IVAO Belgium

General

The Belgian national airport is located at about 12 km from Brussels and is the largest airport in Belgium. It occupies an area of 1245 ha and manages about 250,000 flights and 15,5 million passengers a year. The exploitation is done by the Brussels International Airport Company also known as BIAC. The main shareholder of BIAC is the Australian Macquarie Group who owns 70%, the other 30% of the shares belong to the Belgian state. For SN Brussels Airlines, Virgin Express and DHL, the airport is one of their European hubs.

Passenger planes can use 2 terminals. The A-terminal is used for flights from/to Schengen-countries; the B-terminal for the other flights. A tunnel connects the A-terminal with the main passenger building. There are 54 gates on a total of 109 parking places. The airport also has a cargo zone known as BruCargo, located at the Northwest side with room for 31 planes. This part is located on the territory of Melsbroek (Steenokkerzeel) en Diegem (Machelen).

Historie

The origins of Brussels Airport at Zaventem date back to 1940, when the German occupying force laid claim to 600 ha (1,500 acres) of agricultural fields to the east of Brussels, near the Belgian military back-up airfield "Steenokkerzeel". The Germans constructed 3 runways in the shape of a triangle: runway 02/20 and 07L/25R which are still in use today, and runway 12/30. The airfield buildings however were constructed within the territory of the nearby municipality of Melsbroek and not of Zaventem, which is why the airfield was known to the locals as the airfield of Melsbroek, or "Fliegerhorst Melsbroek" to the Germans. There is an urban legend that the site of the airport 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 liberation (3 September 1944), the German infrastructure at Melsbroek fell into the hands of the British. When the old civilian airport in Haren became too small, the Belgian authorities decided to use the aerodrome at Melsbroek for the new national airport. By 1948, a new terminal building was constructed to replace the old wooden building. In the same year, the length of both runways 02/20 and 07L/25R were increased to 1,200 m (3,900 ft) and 2,450 m (8,040 ft) respectively, whereas 12/30 remained at 1,300 m (4,300 ft). The civil aerodrome of Melsbroek was officially opened by Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, the Prince Regent on 20 July 1948. From 1948 to 1956 many more buildings and facilities were erected, but almost always on the Melsbroek side of the site.

In 1955, a train line connecting the city centre of Brussels with the airport was constructed. The line was officially opened by King Baudouin on 15 May 1955. A direct train link with Leuven and Liège was opened on 12 December 2005.

During the boom of commercial aviation in the 1960s and 1970s, 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 the national airline Sabena, a new pier was opened. This Pier A is destined to support flights from and to the Schengen treaty countries and supports since the 15^th of October 2008 all flights to African destinions (at the T-gates).

The airport is operated by The Brussels Airport Company, owned by the Australian group MAp Airports (75%) and the Belgian State (25%).

Brussels airport currently consists of 54 contact gates, and a total of 109 gates.

In 2007, the airport served 17.8 million passengers, an increase of 7% over 2006. The cargo volume in the same year amounted to 780,000 tonnes, an increase of 8.9% over 2006. In 2008, the airport served 18,5 million passengers, which was an increase of 3,7% over the previous year.

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 construction of a new low-cost airlines pier is currently on hold. It will be built roughly where the old south pier used to be. At present, several low-cost airlines including Ryanair and Wizz Air fly to "Brussels South Airport", actually located in Charleroi, 40 km (25 mi) away from Brussels.

The runways

The following runways are available:

Most often, winds are coming from the west so runways 25R and 25L are commonly used.

The frequencies

Note:

Not all frequencies are always in use. EBBR_APP is active most of the time and will take care of EBBR_DEP as well just like EBBU_CTR will take care of both the western and eastern part. When no controller is active, you have to switch to Unicom (frequency 122.800). As of that moment, the pilot is fully responsible for the taxiing, the separation with other planes...

More information about the frequencies can be found on the website of the Belgian division of IVAO: http://www.ivao.be/

Charts

The Brussels charts can be found here http://new.ivao.be/community/downloads/charts

To take-off and land, 2 types of charts are quite important: the SID and STAR charts.

What’s a SID?

An SID or Standard Instrument Departure is an officially published departure route of an airport. This route is announced to the pilots by the controllers as part of the “Clearance”. Pilots can consult these SIDs on their navigational charts per runway (SID RWY 25R, SID RWY 20…). On bigger airplanes, these SIDs are pre-programmed in the FMC or Flight Management Computer. Busy airport can have multiple SIDs. The choice is based on the wind direction, the destination of the plane and the distance with other arriving and departing planes (also called the separation with other planes).

What’s a STAR?

A STAR or Standard Arrival Route is an officially published arrival route of an airport. The last point on a flight plan is usually the beginning of such an arrival route. Every runway has its own STARs so it is important to have a look at them at every destination. These STARs are also in the FMC. Occasionally, the controller will ‘vector’ the plane to separate it from another one. To do this, he will provide a course correction (a new heading) to the pilot and the plane will have to deviate from the standard arrival route.