Wathelet dispersion plan for Brussels Airport

[convair]

I'm surprised that so many here get excited by what is merely electoral muscle-flexing by a few politicians. Don't we all know very little will come out of their braging?

@ Acid-drop: if you do not want to behave like a "moderator", then resign! I think Luchtzak should demote you.

[sn26567]

Wow! Half a day away on business (yes, at 70, I still work from time to time), and everything seems to go astray!

Enough politics in this thread, against all forum rules. Topic archived!

[sn26567]

"Pas question", the citizens group that opposes the Wathelet plan on flying over some Brussels suburbs, has introduced a complaint at the European Commission against ... the 19 million euro state aid to the three Belgian airlines.

This is irresponsible! When those three airlines will go bankrupt, they will complain about the high unemployment in the Brussels area and that they cannot fly to their favourite holiday destination any more...

[convair]

If I remember well, the state aid was paid to BRU, to cover security costs. Those lunatics of "Pas question" are just looking for publicity with money donated by their blind and/or naïve supporters.

[airazurxtror]

"Pas question", the citizens group that opposes the Wathelet plan on flying over some Brussels suburbs, has introduced a complaint at the European Commission against ... the 19 million euro state aid to the three Belgian airlines.

I don't agree with them as regards the noise, but here, they are quite right. These Wathelet subsidies are a shame.
It's Sabena all over again; and in the end, it only delays the bankrupt and makes it much more costly. Thanks to the European Commission, these subsidies won't last 40 years, perhaps not even one.
The "security" pretext is a bit too much : Wathelet himself has said (in the newspapers and at the TV) that these subidies are to fight Ryanair at Brussels.

[sn26567]

The Court of First Instance of Brussels decided to stop the use of two routes overflying Brussels provided by the Wathelet plan. These are two new routes introduced on February 6 this year, namely the "Canal Road", which runs through Brussels, and the "turn left", which flies over Etterbeek, Ixelles/Elsene, Audergem/Oudergem and Watermael-Boitsfort/Watermaal-Bosvoorde.

The Belgian government has three months to stop these routes, with coercive penalties of 50,000 euros per day for a maximum of 36 million euros.

As a reminder, the Brussels Region, and various municipalities and associations of the capital had introduced last May an action for environmental cessation in relation to these routes. The Region had filed three reports including finding multiple violations of noise standards related to aircraft overflying Brussels in recent months.

[Magiktrix]

Apparently the court is not clear enough or some want to read "no left turn at all". Not just a stepback. This could be a real nightmare.

[shockcooling]

Every supporter and it's direct family members of 'pas question' should be blacklisted to fly out of BRU for a year or so when this 'no left turn at all' will be allowed... If they find it democratic to complain, I can inderstand an airport would be able to do something similar No plane over your house, go to CRL/OST/ANR/LGE...

My 2 cents

[speedbird1]

Please forgive my ignorant question but where will the flights needing to 'turn left'' go now? Back to the old SID?

rgds,
speedy

[sn26567]

Please forgive my ignorant question but where will the flights needing to 'turn left'' go now?

The so-called IKEA route and Ring route are still open. The flights that need to turn left will concentrate on those two routes.

The alternative is to turn right and than make a large circle to the left around the Brussels region.

[Atco EBBR]

Please forgive my ignorant question but where will the flights needing to 'turn left'' go now? Back to the old SID?

rgds,
speedy

That sounds like an excellent question to me! I would like to know as well. You cant' go back to the old SIDs just like that. They are no longer published... My estimate: it would take 2 or 3 months to re-install the old SIDs...

Does anybody know why the judge decided to ban these new SIDs?

The so-called IKEA route and Ring route are still open. The flights that need to turn left will concentrate on those two routes.

The IKEA route is a departure route from RWY19 and thus not suitable for RWY25R... I don't knwo what you mean with the ring route, but I guess you are talking about are the LNO and SPI departures. But they do not link up with the correct en-route points (SOPOK, ROUSY, PITES)....

The alternative is to turn right and than make a large circle to the left around the Brussels region.

That really would be crappy...

[tolipanebas]

Does anybody know why the judge decided to ban these new SIDs?

Because he's living right under them and is a NIMBY too?

The IKEA route is a departure route from RWY19 and thus not suitable for RWY25R...

Indeed, RWY19 is shorter, so heavies going southbound may be payload restricted when departing from it, especially if this RWY is also used with tailwinds, something which is likely if it is the only option left.
On top of that, RWY19 intersects with main landing RWY25L, so arrival capacity will have to be massively reduced too.

I don't know what you mean with the ring route, but I guess you are talking about are the LNO and SPI departures. But they do not link up with the correct en-route points (SOPOK, ROUSY, PITES)....

I think he's referring to the nighly RNAV routes around BRU, like André is doing below.
Theoretically they can be used during daytime too of course, but then it would mean everybody would by flying the very same route all around Brussels for a very long time (up to 12 minutes), regardless their exit direction: so again, this will mean a very significant departure capacity reduction...
it's what they do in Moscou, and as any pilot will tell you, the moscou airspace is a complete mess!

