Brussels Airport entered the busiest stretch of the autumn break on 22 October with a rare operational notice: virtually every public car-park around the terminal was close to capacity. The airport operator attributed the squeeze to overlapping school holidays in Belgium, northern France and the Netherlands, which have pushed daily passenger numbers above 70 000—about 15 % higher than a typical October weekday. In an advisory published on its website and internal operational blog, Brussels Airport Company urged travellers to avoid driving to Zaventem unless they had pre-booked a space. It recommended rail or express coach services instead and reminded corporate travel managers that the drop-off zone remains free for the first ten minutes. Staff were asked to use remote lots served by shuttles so that short-stay capacity could be prioritised for departing passengers. For mobility and relocation teams the warning is more than a parking inconvenience. Road congestion on the A201 access road added up to 25 minutes to the normal drive time during the morning peak, forcing several airlines to keep check-in open longer to avoid mis-connections. Employers with assignees travelling this week have been encouraged to factor in the additional surface-access time and to reimburse rail tickets where possible. While the notification only runs "up to and including Thursday 22 October", airport officials told the business community that demand is likely to remain elevated until the Dutch-language school break ends on 1 November. Companies arranging on-site meetings at the airport district have therefore been advised to arrange pooled transport or schedule appointments outside peak arrival windows. The episode underlines a broader global-mobility trend: airport bottlenecks are increasingly shifting landside rather than airside as post-pandemic passenger volumes rebound faster than ground-transport infrastructure. Travel managers may need to revisit door-to-door journey timings, even in markets—like Belgium—where flight operations themselves are running smoothly.
