BRUSSELS (AP) — Partial, symbolic airline service will begin today at Brussels Airport after a 12-day shutdown of passenger flights caused by a deadly bombing attack, the airport’s chief executive said Saturday.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Partial, symbolic airline service will begin today at Brussels Airport after a 12-day shutdown of passenger flights caused by a deadly bombing attack, the airport’s chief executive said Saturday.
Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport Co., said the Brussels Airlines flights to Athens, Turin in Italy and Faro in Portugal, the first of which he said should take off around 2 p.m., were chiefly symbolic.
Effective Monday, Belgium’s biggest airport should be back at around 20 percent of capacity and able to process 800 passengers an hour.
It has been closed since devastating suicide bombings in the airport’s main terminal and a Brussels subway train killed 32 people and wounded 270 on March 22.
Speaking at a joint news conference, Feist called it “a sign of hope” and a demonstration of “shared will” that even partial passenger service could resume so soon following what he called “the darkest days in the history of aviation in Belgium.”
He said he was expecting the formal go-ahead from the Belgian government later Saturday. The March 22 attacks, in which three suicide bombers also died, were claimed by the Islamic State group.