Business and leisure travellers faced fresh disruption on Friday after air-traffic controllers employed by skeyes, Belgium’s air-navigation service provider, walked off the job for a second consecutive night at Brussels South Charleroi Airport (CRL). The industrial action, which runs every night between 22:00 and 08:00 from 16 September through 10 October, led the airport to cancel 46 services on 18 September and to warn of ‘similar or worse’ disruption over the weekend. Airlines including Ryanair, Wizz Air and TUI fly Belgium—which together account for over 90 percent of movements at Charleroi—have been forced either to reposition aircraft before the strike window or scrap rotations altogether, stranding crews and passengers. At the heart of the dispute is the calculation of night-shift premiums. Unions argue that controllers at CRL—Belgium’s second-busiest passenger airport and a key base for low-cost carriers—receive lower compensation for unsocial hours than their colleagues at Brussels Zaventem. Talks earlier this month failed to produce an accord, prompting the 24-night strike notice. Management insists that aligning the premium would cost “several million euros” and must be negotiated within a broader productivity deal. For globally mobile employees and companies routing travellers through Belgium, the timing could hardly be worse. Autumn is peak season for trade fairs and EU-institution meetings in Brussels, and Charleroi handles a growing share of point-to-point traffic from secondary European cities. Travel-management companies are advising clients to book flexible tickets into Brussels Zaventem (BRU) or even regional airports in Lille and Eindhoven, although hotel and ground-transport capacity around those gateways is already tightening. Both the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs updated their travel advisories on 17-18 September, citing the strike and urging passengers to reconfirm itineraries. Travellers whose flights are cancelled are entitled to rerouting or reimbursement under EU261, but compensation for consequential costs such as missed meetings is contract-dependent. Employers with posted workers in Belgium should remind staff to keep receipts and to monitor overnight schedule changes, as return sectors are frequently axed when inbound aircraft cannot depart before 22:00. The episode underscores Belgium’s vulnerability to labour unrest in critical mobility infrastructure. In the past 18 months, skeyes’ industrial relations have already prompted three nationwide ATC stoppages and multiple targeted walkouts, leading the Flemish employers’ federation VOKA to call for minimum-service legislation. No such law currently exists, meaning travellers may face rolling disruption until an agreement is reached—or the strike notice expires on 10 October.
Source: Anadolu Agency
