Brussels Airport

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Brussels Airport

IATA: BRU - ICAO: EBBR
Summary
Airport type		Public
Operator		The Brussels Airport Company
Serves		Brussels, Belgium
Elevation AMSL		190.29 ft (58 m)
Coordinates		50°54′28″N, 4°29′9″E
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
Direction	ft	m	Surface
2/20	9,800	2,987	Asphalt
7R/25L	10,535	3,211	Asphalt
7L/25R	11,936	3,638	Asphalt

Brussels Airport (IATA: BRU, ICAO: EBBR) (also called in Dutch: Luchthaven Zaventem or in French: Aéroport de Zaventem), also Zaventem Airport or Brussels (Zaventem) International Airport, was formerly known as "Brussel Nationaal/Bruxelles-National" (Brussels National). It is an international airport located in Zaventem, in Flanders, near Brussels, Belgium. The airport is a hub to Brussels Airlines and European Air Transport.

The airport is home to around 260 companies, together directly employing 20,000 people.

In 2005, the airport was awarded Best Airport in Europe by ACI/IATA, based on a survey conducted with over 100,000 passengers worldwide.

The airport received an official name on 19 October 2006: Brussels Airport, Welcome to Europe. According to the airport operator, its main characteristics are: European, Welcoming and Efficient.

The company operating the airport is known as "The Brussels Airport Company N.V./S.A."; before October 19, 2006, the name was BIAC (Brussels International Airport Company).

1 History
2 Airlines and destinations
3 Defunct airlines
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

The airport was constructed during World War II by the German occupying force. There is an urban legend that the site of the airport in Zaventem was chosen by the Germans after asking locals where to build it - the Belgians then pointed to this location as it was often foggy.

After the German occupation, the Belgian army took control of the airport. When the old civilian airport in Haren became too small, it was decided to use the site in Zaventem for the new national airport. By 1948, a new terminal building was constructed to replace the old wooden building.

In 1955, a train line connecting Brussels with the airport was constructed. A direct train link with Leuven and Liège was opened on December 12, 2005. A link with Antwerp will be completed in 2010. In April 1957, construction started of the new terminal, preparing the airport for the 1958 World Fair. During the boom of commercial aviation in the 1960's and 1970's, several hangars were constructed. A new cargo terminal was constructed in 1976. In 1994, a brand new terminal was constructed adjacent to the old 1958 building. Two old piers were torn down and replaced by modern ones. In 2002, amidst the turmoil engulfing the demise of Sabena, a new pier was opened. This Pier A is destined to support flights from and to the Schengen treaty countries.

In 2005, the airport served 16.2 million passengers, an increase of 3.5% over 2004. The cargo volume in the same year amounted to 702,819 tonnes, an increase of 5.8% over 2004.

Sabena's demise meant a sharp fall in passenger traffic, a blow the airport only slowly recovered from. The airport's future is threatened by disagreement between the governments of Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region concerning nocturnal air traffic routes.

Brussels Airport is operated by The Brussels Airport Company, formerly known as BIAC (Brussels International Airport Company), which was created by Belgian law through a merger of BATC with the ground operations departments of the RLW/RVA.

The only serious accident in the vicinity of the airport was the crash of a Sabena Boeing 707 on February 15, 1961. The plane crashed during approach, killing all 72 people on board and one on the ground. [1]

[edit] Airlines and destinations

The following airlines have scheduled services to Brussels (as of March 2007):

