This Friday was the first big departure day on vacation at Brussels Airport. The departures hall at Zaventem airport was full of people. More than 70,000 passengers passed through. It was the busiest day since the start of the coronavirus pandemic for Brussels Airport. If on the whole everything went well, several flights had to be cancelled. Some passengers who showed up today were unable to board.
Some were even already seated on the plane and had to come out.
Anita, a passenger, had her Brussels Airlines flight to Rome canceled: “We had a flight that normally took off at 2:50 p.m. We arrived more than two hours early. There were terrible queues”. Arrival, on boarding things got tougher. “The girl behind the counter told us the flight was cancelled. We were not warned. We haven’t received any text messages or emails. It is a scandal. They change the schedule all the time.“The lack of flight attendants is believed to be the reason for the cancellation of Ania’s flight.
For his part, Rodrigo has been stranded at Brussels airport since Thursday. “The company put us on the plane which was full. We were locked up for 2h45. It was really shameful on their part. The pilots said that we were not leaving because of the bad weather. A friend was in Frankfurt told me that the weather was magnificent. In the long run, it became a technical problem.”
So what happened? French and German airspace was saturated. In the control towers, coordination was more difficult leading to delays. As for the staff, they cannot stay longer than the regulations allow and they cannot be replaced. At least 7 flights (Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines) were canceled this Friday. They were leaving for Brazil, Nice, Frankfurt, Rome or even Milan.
Passengers were notified late. They still want to leave. Most often, they will enter the proposal for another flight, but if they wish, they are entitled to a refund.
