Brace for chaos at Brussels airports

BRUSSELS — If you want to fly out of the Belgian capital on Tuesday, you better have a backup plan. 

Both Brussels Zaventem and Brussels South Charleroi airports will be massively disrupted by a nationwide strike by security, cleaning and catering staff. 

Last Friday, Brussels Airport announced the cancellation of all departing flights for Tuesday.

In its latest update issued Monday and shared with POLITICO, the airport said that “around 42,000 passengers (32,000 departing and 10,000 arriving) are affected by the strike” and that it expects “14,000 arriving passengers tomorrow (instead of the 24,000 initially planned).”

Cargo operations, on the other hand, should be relatively unaffected by the strike, the airport assured.

About 200 flights have been canceled by Brussels Airlines alone — the Belgian subsidiary of Lufthansa Group — which said in an emailed statement that it had 21,000 passengers booked for Oct. 1. Arriving flights are “still possible,” the airline added. 

“Arriving passenger flights may operate, but cancellations are likely,” Brussels Airport said on its website.

On Monday, Charleroi airport was also forced to cancel all departing flights on Tuesday — after initially announcing it would keep capacity at 30 percent of scheduled flights.  However, it said that all incoming flights will be operated.

The updated decision was made because too few security staff will be working during the strike to operate flights, a spokesperson told the Belgian press.

It’s not the first disruption for the airport. On Sept. 12, Charleroi airport was hit by a surprise strike which led to the cancellation of all flights and continued disruptions in the following days. 

Ryanair, the largest operator at Charleroi, Belgium’s second-busiest airport, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the upcoming strike at the airport.

Tuesday’s strike was called as part of the European trade union campaign against what it called a  “race to the bottom” in working conditions for essential workers — including cleaners, security guards and food service employees.

One of the main goals of the protest — which will also see cleaning and security workers from nine European countries coming to Brussels— is to have a say in the revision of the EU’s public procurement directive announced by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 

“Unions are calling for new rules to strengthen collective bargaining, uplift working conditions and ensure quality services for communities,” said the union federation UNI Europa. 

Brussels Airport workers, who will gather in front of the airport on Tuesday at 10 a.m., are complaining about high workloads, lack of maintenance of airport infrastructure, “inappropriate temperatures” in the workplace, poor public transport and expensive parking.

“In short, we are left out in the cold while the airport operator makes millions in profits every year,” said a statement from the ACV Puls union.

“We have a contractual relationship with a number of external service providers,” said a spokesperson for Brussels Airport, noting “these are selected on the basis of tenders, which include price and quality criteria.”

“As part of these calls for tender, we ensure that these employees are remunerated in accordance with the scales applicable in their respective sectors,” the spokesperson said, adding that disputes should be settled at the “service provider level.”