Noise pollution related to take-offs and landings at Brussels Airport predominantly affected the Belgian capital’s residents, which is feeding community tensions and accusations of "Dutch-speaking domination".
Out of the 104,000 people reported to have trouble sleeping at night due to aircraft take-offs and landings at Brussels Airport, some 60% of them live in the Brussels-Capital Region.
This is according to a new report on the noise impact of the busy airport in Zaventem, reported by the Belga News Agency. The report, compiled each year by an independent aviation consultancy firm, To70, is based on the most recent demographic data.
It found that 104,298 people had their sleep "severely disrupted" in 2025. This represents an increase of 2.5% compared to 2024, when the figure stood at around 101,750. Furthermore, the number of night-time flights to and from Brussels Airport – between 23:00 and 07:00 – has risen by 2.1% over the past year.
The City of Brussels (16,643), Schaerbeek (12,924), Molenbeek-Saint-Jean (10,596) and Evere (7,039) are the most affected municipalities on the list. Next are Zaventem (6,770) and Vilvoorde (5,482), in Flemish Brabant.
A plane flying over houses prior to land on the 07 right track at Brussels National Airport in Zaventem on Saturday 10 June 2006. Credit: Belga
The report comes after north and west Brussels residents reported suffering constant nighttime nuisances due to a new air route flying over the Brussels-Capital Region.
Affected residents say they currently have just three-and-a-half hours of uninterrupted sleep every night the route is operating.
Indeed, the report confirms this. Last year, a notable increase in the number of people with severely disturbed sleep was recorded in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean (+54%) and Koekelberg (+47%), whilst the number fell significantly in Jette (-35%).
This is due to a new landing procedure for arrivals on Runway 07L, which was brought back into use last summer. Under this new procedure, landing aircraft line up for the runway from a greater distance, thereby flying over Molenbeek and Koekelberg.
Under the old procedure, a left-hand turn would be made just before landing, over Jette. Runway 07L was also used more frequently last year than in 2024, and was renovated in August 2025.
'People can no longer sleep'
On Monday, former mayor of Koekelberg and leader of the Socialist Party (PS) in Brussels, Ahmed Laaouej, called on the Federal Mobility Minister Jean-Luc Crucke (Les Engagés) to take immediate action.
"The noise from aircraft flying over Brussels is both intolerable and scandalous. People have had enough and can no longer sleep," he said in a statement.
When quizzed in a committee by François De Smet (DeFI), Minister Crucke conceded that the number of landings on the runway had doubled since 2024, despite its use only usually being invoked in exceptional cases.
Minister of Climate and Mobility Jean-Luc Crucke and Prime Minister Bart De Wever's portrait pictured during a plenary session of the Chamber at the Federal Parliament in Brussels, Thursday 16 April 2026. Credit: Belga / Emile Windal
The minister recognised the inconvenience caused to local residents, but told federal MPs that the use of the runway and landing procedure was due to EU regulations and the weather and wind conditions. He also pledged to carry out more impact studies.
Since the start of 2026, 11% of landings have used Runway 07L, according to data by Skeyes, while a ULB study found that more than 400,000 people are impacted by the noise of planes taking this trajectory.
Community tensions
Yet, with the Flemish Region recently becoming a majority shareholder in the airport, and the Brussels-Capital Region not being a shareholder at all, this situation is engendering distrust and enflaming inter-community tensions.
As an example, Jette, which has seen a huge reduction in residents affected by aircraft noise, is considered one of the most Dutch-speaking municipalities in Brussels. Molenbeek and Koekelberg, on the other hand, are in the top five poorest communes, not just in Brussels, but in the whole country.
In March, all 19 mayors of Brussels' municipalities reached a common agreement to push for a reduction in noise pollution caused by aircraft flying over the capital region. They called for a ban on night flights between 22:00 and 7:00, as is practised by many European airports, and to reduce landings on runways 01 and 07.
Credit: Belga
This week, Federal MP Ridouane Chahid (PS) accused the Federal Government, led by Flemish nationalists N-VA, of having consolidated the interests of Flanders by proposing a senior party figure (and current embattled Pro League CEO) Lorin Parys, to become a board member and future chairman of the airport.
Chahid, a former councillor in the nearby Evere, called the move as being part of a wider "Dutch-speaking domination" in leadership appointments to Belgium's federal institutions, which he says began with the so-called Arizona coalition government.
He accuses French-speaking coalition parties MR and Les Engagés of not having defended the interests of Brussels and Walloon Brabant adequately enough in the airport noise pollution debate, pointing to a wider national trend.
The Brussels Secretary of State for the Environment Ans Persoons (Vooruit) also separately denounced the fact that the public inquiry relating to Brussels Airport's environmental permit was only carried out in Dutch by the Flemish authorities.
"It is not logical that this issue was handled in a single administrative language," she told Bruzz. "This is totally disproportionate given the impact of the environmental permit on the well-being of Brussels residents."
In the first 10 months of 2025, there were also 4,758 violations of Brussels region noise standards, while less than 20% of fines imposed for aircraft noise pollution around Brussels Airport had been collected since the year 2000, Le Soir reported in February this year.
