Brussels Airport is a delight.

[teach]

May I remind you that Brussels Airport is the airport of ... Brussels and that a large majority (some 80 or 85 %) of the Brussels inhabitants speak French ?
It's only natural that the security personal first speak French, they are right most of the time - then switching to Dutch if necessary ...

May I remind you that Brussels Airport is located in FLANDERS, and is the national airport of this country, and most certainly not just the city of Brussels? And .. they are right most of the time? There are quite a few more Flemish people taking a plane at BRU than Wallonian, let me assure you of that.

[Piste 02]

As French speaking inhabitant, I repeat that all the officials in this airport speak a bad french wiht very difficulties, a traveller on the board-control did'not understand dutch. Answer of the policeman : you are belgian, you are here in Flander, you must speak Dutch.

A collegue at Belgocontrol answer by phone : I shall never speak french on flemish ground, I refuse to speak French in Flander, that's so.

There is not so much people coming from Brussel who are working at the airport, not so.

[teach]

As French speaking inhabitant, I repeat that all the officials in this airport speak a bad french wiht very difficulties, a traveller on the board-control did'not understand dutch. Answer of the policeman : you are belgian, you are here in Flander, you must speak Dutch.

A collegue at Belgocontrol answer by phone : I shall never speak french on flemish ground, I refuse to speak French in Flander, that's so.

If that attitude exists, then that's inexcusable, especially from the police officer, whose job it is to deal with people. Are you OK with it? I'm not. Vinnie-winnie thinks that's all A-ok though.

all the officials in this airport speak a bad french wiht very difficulties

What is your definition of officials? Are these people who have to deal with the travellers? And from what you're saying here I understand they at least try to speak French. That's more than can be said for quite a few people working at the food outlets and their Dutch...

[airazurxtror]

There are quite a few more Flemish people taking a plane at BRU than Wallonian, let me assure you of that.

It may well be - but you forget that there are also quite a lot of Brusselaars, who are neither Walloons nor Flemish ...

[teach]

It may well be - but you forget that there are also quite a lot of Brusselaars, who are neither Walloons nor Flemish ...

Let me rewrite that sentence then: there are quite a few more Dutch-speaking Belgians taking a plane at BRU that French-speaking, let me assure you of that.

And even if there weren't, my point still stands: BRU is the country's national airport, and services should be bilingual, with no preference being given to one language over the other. Your suggestion that security should address everyone in French and only switch to Dutch if necessary is ridiculous, and reeking of the old 'et pour les flamands la même chose' attitude which I thought had all but vanished among our French-speaking fellow countrymen...

[cathay belgium]

Hi,

My personal opinion and findings,

Brussels is Belgium MAIN airport in FLANDERS !
Since Belgium ( still today ! for the moment ) is a bilingual (official tri ! ) and bicultural country
I think it should be normal that customers of BRU can be answered and spoken with DUTCH and FRENCH AND ENGLISH.
I won't accept anything other by carrier,luggage and security personnel !

I will accept DUTCH or ENGLISH by my favourite STARBUCKS at BRU ,but just by them !

It's not rascism to ask people can speak DUTCH in their homebase airport,it's rascism not to!!

I think the 'walloon' people do make efforts to understand Dutch,or toing their best to help you.
IMHO I think the main problem is,are and always was the french speaking inhabitants of Brussels City!
They never try speaking Dutch and where just ignoring you when you speak Dutch and want something.
Even if they do !
TEST : go shopping at INNO in BRU Nieuwstraat ( or FNAC-... any city II shop)
Politics of today made it so that the French thinks flamingant=rascism and it's cool not to speak try Dutch!
Congratulations to our French Government!!
Some Flemisch politic parties just gave them seeds to do so.. Congratulations also..

But for the moment..
BRU is the MAIN AIRPORT: BASICS MUST BE DUTCH-FRENCH-ENGLISH
Nothing to do with skills,wages just with some decent human feelings...
For LGG-CRL I accept as basics FRENCH-ENGLISH
For OST-ANR I accept as basics DUTCH-ENGLISH

Don't like it go to CDG-AMS!

AMEN
CX_B

PS The Dutch/Holland people speaks french just because they think it's posh! (marechaussee )

Maybe in another 100 years we have FRANCE and HOLLAND at the taalgrens and Brussels District of Europe!
BHV or israel-palestine in BELGIUM !

But come'on now aviation.. SN ?

[Vinnie-Winnie]

@ Regi ik ben in Belgie geboren (en heb de Belgische nationaliteit), een derde van mijn studies waren in het Nederlands en en nu ben ik in America omdat ik een job daar heb gevonden!

Point is I have way more understanding than you think about Belgian issues. From an international perspective though you people need to understand that Belgo-belgian things like this do not matter!

I think valuable time is being wasted on such issues. What I mean by Narrow-minded is some Belgians do not look at the big picture and the importance of other things that are way more urgent! ie Poor service of Flightcare in BRU for me being one for me, as this actually can ruin a trip as I recently experienced. The over expensive orange juice I bought or the fact that screening people were publicly talking about random things during the luggage screening process does not matter at all in comparison! Same goes for the language that is being spoken!

Now everyone has had badexperiences with other people whatever their origins, colour of skin... That is just too bad and I'm the first one to condemn that!

[teach]

I think valuable time is being wasted on such issues. What I mean by Narrow-minded is some Belgians do not look at the big picture and the importance of other things that are way more urgent! ie Poor service of Flightcare in BRU for me being one for me, as this actually can ruin a trip as I recently experienced. The over expensive orange juice I bought or the fact that screening people were publicly talking about random things during the luggage screening process does not matter at all in comparison! Same goes for the language that is being spoken!

I'm sorry, but that reasoning is similar to the old "don't you have thieves and murderers to catch" remark to the officer giving you a speeding ticket. Just because there are other problems doesn't mean the language problem in some places at the airport should be ignored.

[Conti764]

for some reason I'm always asked to remove my belt in French, at which point I always ask them whether I accidentally stumbled into Charles De Gaulle Airport...

May I remind you that Brussels Airport is the airport of ... Brussels and that a large majority (some 80 or 85 %) of the Brussels inhabitants speak French ?
It's only natural that the security personal first speak French, they are right most of the time - then switching to Dutch if necessary ...

Brussels Airport is the national airport of Belgium, a multilingual country of which 60% speaks Dutch. From my experience the most spoken language on the airport is English in non-touristic seasons and Dutch/French (in that order) in tourist season.

Police for instance is not even obligated to speak French since the airport police is a Flemish and thus Dutch speaking unit from the federal police, but they do so to be polite and to serve passengers in their own language.

[sn26567]

The title of this topic is "Brussels is a delight". From what I read in this thread it looks more like "Brussels is a battlefield".

I think that everybody had the possibility to express his/her opinion, especially on non-aviation issues. Therefore I archive the thread before a war erupts.