Minister wants shorter rows at border control Brussels Airport: « Waiting times of a few hours are harmful to the image of our country »
It is true that our national airport had made a name for himself in many international travelers in recent years as with the longest waiting times of almost all of Europe. Every week there are news items with photos of long rows of passengers who often have to sit down for more than three hours and thus threaten to miss their flight.
But the biggest problems, as we learn, would now play at the border control of the upcoming passengers of major flights from America, Africa and Asia. A working visit by Bernard Quintin on Friday at the airport also made it clear to the minister that it cannot continue like this.
Annoying and harmful
« Zaventem is an international calling card for our country, » says Quintin. « Waiting times of two hours or more are not only annoying for travelers, but also harmful to the image of Brussels and Belgium. We have to tackle this, » he says.
The minister now mainly looks at the airport police to take measures. Before the big vacation, the high season, he wants to see a sensitive improvement. « I want quick results in the field. At the same time, with this government we are also going to invest structurally in strengthening border control capacity at Brussels Airport, » it still sounds.
Quintin already signed a Royal Decree (KB) in which so-called Frontex agents, who monitor European external borders, will be deployed at the airport. The government suggests that a better spread of the large intercontinental flights may also be looked at to lower the peaks and pressure on border control.
© Belga
Understaffing
The long waiting times are an old very. Not only the police personnel, but even Brussels Airport, has been complaining for years the structural understaffing of the police force at the airport, the direct cause of the long waiting times.
The police officer is only filled in for 80 percent, we learn from a good source. Although 533 agents are provided at the airport, there are hardly 423 working, and according to the trade unions it would be much less. « For a morning shift on the border you should be with at least 28 people. If we get twenty, you can speak of a success. An afternoon shift? 14 instead of the at least 22? The night shift? Normally 8 people but we are often only 4, » it sounds with the police personnel.
Five hours and longer
« We hope that the federal police will quickly meet the minister and send men to the airport, » says the staff. « Because otherwise we do not exclude the fact that in the coming summer months it will be completely in the hundred, with unseen waiting times of five hours and longer. »
The situation is so serious that the officers still present put almost everything on the border control, they say themselves. « Illegal, homeless, drug trafficking. That should be the priority of the airport police, but we now often use patrols that are provided for for the border control. In this way, there is not enough work on those other problems. »
Read too. « I never fly at this airport »: sit down for two hours at the border control at Brussels Airport
Quintin visiting Brussels Airport. – © RR
Summer plan
The federal police answers by e -mail. « We have been working with a special summer plan for several years, in which extra police officers, who normally do not do border controls, ensure that all border control posts are manned, » it sounds.
« In this way we try to absorb the peak moments on which many flights from outside the Schengen zone arrive at the same time as well as possible. Even for this summer a concrete plan is now being worked out, with as many available resources as possible. It is indeed important that waiting times at the border control are as short as possible ».