Adria Airways (Ljubljana)
Aer Lingus (Dublin)
Aeroflot (Moscow-Sheremetyevo)
Afriqiyah Airways (Tripoli)
Air Algérie (Algiers)
Air France (Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon)
Air Malta (Malta)
Air Transat (Montréal) [seasonal]
airBaltic (Riga)
Alitalia (Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino)
Albanian Airlines (Tirana)
American Airlines (Chicago-O'Hare, New York-JFK)
Atlas Blue (Marrakech)
Austrian Airlines (Vienna)
bmi (East Midlands, Edinburgh, Leeds/Bradford, London-Heathrow)
Blue1 (Helsinki)
British Airways (London-Heathrow)
- BA Connect (Manchester)
- Sun Air of Scandinavia (Billund)
Brussels Airlines
- former SN Brussels Airlines destinations (Abidjan, Banjul, Berlin-Tempelhof, Bilbao, Birmingham, Bologna, Bristol, Budapest, Casablanca, Conakry, Copenhagen, Dakar, Douala, Entebbe, Frankfurt, Freetown, Geneva, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Hamburg, Helsinki, Istanbul-Atatürk, Kigali, Kinshasa, Krakow, London-Gatwick, Luanda, Lyon, Madrid, Manchester, Marseille, Milan-Malpensa, Monrovia, Moscow-Domodedovo, Munich, Nairobi, Newcastle, Nice, Oslo, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Porto, Prague, Rome-Fiumicino, Seville, St. Petersburg [begins April 28, 2007], Stockholm-Bromma, Strasbourg, Tel Aviv, Toulouse, Turin, Venice, Vienna, Warsaw, Yaoundé)
- former Virgin Express destinations (Athens, Barcelona, Berlin-Schönefeld, Catania, Faro, Geneva, Lisbon, Malaga, Milan-Bergamo, Murcia, Naples, Nice, Palermo, Palma de Mallorca, Rome-Fiumicino, Valencia)
- operated by Europe Airpost (Paris-Charles de Gaulle)
Bulgaria Air (Sofia)
Continental Airlines (Newark)
Croatia Airlines (Zagreb)
Czech Airlines (Prague)
Cyprus Airways (Larnaca)
Delta Air Lines (Atlanta, New York-JFK)
Eastern Airways (Cardiff, Durham-Tees Valley, Southampton)
EgyptAir (Cairo, Luxor)
El Al (Tel Aviv)
Estonian Air (Tallinn)
Ethiopian Airlines (Addis Ababa)
Etihad Airways (Abu Dhabi, Toronto-Pearson)
Finnair (Helsinki)
FlyLal (Vilnius)
Hainan Airlines (Beijing)
Hewa Bora Airways (Kinshasa)
Iberia Airlines (Barcelona, Madrid, Santiago de Compostela)
- operated by Air Nostrum (Asturias)
Jat Airways (Belgrade)
Jet Airways (Mumbai, Newark) [begins August 16, 2007]
Jetairfly (Agadir, Cairo, Cancun, Djerba, Hurghada, Marrakech, Monastir, Montego Bay, Nador, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Tangier, Toulon, Varadero)
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
- KLM Cityhopper (Amsterdam)
LOT Polish Airlines (Warsaw)
Lufthansa (Berlin-Tegel, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart)
Malév Hungarian Airlines (Budapest)
Northwest Airlines (Detroit) [begins June 16, 2007]
Olympic Airlines (Athens, Thessaloniki)
Ostfriesische Lufttransport (Bremen)
Royal Air Maroc (Casablanca, Nador, Oujda, Tangier)
Scandinavian Airlines (Copenhagen, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Stockholm-Arlanda)
- SAS Braathens (Oslo)
SkyEurope (Budapest, Krakow, Prague)
Swiss International Air Lines (Basel/Mulhouse, Zürich)
Syrian Arab Airlines (Aleppo, Beirut, Damascus)
TAP Portugal (Lisbon)
Tarom (Bucharest-Otopeni)
Thomas Cook Airlines (Belgium) (Agadir, Alicante, Antalya, Burgas, Choayang, Djerba, Ibiza, Izmir, Las Palmas, Malta, Menorca, Palma de Mallorca, Paphos, Varna)
Tunisair (Djerba, Monastir, Tunis)
Turkish Airlines (Ankara, Istanbul-Atatürk)
Ukraine International Airlines (Kiev-Boryspil)
United Airlines (Washington-Dulles)
US Airways (Philadelphia) [begins June 1, 2007]
VLM Airlines (London-City)
Vueling Airlines (Barcelona, Valencia)