Terminal landside brussels airport: future

[Atlantis]

With the following overview, I will give a look what the near future will bring. Most of all this is approved by local communities and the departments of the Flemish Government. Last Friday was the final day to claim this.

Note that this is only about landside developments.

Permissions like MER (Milieu Effecten Rapport) were not necessary in this case because there is no negative influence or inpact about fauna and flora, soil, groundwater, etc. This was a decission of the Flemish government on 19 May 2009.

Destination.

Brussels Airport is one of the most important gateways to Flanders and is important for Flanders economic structure.
It is important that every segment: offices, aviation related business, public transport gets its correct space and place.


Trainstation Brussels Airport and bus services

In 2008, the trainstation of Brussels Airport received every day 8.400 travellers. With the new track to the east part of Belgium, that number of travellers increased significant, especially from Leuven.
With the new track from the north, the trainstation of Brussels Airport will be one of the most important in Belgium.
Goal of the airport exploitant is 60% - 40% in 2015: meaning 60%: train and collective transport
40%: private transport.

But this is not enough. The GEN-track and Josaphat-Schumann will also be connected with the trainstation of Brussels Airport. At this moment 3 million pax a year are travelling via this station. This will be increasing very strong.

An other comparisson: 1,5 million pax/employees are using De Lijn or MIVB to reach the airport.

This means that in the future there will be no new parking lot for pax.


Airport Village

Business development will be very important, like said years ago. Business people will arrive at Brussels Airport, go to the Airport Village (have their meetings, etc) and depart again from the airport.

This means that the technical zone will be demolished: buildings 11, 12, 13, 23, 24, 24b, 39, 39a, 39b, 31 and 32. DHL will concentrate its activities in Building 3.
A whole new place is foreseen for them between the cargo zone Brucargo and the military zone of Melsbroek.
This will be the place for all technical and maintenance activities.

Belgocontrol moved also the the east part of the airport. The empty offices of Belgocontrol in the main terminal will also be used in the Airport Village concept.


New Terminal

The new terminal, NT2, will come on the former building 2 of DHL site. This means that The Diamand will be the central place between terminal 1 en terminal 2.
NT2 will be realised in 2020 with retail and as main function handling of pax.

You can split up this whole part in four zones:

zone 1 former technical zone with the future new terminal 2

zone 2 current terminal 1 and the old terminal. The old terminal will be the lowcostterminal with 2.130m² shops.

zone 3 the big office and in the near future, the Gateway office. This will be renovated and will offer 33.000m² offices.
The satellite will remain as office building and will get extra 282 car parkingsplaces.

Zone 4: a new big parkinglot for 982 cars: employees can park there instead of using the pax parkingterminals. The exact place fot this new parking is not known at this moment.

Thanks to Flemish Government

[Acid-drop]

How said the flemish gov is not supporting their airports ... even if in this case it's the national airport.

With the new track to the east part of Belgium, that number of travellers increased significant, especially from Leuven.
With the new track from the north, the trainstation of Brussels Airport will be one of the most important in Belgium.

Hopefully we can see a Liège-Leuven-BRU-Antwerp line in the future ...

[Atlantis]

How said the flemish gov is not supporting their airports ... even if in this case it's the national airport.

With the new track to the east part of Belgium, that number of travellers increased significant, especially from Leuven.
With the new track from the north, the trainstation of Brussels Airport will be one of the most important in Belgium.

Hopefully we can see a Liège-Leuven-BRU-Antwerp line in the future ...

this is not an investment of Flanders in the airport. All the different departments had to give their permission. If not some projects will receive a 'no'

[RoMax]

NT2 will be realised in 2020 with retail and as main function handling of pax.

Does that mean that the terminal will be ready in 2020 or that the construction works will start that year?

[diminbru]

New Terminal

The new terminal, NT2, will come on the former building 2 of DHL site. This means that The Diamand will be the central place between terminal 1 en terminal 2.
NT2 will be realised in 2020 with retail and as main function handling of pax.

where is former building 2 of DHL site and 'The Diamand'????

[teach]

where is former building 2 of DHL site and 'The Diamand'????

The diamond is the part of the current terminal where the escalators and elevators are, DHL's building 2 is the one right next to it.

[Atlantis]

NT2 will be realised in 2020 with retail and as main function handling of pax.

Does that mean that the terminal will be ready in 2020 or that the construction works will start that year?

The construction works will start in that year.

[diminbru]

a terminal for *A?

[Mavke]

the Main operations of DHL are moved to Building 3 for almost a year now ...
Building2 has just a few offices and the Flightwatch of EAT . this should be moved to somewhere else
but the move has delay ....

Do you mean that DHL wil move agian to the otherside of the 07L/25R ???

2020... i find that quite late for a * terminal !

ken

[Atlantis]

It is no secret that Brussels Airport wants all cargo ops on one side of the airport. Besides, DHL is now very marginal on the airport.

Burcargo will be the secured gateway of Europe.

2020 is indeed a long way to go, but do you know how long it takes to get all the necessary permissions....years.

[Conti764]

This means that in the future there will be no new parking lot for pax.

