Belgian Federal Air Transport Ombudsman sends his comments prior to the renewal of the environmental permit of Brussels Airport

On Tuesday 28 February 2023, the Federal Ombudsman for Air Transport and the Mediation Service of the Federal Government for Brussels-National Airport forwarded a very comprehensive 34-page analysis to the Flemish Minister for the Environment Zuhal Demir and the Governor of the province of Flemish Brabant, Jan Spooren, who will be responsible for examining and defining the future conditions of the new environmental permit to be issued to Brussels Airport Company after July 2024.

In complete autonomy and objectivity, without any conflicts of interest, the Mediator notes that 3 essential points of the initial environmental permit of 2004 have never been implemented by Brussels Airport:

• the construction of a complete noise barrier around the Brussels-National domain has never been carried out
• the construction of a covered hall for reactor tests was never carried out either
• a lack of control and confusion over the definition of the maximum annual number of night flights, with confusion between the overall number and the number of time slots allocated per year

The Ombudsman also finds a considerable number of breaches by the holder of the federal operating licence, Brussels Airport, in the execution of its 2004 licence, including among others:

• a permanent criticism of Brussels noise standards, instead of respecting and enforcing them
• failure to correctly apply the QC aircraft noise level system
• an illegal procedure for calculating the QCs according to the actual weight instead of respecting the initial weight during the acoustic certification
• the illegal rental of offices for non-aeronautical purposes
• a lack of collaboration with the mediation service
• participation in the taking of ministerial instructions by unauthorised persons
• many errors in communication
• a complete lack of empathy
• a total lack of information
• a change without authorisation of the name of the airport to Brussels Airport while the official name is and always remains Brussels-National

For the Federal Mediator, any new operating permit must be much stricter, better controlled by the regional and federal authorities, and above all must be – finally – correctly executed and respected by the private company Brussels Airport Company: “The private holder of the airport licence, the commercial company Brussels Airport behaves like a State within the State, not respecting the legislation and ignoring the Laws and the Constitution, this is no longer tolerable; the environmental permit and the license must be applied to the letter without any apologies“, declares Philippe TOUWAIDE, Federal Mediator for Air Transport.

In the short term, the one and only solution to satisfy everyone, all areas and all regions, is logically to act directly at the source of the noise: on the planes. “Maximum limits for individual aircraft noise levels have not been changed since July 2010, cargo and freight airlines knew they would have to adapt and took no action for 13 years. Only a decrease in the maximum QC allowed individually for each aircraft (noise level per aircraft) would make it possible, day and night, to significantly reduce the noise of each overflight everywhere around Brussels-National“, pleads the Federal Mediator, Philippe TOUWAIDE.

The Federal State, the Flemish Government and the Permanent Delegation of Flemish Brabant, according to their competencies, must intervene to respect and ensure that Brussels Airport respects all applicable legislation.

Brussels National, Tuesday 7 March 2023