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This article is part of The New Commute, a special report on urban mobility in Europe from POLITICO’s Global Policy Lab: Living Cities. Sign up here.

BRUSSELS — Belgium’s familiar linguistic divide has a new battleground: Brussels Airport.

While the hub serves as a doorway to the Belgian capital’s many expats and tourists, residents are crying foul over what they see as excessive noise pollution and Flemish officials’ uneven oversight of an airport whose effects are felt primarily in the Francophone city of Brussels, but also in the surrounding Dutch-speaking communities.

Appeals to economic growth and employment opportunities have met a cold reception from Brussels residents who worry about night flights’ negative effects on their sleep quality and health. 

Meanwhile, the Flemish regional government’s willingness to expand Brussels Airport’s capacity while placing strict limits on Antwerp’s has driven advocates to the courts in an effort to undo what they see as unfair treatment. 

But unlike in other European tourism hotspots that saw revolts against mass tourism this summer, it isn’t travelers, per se, irritating citizens, but rather the 200,000 annual flights themselves — which occur day and night, and on weekends.

“I have been overflown so much that I preferred to rent my house and move,” said Brigitte Buffard, who left her home in Kraainem, a few kilometers from the airport, located in the neighboring town of Zaventem.

“But even where I live now, in the Woluwe-Saint-Pierre neighborhood, I’m still bothered by the noise,” she added.

Buffard has been a member of Bruxelles Air Libre, a nonprofit campaigning against airplane noise, since 1998, but “there were people protesting even before” then, she said. Many “ended up leaving the city because they couldn’t stand the planes anymore.”

Local politicians have tried to solve the problem by asking for — and sometimes getting — flight paths rerouted so that planes bother neighbors instead of their constituents, but this only diverts the issue instead of addressing it.  

Recently, 13 local NGOs formed a coalition to lobby for changes to air traffic, including a ban on night flights.

When it comes to aircraft noise in the Brussels area, “there’s a lot of NIMBY [not in my backyard] pressure,” while “the impact of noise should be assessed much more from the perspective of the entire community around the airport,” said Jos Jonckers, representative of the NGO Sterrebeek 2000, representing a Flemish community next to the airport.

According to a recent report by Belgium’s Superior Health Council, “some 160,000 people are at increased risk from exposure to excessive noise levels,” around Brussels Airport, which can lead to “sleep disorders, learning difficulties, high blood pressure and depression.”

In 2022, more than 16,000 flights took off or landed between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., when most cargo flights — which carry goods, not people — are taken, with older, noisier planes using cheaper nighttime slots. The number dropped last year and is expected to decrease further next year, Brussels Airport said in a press release.

According to Brussels Airport spokesperson Ihsane Chioua Lekhli, “the airport’s noise impact has already decreased significantly, by 57 percent between 2000 and 2019,” and “the number of potentially highly impacted people in the vicinity of the airport will decrease further by 12 percent in the coming years” thanks to new technologies.

But residents are far from reassured by the airport’s promises.

Health vs. business

The anti-noise groups largely target nighttime cargo flights, arguing they’re not essential, an assessment the industry challenges. 

During the pandemic, “it was a DHL [cargo] flight that sent the first shipment of Covid vaccines from Pfizer around the world,” said Lorenzo Van de Pol, director of public affairs for delivery giant DHL Group.

The overnight cargo flights from Brussels also carry “radioactive isotopes for cancer chemotherapy, which have a lifespan of hours when they leave the factory, so time is of the essence [to get the treatment to hospitals],” Van de Pol added.

The DHL representative said the company was making efforts to reduce the effects of noise through technological innovation and fleet renewal.

“It’s not only a question of the magnitude of the noise, but also of the frequency,” Jonckers replied.

“One very noisy flight during the night will wake you up once, and then it’s over. But if you have 20 flights, even if they are a bit less noisy, they’ll wake you up more times,” he added.

