium, given CRL's figures) is coming from Brussels Airlines' network, something which also was obvious from the recent press release by the airport operator as they explictly do not mention the 'strong growth of low costs airlines' as another contributing factor next to that, like they always did before.

[webstermc]

In 'Het Laatste Nieuws' of today it was stated that theire is now also a precheck on arrival level.

A quick translation of the important part:
the necessary equipment and infrastructure on arrivel level has been installed to ensure a precheck by the police. This check is not for departing passengers as no luggage or big bags are allowed.

IMHO: I think this is a big improvement! It will be easier again for people who want to pick up someone. No more waiting outside the building.

[sn26567]

In 'Het Laatste Nieuws' of today it was stated that theire is now also a precheck on arrival level.

https://www.aviation24.be/airports/brussel ... -visitors/

[webstermc]

In 'Het Laatste Nieuws' of today it was stated that theire is now also a precheck on arrival level.

https://www.aviation24.be/airports/brussel ... -visitors/

I need to change my link to this forum so that I check the front page first...

[Passenger]

Toerisme Vlaanderen (Flanders Tourist Office) registers for April and May 2016 a 10-15 % decrease in overnights, compared to April and May 2015 (= for overnights in cities like Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Hasselt and Leuven).

Newspaper Gazet van Antwerpen spoke to Didier Boehlen - Antwerp Hotel Association:

- minus 12-13% for both April 2016 and May 2016;
- mainly holiday tourism declines, mainly from outside Europe: Americans tourists, Chinese tourists;
- recently: Brexit causes a drop in tourists from the U.K.;
- business tourism is recovering in Antwerp, specially since Brussels Airport is fully operational again;
- tourism from our neighboor countries is also recovering. Why? Because our neighboors understand it's as safe/unsafe here as with them;
- the trend looks positive, I see a full recovery for our branch because the Belgian economy and Antwerp harbour are back in business;
- though the occupancy level decreased, the hotel rates remained the same.

http://www.gva.be/cnt/dmf20160725_02397 ... or-terreur

[sn26567]

Toerisme Vlaanderen (Flanders Tourist Office) registers for April and May 2016 a 10-15 % decrease in overnights, compared to April and May 2015

this may be considered as a good performance, compared to Brussels which registered a 22% decrease, despite the fact that business travel did not suffer too much.

[Passenger]

The Dutch Tourism Office (NBTC) also reports that the attacks in Brussels have caused a loss of 15-20% for, mainly, Amsterdam hotels. Many American and Chinese tourists cancel their trip or don't realize their plans.

http://www.ad.nl/binnenland/toeristen-m ... ~a1ebbe0f/

[RoMax]

The entrance to the diamond at the bus station is open again since this morning for everyone (previously only exit, entry only for badge holders). Like the other entrances there is a pre-check. It took quite some time because they immediately worked on a 'permanent' construction at this location.

[webstermc]

The entrance to the diamond at the bus station is open again since this morning for everyone (previously only exit, entry only for badge holders). Like the other entrances there is a pre-check. It took quite some time because they immediately worked on a 'permanent' construction at this location.

I will test this next friday

[RoMax]

The entrance to the diamond at the bus station is open again since this morning for everyone (previously only exit, entry only for badge holders). Like the other entrances there is a pre-check. It took quite some time because they immediately worked on a 'permanent' construction at this location.

I will test this next friday

Let us know how it looks I haven't seen it myself yet, and I'm not 100% sure if the 'permanent' building is already completely finished or if they still use a temporary solution while finishing the work (as was the original plan).

[Passenger]

Friday 29th July 2016 will be the busiest day ever for Brussels Airport: 44.000 departing passengers and 46.000 passengers coming back from their holiday (or business trip or family visit).

https://www.aviation24.be/airports/brussel ... d-29-july/

[Shengenzone]

Had to wait 50minutes on the accesroad again this afternoon. Getting tired of this madness...

[ezis_bis]

Getting tired of this madness...

I am sorry to say this, but the love of Belgians to use their car all the time is part of the problem
You are the traffic jam

[Poiu]

Had to wait 50minutes on the accesroad again this afternoon. Getting tired of this madness...

I dropped wife and kids at Brucargo, no traffic at all...

[RoMax]

Had to wait 50minutes on the accesroad again this afternoon. Getting tired of this madness...

I currently have no access to the real-time travel time tracking tool, but over the past weeks maximum measured travel times from the ring road exits and A201 for traffic coming from Brussels, up until the split to P2 and P3 were 10-15 minutes and on very busy days up to a maximum of 25 minutes in the absolute peak. Today was very busy, but 50 minutes would surprise me to be honnest...

But the checkpoint indeed very much slows down the traffic...