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Brussels airport given go ahead for partial reopening

Friday, 1 April 20163 min read

Ryanair will continue to operate all flights to Brussels into and out of Charleroi airport up to and including Thursday April 7 due to the ongoing closure of Zaventem airport.

Customers booked to fly from Brussels must make their own way to Charleroi and they need to arrive three hours before departure to allow for additional security checks.

BA has cancelled flights to Zaventem up to and including next Monday; it is operating a limited service to nearby Liege instead.

EasyJet is operating alternative flights to Lille in France.

Brussels airport has been given the go ahead from fire services and the Belgian Civil Aviation Authority for a partial restart of passenger flights, however the authorities have yet to say when this will be.

It has confirmed that there will be no passenger flights until at least this evening (Friday).

The airport has provisional infrastructure in place to allow it to handle 800 departing passengers an hour, but this is only about 20% of its usual capacity.

However, its arrival capacity has not been affected as the baggage reclaim and arrivals hall were only slightly damaged in last week’s terrorist attack and these have since been restored for use.

"The final step for the restart is the formal political approval." it said in a statement today. "In the meantime, it has been decided that there will be no passenger flights until Friday evening."

It has been closed since March 22 after two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the departure hall.