For the second time this month, long queues at Brussels Airport’s non-Schengen border posts caused ripple delays across the hub on 24 September. Flemish daily Het Nieuwsblad reported that travellers faced waits of up to three hours at the passport desks in Pier B around midday, leading to secondary security holds being opened and several European and intercontinental departures leaving more than 45 minutes behind schedule. Some transfer passengers missed onward flights to North America and the Middle East. Airport operator Brussels Airport Company blamed the congestion on a combination of record late-September traffic—more than 85,000 passengers were booked on Thursday—and teething problems with the new EU Entry/Exit System (EES), which has been fully operational since April. Although EES is designed to speed up processing by replacing manual stamping with biometric kiosks, staff unions say that repeated kiosk reboots and a shortage of border-police officers during shift hand-overs are creating choke points. The federal police confirmed that 12 of the 34 automated gates in the arrival zone were briefly taken offline for software updates, forcing non-EU travellers into the manual lanes. Airlines such as Brussels Airlines and Emirates issued social-media advisories urging passengers to arrive at least four hours before departure. Ground handlers were instructed to rebook tight-connection passengers free of charge. Corporate travel managers should alert assignees that early-autumn passenger peaks—driven by EU institutions resuming full session and several major trade fairs—may persist through mid-October. Fast-track services are currently prioritised for diplomats and Schengen-area nationals, so companies may wish to purchase premium-service vouchers for VIP security and immigration where available. The incident adds pressure on Belgium’s Interior Ministry, which has already been criticised for under-resourcing its border-police contingent ahead of the EES roll-out. Talks between the ministry and public-sector unions on additional hiring are scheduled for 2 October.
Source: Het Nieuwsblad
