Airport boss demands high-speed trains at Zaventem
High-speed trains must stop again at Brussels Airport as soon as possible. ‘The rails are already in place. It’s just a matter of ambition’, says Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport. After the heavy blows of the corona crisis, the airport boss is aiming for a return to profit in 2022.
A year and a half ago, Feist spoke to us in the offices of Brussels Airport. Behind him lay a desolately empty tarmac and there was hardly any activity. That snapshot illustrated how disastrous the corona year 2020 would be financially. Brussels Airport received 6.7 million passengers that year – compared to 26.4 million in record year 2019 – and 147 million euros in red at the end of the year. The year before, there was still 76 million profit from the income statement.
The essence
- Arnaud Feist, the CEO of Brussels Airport, advocates an HST connection at the airport.
- According to him, Brussels Airport is struggling in this area from the competition, including Schiphol.
- The airport should clock in at 9.5 million passengers this year, significantly more than in 2020 (6.7 million) but far below the record set in 2019 (26.4 million).
- Brussels Airport will still suffer a lot this year. Feist hopes for a return to profit in 2022.
Feist is now speaking to us in the same chair as a year and a half ago. In the background is still the same asphalt, but this time with more activity. One corona year is not the other. “We will end 2021 with about 9.5 million passengers, about 50 percent more than in 2020,” he says. Cargo is growing by a third compared to 2020. ‘The recovery is there, but it is progressing very slowly.’ Since the beginning of September, all employees of the company have returned to work and are even being recruited for the time being. “The system of temporary unemployment was a blessing,” says the airport boss.
Holidays
The positive trends since the summer seem to continue in the rest of the year and early 2022. ‘The Belgians want to go on holiday. The Christmas holidays are looking good. And we hear that reservations are already coming in for Easter and next year’s summer holidays,” Feist said (the conversation took place before Wednesday’s Consultation Committee).
He does not want to give many details about how this will translate financially. The turnover of 2021? That would be roughly equal to the number of passengers. He is not yet counting on a profit. That will be ‘hopefully’ before 2022, if the pandemic does not spread, at least . ‘This year the loss will still amount to tens of millions of euros.’
There is no room for a dividend. That is for the second time a line through the account of the new shareholders who came on board at the end of 2019. But our shareholders are thinking long-term. They are aware of the elaborated steps we are doing to overcome this crisis,” says Feist.
TGVs
In order to connect even more passengers to Brussels, to offer them more services and to be even more sustainable, the CEO of Brussels Airport advocates connecting the airport to the HST or high-speed network. ‘Passengers getting off the plane should be able to take a train that will take them to Paris, Amsterdam or Cologne. Switching is not practical in Brussels South.’
The Belgians want to go on holiday. The Christmas holidays are looking good in that regard. And we hear that reservations are already coming in for Easter and next year’s summer vacation.
According to Feist, the financial picture has not been reached because of the problem in the HST file. ‘The rails are already in place. We have a train station below the airport. But it’s a matter of ambition.’ According to him, the plans must be accelerated, because the competition is not standing still. ‘Schiphol will offer HST connections to six European cities, including Brussels, in the medium term. Brussels South, easy to understand.’
Are there already consultations with the NMBS about the file? Yes, confirm Feist and Sophie Dutordoir, are equals on the Belgian railways. “The NMBS is in regular and constructive contact with the top of Brussels Airport to ensure that the airport is used as optimally as possible,” says the top woman of the NMBS. Dutordoir does not want to go into further detail.
Today, more than 80 Belgian cities are connected to the airport and more than 360 trains run daily, twelve per hour, to and from the airport.