Brussels Airport, Belgium’s main international hub, is entering its busiest fortnight of the year and is already feeling the strain. In a statement on 29 June 2026 the airport operator warned that « exceptionally high passenger volumes » are expected from now through the first week of July, when many Belgian schools break up and a wave of EU holiday-makers head abroad. Photographs taken in the departures hall on Monday morning show snaking queues at the non-Schengen passport control; Anadolu Agency reporters measured waits of more than two hours for some long-haul flights. Several factors are conspiring to stretch the border filter. First, the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) – which records biometrics for all third-country nationals – has lengthened the average transaction time at each booth. Second, Belgium’s federal police are still recruiting seasonal staff after an unprecedented spring of wild-cat strikes among air-traffic controllers and ground-handling crews. Finally, a glitch that took half of the automated e-gates offline on Sunday (28 June) created a backlog that rolled into Monday’s peak. The airport says it has now restored all 24 automated e-gates and has redeployed plain-clothes police officers to staff manual booths, but concedes that bottlenecks are likely to recur at the start of each « wave » (05.00–08.00 and 11.00–14.00). Travellers are being urged to arrive at least three hours before long-haul departures, to keep liquids in a transparent 1-litre bag, and – if they hold an EU passport – to use the dedicated electronic lanes to free up staff for third-country passengers.
![Brussels Airport urges travellers to arrive early as summer holiday rush triggers long passport queues]()
For passengers who still need to arrange visas or finalize travel documents, VisaHQ offers a quick online solution that can be completed well before reaching the airport. Its Belgium portal (https://www.visahq.com/belgium/) provides step-by-step guidance on Schengen and other entry requirements, digital application tools, and real-time support—helping travelers minimize paperwork surprises and focus on navigating the peak-season crowds.
Airlines have been asked to stagger check-in opening times to avoid sudden surges. For multinational companies the warning matters. Brussels is a major hub for NATO, EU institutions and hundreds of HQs that rotate staff in on short notice. Immigration lawyers say missed flights can jeopardise work-permit compliance because Belgian « B-cards » (the local residence permits) are only issued once the assignee has physically entered the country. « Our advice to assignees arriving this week is simple: build in extra buffer time or fly the night before a critical meeting, » says Sofie Claes, mobility partner at Deloitte Belgium. The congestion is also a stress-test for the Schengen area’s pledge of fluid cross-border travel. If Belgium cannot process departing travellers fast enough, neighbouring France and the Netherlands – themselves under summer pressure – may be forced to cap feeder train services, a step that would ripple across corporate travel itineraries. With the EU’s EES grace period ending in September, airports across the bloc will watch Brussels closely to see whether software tweaks and extra staffing can bring queue times back under 30 minutes.
For passengers who still need to arrange visas or finalize travel documents, VisaHQ offers a quick online solution that can be completed well before reaching the airport. Its Belgium portal (https://www.visahq.com/belgium/) provides step-by-step guidance on Schengen and other entry requirements, digital application tools, and real-time support—helping travelers minimize paperwork surprises and focus on navigating the peak-season crowds.
Airlines have been asked to stagger check-in opening times to avoid sudden surges. For multinational companies the warning matters. Brussels is a major hub for NATO, EU institutions and hundreds of HQs that rotate staff in on short notice. Immigration lawyers say missed flights can jeopardise work-permit compliance because Belgian « B-cards » (the local residence permits) are only issued once the assignee has physically entered the country. « Our advice to assignees arriving this week is simple: build in extra buffer time or fly the night before a critical meeting, » says Sofie Claes, mobility partner at Deloitte Belgium. The congestion is also a stress-test for the Schengen area’s pledge of fluid cross-border travel. If Belgium cannot process departing travellers fast enough, neighbouring France and the Netherlands – themselves under summer pressure – may be forced to cap feeder train services, a step that would ripple across corporate travel itineraries. With the EU’s EES grace period ending in September, airports across the bloc will watch Brussels closely to see whether software tweaks and extra staffing can bring queue times back under 30 minutes.
