The article:
Sunday 11/01/2004: Flemish Prime-Minister Bart Somers says that closure of Brussels/Zaventem (BRU) is out of the question. He reacts this way to Luc Loene who used to be the cabinet chief of prime minister Guy Verhofstadt. Somers says in newspaper “De Zondag” that he won’t see Zaventem disappear. He did stress that nuisance activities, like night flight, would have to disappear from Zaventem.
“Zaventem has to go” was the headline on the free newspaper “De Zondag”. This quote comes from Luc Coene, vice-governer of the National Bank and former cabinet chief to prime ministed Guy Verhofstadt.
In an interview with the paper Coene says that Zaventem is at the wrong side of Brussels. Noise nuisance will never disappear, unless the airport makes way. He expects that Zaventem will have moved within the next 10 years.
As an alternative for the short term Coene says that work can be done on another airport. Bierset and Chièvres are the two main contenders. The moving of courier DHL won’t be possible for another 5 years Coene thinks.
Closing Zaventem is impossible
The secretary of state-owned companies, Fohan Vande Lanotte, does not understand the idas of Coene. In TV programme “De Zevende Dag” he says he still believes in the future developments of Zaventem. According to him DHL will be able to develop further at Zaventem.
At the moment Zaventem handles 20.000 night flights a year, but there is a license to handle up to 25.000. There is therefore still ample room for growth. Moreover, and number of the current night flights can be rescheduled to favour DHL.
Somers agrees with Vande lanotte. He too sees growth at Zaventem as the best possibility. He repeated the opinion that the Flamish government took kast Friday. Flanders won’t object to further airport capacity in Wallonia (French speaking part of Belgium), but they will claim damages if that happens.
Alright, here are my comments.
This sounds very much like the usual politics you will find in belgium. The north (Flanders) trying to screw the south (Wallonia) and the south trying to screw the north. The last sentence says it all “Flanders won’t object to further airport capacity in Wallonia , but they will claim damages if that happens.“
Alright, here are my comments.”
Luc Coene has said that the airport should relocate to the south thereby bringing the noise concerns to the French speaking population. This way he scores points with the Dutch speaking population which should help with his reelection. I think that is his motive.
Luc Coene is the president of the Belgian national bank. He advices the national government on financial problems. Although Zaventem is very important for the national economy of Belgium, he is in no position whatsoever to say what Zaventem should do.
Zaventem has opened a new terminal just 4 or 5 years back. This is one large state of the art terminal that is currently running AT LESS THEN 50%! Should I even begin to explain why moving Zaventem is not required?
The main problem at Zaventem are the night flights, and the idea is that by moving the airport the noise goes away. That is of course not the case, they are merely moved elsewhere. Someone else will get the burden. Likely that is going to be less people than now, as Brussels is very densely populated, but the noise problem will still persist. The main night time user, DHL, is overhauling its fleet rapidly to make them more quiet. Their 727s are on the way out to be replaced by (ex BA) 757s and Tu204s on lease from Air Cairo.
To answer the third question of Jeanske:
And it seems that they want to do this just so that DHL can expand, while there is room at Liege (Bierset), Charleroi, in Antwerp soon if the runway is extended, and Ostend.
That does not matter one bit. The last thing DHL wants to do is to work from several airport. DHL is happy with Zaventem because all their flights are from Zaventem. To now start operating from 2 or more airports would be crazy! Therefore expanding capacity at other airports (or indeed moving Zaventem) will not work.
If the government wants to get rid of the DHL problem, then there is only one sollution that DHL will accept and that is reasonably affordable (a new airport is too expensive). The sollution would be to give DHL a lot of money and a free permit to build whatever they need at another airport and a pledge not to go complaining about noise in ** years time.
It is rather common for persons to be bought out of their houses when a new road has to be build over it. The same approach can be taken for DHL. Sure it will be very expensive and it will mean opening up a massive amount of night slots at another airport (20.000 or more). Not to mention the construction work that will be required for warehouses and offices, but that is probably the only solution that is acceptable for DHL and it sure will be cheaper then building another airport.
Sign In