The alternative is to turn right and than make a large circle to the left around the Brussels region.

As said above, that's really no alternative at all, because such departures not only reduce outbound capacity, they will also intersect with the arrivals from the South at some point due to our small airspace in Belgium and will thus again cause further capacity reductions, this time for arriving traffic from the south.


It seems that indeed, whatever theoretical idea one can come up with, there's always a massive capacity constraint attached to it, which is normal if you want to concentrate everything on just a few routes and in 1 corner of the country of course. On top of that, there's also a significant extra fuel cost for the airlines because of huge detours AND in some cases expected payload restrictions.
Sounds like a perfect way to kill the economic viability of the airport to me...

Are we soon going to be living a situation for soutbound departures from RWY25R, very similar (or even worse) than on RWY07R, where all planes are forced to fly almost 50km of detour, all along the very same narrow track, just because nobody wants to have them overfly their garden?
Ever seen the huge delays BRU faces whenever this configuration is used?
I have seen that we use up to 300kg more fuel on it, which is no pocket money at today's prices.
Good luck if this is also going to be the case for RWY25R then, which is in use most of the times!
Maybe BRU can cut their landing prices in that case, to compensate for the extra costs?

[b-west]

Ridiculous. I was in Oudergem a few weeks ago. "Pas question" banners and posters everywhere, but one could barely hear the planes coming over. The people on the terrace next to me certainly were nosier than any plane passing overhead.

[mad_fab]

I'm confused with all this "ikea/ring/whatever routes".

In short, they kept the LNO 3C/3Q/1W/1Y, SPI 3C/3Q/1W/1Y SIDs and deleted the PITES 5C/4Z/1Q/1W/1Y, ROUSY 1Q/1W/1Y, SOPOK 6C/5Z/1Q/1W/1Y?

[tolipanebas]

In fact, nobody knows for sure what exactly is forbidden, because it seems like the judge 'in his wisdom' accidentally (?) may have forbidden any kind of left turn from RWY25R even, simply because he didn't specify explicitly which departure(s) he was talking about when he forbid them: only the new ones turning left, or all the left turns?
Legal specialists are now called to see exactly what the judge has forbidden as if we're talking some kind of a Greek oracle of wisdom: I'd say it's rather the Fount of Stupidity.

[FlightMate]

What about going back to the pre-2008(?) plan?

You know, the one we used for 20 years without problems (or at least, with people choosing their home knowing which route the airplanes would be flying)

[tolipanebas]

What about going back to the pre-2008(?) plan?

I think you are going to have to look further back than 2008: it was Durant which first opened Pandora's box, back at the end of last century, if I am not mistaken: ever since, it has been a mess with complaints, lawsuits and judgements to the point that basically not a single route is uncontested and most of them are somehow forbidden by a local judge at some point in time.

To bring back common sense into it all, politicians simply need to accept 3 basic principles of aviation and write them into a law, so any departures (and for the matter also arrivals) can only be forbidden if they violate these principles:

1- let the departing plane take off from the most favourable RWY (meaning into the wind): that way it can climb the fastest and make its footprint as small as possible.

2- let a departing plane initially climb straight ahead till it has reached a hight where it has cut back thrust and has started to clean up: that way it can continue to climb the fastest and make its footprint as small as possible.

3- have a departing plane turn towards it exit point as soon as it has fully cleaned up: that way, well you've guessed it, it makes its footprint as small as possible...

Simple as that really, which is why most airports where there are no geographical constraints have their departures organised this way, except this means that indeed Brussels will be overflown by departing planes then, just like many other big cities in the world, like for instance London: ever been to the posh boroughs of Kensington or Chelsea in London: you know the places where the very rich and very famous live?

[lumumba]

1 You can not fly over a city that's not expectable and here in Brussels you need to turn right or left to do so.
2 Brussels airport is to close to a big city to keep night flights bring them over to more easy airports like Liege or Cologne...
3 don't forget that 80% of the people working a Brussels airport are from Flanders .
4 Like for Liege Bierset Flandefs does not want fly over from that airport!!!!

[sn26567]

L'Echo has published the complete text of the court's decision (in French, the language that was used in court): http://static.lecho.be/upload/Le_jugeme ... 608640.pdf

[tolipanebas]

1 You can not fly over a city that's not expectable.

You can't?

And just how do you think planes land and take-off at a little airport called London Heathrow then?
Any idea what a certain Lizzy of Winsor, aka Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, sees whenever she looks up when walking in the gardens of her weekend residence?
Ever been to the city of London and the western boroughs, where the really wealthy live? Never looked up?
It's really very common for big metropolitan areas in the world to have planes also overfly their city centers: BRU simply thinks it needs to be the exception and can somewhow shift all of that traffic away from them, but reality is that by trying to do so, they create huge bottle necks right after take-off which make things worse even AND kill the economic viability of the airport at the same time, on which Brussels so heavily relies to play it's role as the European capital.