New permit for Brussels Airport is an obstacle course

This week, the Flemish government will pass a judgment on the new environmental permit for Brussels Airport. The decision comes down to a political trade-off between the economic benefits of the airport and limiting its environmental and noise pollution.

High voltage this week at the national airport in Zaventem. Flemish Environment Minister Zuhal Demir (N-VA) will decide on a new environmental permit for Brussels Airport by Friday. The current permit, which was granted in 2004, expires on July 8. Demir must provide an answer to Brussels Airport’s question whether it can convert its expiring environmental permit into an environmental permit of indefinite duration.

The fact that both the airport and Demir remained largely silent in the run-up to the decision shows how much is at stake. Brussels Airport says it is awaiting Demir’s decision. Demir insists on ‘striving for a balance between prosperity and impact on the environment’. CEO Arnaud Feist had previously stated that sufficient expansion space for Brussels Airport ‘is essential to keep our country’s second economic engine running after the port of Antwerp’.

A study by aviation professors Wouter Dewulf (UAntwerp) and Bart Jourquin (UCLouvain) commissioned by Brussels Airport underlines this economic importance. The fabric at and around Brussels Airport is home to 357 companies that contribute 5.4 billion euros annually to the Belgian economy through 64,000 jobs.

Moreover, Brussels Airport is counting on more flight movements in the coming years, both for passengers and freight. The company hopes to grow the number of passengers by 21 percent by 2032 (compared to the pre-corona year of 2019) to 32 million. During the same period, cargo transported at the national airport should double from 500,000 to 1 million tons per year.

But the question is what conditions Demir imposes on the airport in the permit and to what extent they limit the expansion options. The favorable advice that the Regional Environmental Permit Committee (GOVC) provided to the Flemish government this month showed that the airport must meet a number of provisions in order to continue operating in the coming years. Demir can ignore certain conditions, but she must explain why she does so. What are the biggest obstacles to the expansion of Brussels Airport?

The most important pebble in the airport’s shoe is noise pollution. The GOVC does not impose strict noise standards, but a number of recommendations indicate that additional efforts are needed. The most striking proposal is a limitation on the number of weekend night flights. From 2026, the GOVC would no longer allow flights on weekends between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. From 2030, she would expand weekend sleep by banning all flights between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Although the number of night flights is declining and has gone from 25,000 to approximately 16,000 in the past ten years, Brussels airport fears the impact on freight traffic. Of the 16,000 night flights, almost 1,300 flights last year – 25 per weekend – departed between 1 and 5 am during weekend nights. In most cases, these involve aircraft from freight companies such as DHL, which require night flights in their complex logistics operations.

“Night flights are indispensable both in the business model of companies such as DHL and for the numerous African flights to and from Brussels Airport,” says aviation economist Wouter Dewulf. ‘Less cargo at an airport means fewer flights all the way, because about a third of the cargo is transported through the luggage compartment of passenger planes. If DHL leaves Brussels, it could have a domino effect. Airlines may cancel long-haul passenger flights because they are less profitable.’

Feist also emphasized that ‘the airport is not a Lego house where you can just take a piece out without it collapsing’. Of the almost 26,000 direct jobs at and near Brussels Airport, just over 7,000 (about a quarter) are directly related to air freight companies. Air freight accounts for 539 million euros in direct added value every year.

In addition to e-commerce, the bulk of DHL’s express services at Brussels Airport consists of the delivery of pharmaceutical or industrial goods such as medicines, laboratory samples and machine parts. But according to Bond Beter Leefmilieu (BBL) – which, together with local residents and action committees, believes that the airport is failing to reduce noise pollution in its permit application – that business model is not set in stone. “With a number of medical exceptions, these logistics chains can be moved to day flights,” says Jasper Wouters of BBL. ‘It is up to companies to invest in that.’

Yet, according to critics, this would mean that Brussels Airport simply loses those cargo activities and that DHL moves them, for example to Leipzig, where it has its main hub. “The comparison with Frankfurt and Amsterdam, where a ban on night flights is or is in the pipeline, also makes no sense,” says Dewulf. ‘These are airports that rely much more on their intercontinental hub function for long-haul passenger flights. Cargo is one of the few branches with which Brussels Airport can distinguish itself in order to attract long-distance flights.’

“In the business model of airlines, a stable flow of business passengers and freight traffic are more important than economy customers,” says director Freek De Witte of the umbrella organization Air Cargo Belgium. ‘Take the recent new scheduled flights to Singapore. They wouldn’t have happened without the option to also take cargo on those flights.’

Together with a possible ban on night flights, the GOVC’s suggestion to cap the number of flight movements also causes fear. According to the advice, a maximum of 234,000 flights per year may depart and land in Zaventem by 2030. That is less than what Brussels Airport itself put forward: 240,000 flights in 2032. Last year there were 192,257 flight movements, although that picture is still partly distorted by the impact of the pandemic.

“It is strange that no distinction is made between take-off and landing, because the noise pollution is less during landings,” says Dewulf. ‘A ceiling is also not useful. In Europe, Brussels has already dropped to 26th place for the number of passengers transported. It is better to focus on noise standards to force companies to renew their fleet more quickly. In London Heathrow and Zurich, those who work with low-noise aircraft already receive large discounts.’

Although it is recognized that additional efforts are needed to limit noise pollution, Brussels Airport indicates in its permit application that the number of flights with a noise level higher than 55 decibels is structurally decreasing. According to the World Health Organization, the risk of disturbed sleep and cardiovascular disease increases above that threshold. These types of flights have fallen by 58 percent in Brussels, from 33,889 in 2000 to 14,469 in 2019. Brussels Airport’s promise is to increase to 12,721 such flights by 2032.

For a long time, the biggest obstacle to Brussels Airport’s permit seemed to be nitrogen emissions. The environmental studies show that the airport’s emissions will increase by tens of tons of nitrogen oxides in several scenarios by 2030, while a series of nearby nature reserves are already suffering from a nitrogen overdose due to their proximity to the airport, the E19 and the E40. But because emissions would remain below the thresholds of the nitrogen decree voted at the beginning of this year, the intention is to base the permit on that decree.

However, this method is not without risk either. The Council of State was twice very critical of the nitrogen decree, which may be overturned in proceedings before the Constitutional Court. “That does not mean that all permits based on the nitrogen decree would be automatically annulled,” says environmental law professor Aube Wirtgen (VUB). ‘But such a permit is possible this way fruit of the poisonous tree and are exposed to civil court proceedings.’

According to Wirtgen, it makes more sense to use Europe’s exceptional rules as a legal basis for the permit. ‘These rules allow member states to more easily permit projects with harmful effects if they are of great social importance. This procedure was applied, among other things, during the construction of the Deurganck dock in Antwerp. It seems safer than putting all eggs in the basket of the nitrogen decree.’

Although the increase in the number of flights will not lead to a significant increase in CO2 emissions, according to Feist, there is insufficient guarantee that the airport will become climate neutral by 2050, according to BBL. “To obtain a permit of indefinite duration, there is too little certainty that Brussels Airport will invest in e-kerosene and CO2 reduction in air traffic,” says Wouters.

But according to Dewulf and De Witte, fleet renewal and a shift to greener flying are a long-term effort. ‘On average, an aircraft flies for 25 years,’ says Dewulf. ‘The fleet renewal is underway, but takes time. People will continue to fly. Does it make sense to cut the offer here if they then fly from Amsterdam or Paris?’