Experts from the Belgian Superior Health Council are particularly worried about flights between 6-7 a.m., when “individuals typically spend more time in lighter sleep stages,” which are “more easily disrupted by external stimuli.” In 2019, there were 10,029 flights during this hourlong window.

“We are operating an airport; there is always going to be some disturbance,” Van de Pol said.

In addition to goods, no fewer than 22.2 million passengers traveled through Brussels Airport last year, a major engine of the Belgian economy after the Port of Antwerp.

Many passengers are diplomats, EU officials, politicians and lobbyists who can easily reach the airport for their diplomatic missions, business trips and holidays, thanks to regular train connections to Schuman Station in the European Quarter.

In April, the then-Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU held an event focusing on sustainable travel, boasting that Brussels Airport “connects Europe to the world.”

According to an airport-commissioned study by the University of Antwerp and UCLouvain, the hub employs about 64,000 people (directly or indirectly) and generates almost €5.5 billion in added value for the local economy, representing 1.13 percent of Belgium’s GDP in 2019. 

Taking catalytic effects — such as supply-side revenue — into account, these figures jump to more than 81,000 employees, €8.8 billion in added value and 1.85 percent of GDP, the report says. 

However, such economic arguments leave residents unmoved.

“The economic argument cannot be the only [one] taken into consideration, as is currently the case,” said Olivier Maingain, mayor of Woluwe-Saint-Lambert.

His affluent neighborhood, less than 4 kilometers from the European Commission, “is overflown intensively” as “nearly 45 percent of take-offs take place on the so-called left turn route over the east of Brussels,” Maingain added.

People interested in moving to the area even ask residents on social media how bad the situation is.

The Belgian way

While Brussels residents complain about nighttime noise from flights, their fellow countrymen in Antwerp can sleep soundly, thanks to a ban on night flights introduced this summer by Flanders’ environment minister, Flemish nationalist Zuhal Demir. 

Such differences illustrate how such debate has been swept up — perhaps predictably — in Belgium’s ongoing linguistic tensions. 

While Brussels is a predominantly French-speaking city, the airport lies just over the border in Dutch-speaking Flanders, which puts it under the jurisdiction of the Flemish region of the country.

Demir may have taken a hard line on night flights in Antwerp, but last spring, when she decided whether to renew the environmental permit for Brussels Airport, she chose not to stop night flights.

Instead, the hub was given room to grow to 240,000 annual flights by 2032, more than 20 percent above current levels — but that didn’t satisfy the airport, which wants to grow even more.

“The number of passengers and cargo tonnage will grow with the economy and the demand,” said spokesperson Chioua Lekhli, noting that 240,000 annual flights had “now become a cap, which we deplore, as the airport should be able to grow in a sustainable way with more flights if the noise impact does not grow.”

“You cannot impose such operating restrictions as the limitation of the number of movements without first going through the European Balanced Approach procedure,” she added, referring to the EU regulation that requires the European Commission’s approval to reduce air traffic at major hubs.“It will have to be seen whether these measures can indeed be imposed or whether they need to be adjusted.”

Instead, Alain Maron, the outgoing environment minister of the Brussels government and a politician of the French-speaking Green Party, announced that he’d take the permit to court to “protect the health and quality of life of Brussels residents,” he promised.

The Flemish liberals — also part of the Brussels government majority — opposed Maron’s decision and forced him to file the lawsuit as an initiative of the single environment ministry, rather than on behalf of the entire Brussels government.

In May, the Flemish government asked Belgium’s federal government to pay fines of €100,000 a day as long as flight paths — decided at the national level — bothered Flemish people.

Meanwhile, French-speaking Wallonia also decided to appeal the renewal of the airport’s permit, and the Brussels Environmental Agency began cracking down on airlines flying over Brussels in violation of local noise standards, issuing 63 notices in May alone.

“Flanders systematically blocked any attempt to improve the situation,” said NGO member Buffard.

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