Can't they replace or at least renovate the old, cramped, stinky Front Park 2?

The new terminal, NT2, will come on the former building 2 of DHL site. This means that The Diamand will be the central place between terminal 1 en terminal 2.
NT2 will be realised in 2020 with retail and as main function handling of pax.

Pretty late, no?
I know the current infrastructure can handle much more passengers then it currently does, but BRU still has the problem of bad spreading of flights. The current terminal gets very, very crowded in the morning and in summer, it really is not pleasant to be there before noon.
Next year we will see the new AC, FI, the extra UA and who knows maybe a second CO. We'll have SN expanding. And then we don't even talk about the near future. Who knows what new flights will come by then. At the moment, we hardly see much influence of Star Alliance, but this will only grow... BRU is not yet a full hub of Star Alliance and we are right after a huge economic downturn, so activity at the airport can only grow.

And what about the western expansion of the A-concourse? No news about that?

[Conti764]

2020 is indeed a long way to go, but do you know how long it takes to get all the necessary permissions....years.

I cannot believe it takes 9 years to have the permissions...

[Atlantis]

welcome in the real world. You don't need one paper, but a book of permissions
Besides, the plans for a *terminal annex pier excists already for years, but no permission to practice it.

Anyway, its going the right direction now

[Atlantis]

And what about the western expansion of the A-concourse? No news about that?

This was only about the landside activities. The rest will follow, but not tomorrow

[JOVAN]

Good to know that at least there is a plan.

2020 is indeed an extremely long time, and we can already add another 5 years if the present BRU-management stays on.

It is indeed unbelieveable how badly the flights are spread :
morning are crowded and chaotic, long queues everywhere
afternoon : dead as a cemetery.

But there is a plan.

[Buzz]

Hold your horses everyone!

NT2 at the moment is just an idea it seems...
Why would they start building a brand new terminal when the drop in pax numbers has just barely stabilized, and the main terminal is empty most of the day?

Wouldn't a *A terminal mean taking the majority of the pax & flights out of the current terminal? BRU would then need at least 5 - 10M non-*A pax extra before they can justify building a *A terminal IMHO.

[Conti764]

Hold your horses everyone!

NT2 at the moment is just an idea it seems...
Why would they start building a brand new terminal when the drop in pax numbers has just barely stabilized, and the main terminal is empty most of the day?

Wouldn't a *A terminal mean taking the majority of the pax & flights out of the current terminal? BRU would then need at least 5 - 10M non-*A pax extra before they can justify building a *A terminal IMHO.

What do you want the BRU management do to? The terminal is already running close to full capacity in the morning and the summer season yet has to start. Remember, as from then we'll have at least three new daily flights in the morning (and them I'm only counting the long haul flights) and at some days an extra one (HU). A good thing to do is to give the leisure flights a terminal of their own (old terminal), so it will release at least some pressure from the main terminal.

But then again, we are right after a huge economic downturn and the home carrier has just entered the worlds biggest alliance, and we haven't seen any concrete influence of this development. So it is pretty safe to assume that from now one, pax numbers at BRU will only rise.

Now you can ask what the point is of building an a new terminal when the airport is far from running at max capacity. But then again, would you be eager to have your clients (the airlines) clients (the pax) waiting in an overcrowded and uncomfortable, small terminal? You should see the qeue lines at certain moments, it is ridiculous and chaotic. I remember last summer at one time, CO checked in at row 10 and the line went trough the small hallway right up to row 11.

And spreading the flights throughout the day would be a wise move, but then you'd have to offer the airlines a reason to do so. Right now, for most airlines, leaving BRU is pointless in the afternoon, accept for some short to medium haul feeder flights to other hubs.

[Buzz]

Does anyone have a rough idea how many pax (%) are *A and non-*A?

If they build NT2 completely separate from A, B and the LCC terminal, wouldn't that be way to much capacity for non-*A carriers?

Would terminal B be able to hold all the non-*A carriers, without the LCC? Then the solution would be relatively simple: move the LCC to the new LCC-terminal, group all the non-*A carriers in terminal B and build NT2, and connect it to an expanded terminal A.

[Atlantis]

Would terminal B be able to hold all the non-*A carriers, without the LCC? Then the solution would be relatively simple: move the LCC to the new LCC-terminal, group all the non-*A carriers in terminal B and build NT2, and connect it to an expanded terminal A.

That is the idea or purpose. From this summer on, Jetairfly, Thomas Cook Airlines, Corendon and some other charters will get their own space, check-in, in the terminal. This is a large group. This means that there will be free space for the regular carriers.

Don't forget that One World and Skyteam still can grow at the airport. Concourse B will be theirs. BTW BAC is still advertising for Oneworld.

I don't know yet if the NT2 will get a direct connection with concourse A because the traintunnel is direct under the NT2. But that will be no problem when you re-organise the current terminal.

[RoMax]

Don't forget that One World and Skyteam still can grow at the airport. Concourse B will be theirs. BTW BAC is still advertising for Oneworld.

Indeed and that's a good move. With advertising another alliance than Star, they show to Oneworld (and Skyteam) that they are not a "Star-only" airport.