Brussels Airport: Passengers rebel causing large disruption

Stranded passengers on a diverted flight to Douala, Cameroon, have caused massive disruption at Brussels International Airport this morning, Le Soir reports.

Flight number SN369 was forced to divert back to Brussels Airport (Zaventem) after experiencing technical problems over Orléans, France. Passengers disembarked at the terminal while the airline looked for alternative transport, which ultimately did not come.

This protest stopped the flow of passengers towards many departure gates, especially for long-distance flights outside of the Schengen area, causing major disruptions.

Most of these passengers were in transit and did not possess a valid visa to enter Belgium, rendering it impossible to transfer them to a local hotel. After waiting all day at the airport on Wednesday, passengers awoke on Thursday hoping to board a replacement aircraft scheduled to leave for Douala. Unfortunately, this flight was also busy and passengers were unable to board. After learning that they could not board the plane, at around 07:00 this morning, some of the stranded passengers decided to block access to concourse B of Brussels Airport, as reported by Brussels Times.

Brussels Airport is having so many problems and bad service cases over the past years. So many strikes are hitting the airport services since many years. It is also very common to have bad luggage delivery services. Waiting times can be over an hour due to mistreated luggages. Boardings and security checks together with passport checks can take also more than an hour due to police, servants strikes. Brussels Airport administration is simply doing very bad to tackle with these problems and Belgian government is totally silent.