An Irish-Dutch consortium has offered to form an alliance with the Belgian Government to operate the airports of Amsterdam, Brussels and Charleroi as a single entity.
The consortium involves Amsterdam Schiphol of the Netherlands and Aer Rianta of Ireland - each with a 50% share.
The alliance says that its proposal answers "capacity problems" in the region. Schiphol has a growing capacity shortage, in contrast with Brussels Zaventem. With a fifth runway under construction already booked to capacity, Schiphol is seeing some traffic overflowing to nearby Brussels. EVA Air of Taiwan has already decided to establish its European air-freight hub at Zaventem Airport for capacity reasons.
A new satellite airport for Schiphol is one solution under scrutiny by the Dutch transport ministry. Meanwhile, the consortium is proposing that Schiphol and Zaventem should work together. Spare capacity at Zaventem would be used to take part of Schiphol's intercontinental traffic, mainly to Africa and South America, creating extra capacity at Schiphol.
Dubbing itself "Brussels South", Gosselies Airport near Charleroi is included in the proposal. With a limited number of charter flights, it has recently attracted a scheduled service from Dublin by Ryanair. Some 50km (27nm) south of Brussels, Gosselies is linked to Zaventem by motorway. Under the alliance scheme Gosselies would be dedicated to charter, private, and business flights.
Belgian regional airports Liege and Ostend are also mentioned. Liege, chosen by parcel carrier TNT as its new hub, is earmarked as a "dedicated parcel-services airport". Ostend is trying to sell itself as a dedicated air-freight airport.
Belgium's transport ministry declines to comment. The Belgians may partially privatise Zaventem and the Dutch expect to privatise Schiphol this year.
Source: Flight International
