What does BeCA do to protect the future of Zaventem and what is our position regarding flights over Brussels? This has been a frequently asked question by our members for the past months.

My response might sound shocking, although rational: nothing. Why? Because we are tired of being manipulated by politicians from all sides. We want, first and foremost, a relaxed and politically unbiased work environment, where the safety and technical point of view that we will bring to the table as first end-users and experts will be taken into consideration, rather than being altered and distorted, as it has been in the past.

In 2009, I was heard by the federal police as our association’s President to explain and justify one paragraph taken from one of BeCA’s technical papers, which had been used by an association of residents, out of its original context, with the sole aim of supporting its arguments that the use of a runway, and thereby regular flights over its unhappy activists, might endanger them.

We got to a point where the rational and technical aspects do no longer matter.

And what about the meeting with one ministerial cabinet that concluded by a five-minute presentation of the “new” overflight plan, claiming that “BeCA agrees” and asserting that “Belgocontrol will anyway implement it if they want their money”? This has indeed happened.

We got to a point where the rational (i.e. “maximising jobs and minimising noise pollution for all, no matter the language”) and technical aspects do no longer matter. Politicians, supported by the media, have developed in both linguistic communities a destructive rationale that confronts jobs to quality of life without looking at the operational reality. The only thing that matters is the “triumph” of one’s community, political party and, often, village.

The big opaque political bargaining of these past decades has had and will continue to have intrinsically unstable results, given that it will most probably change in the next elections. Since the use by the federal police of our technical papers, BeCA Executive Committee has decided to involve our association only if we get solid guarantees that our participation will be used honestly by all. And we are still far from that.

You can find here our last letter in Dutch (http://bit.ly/2vpihxK) and French (http://bit.ly/2uupEFc) to Minister Bellot, asking for a stable and clear framework aimed at finding long term solutions. In his written response (http://bit.ly/2vWkd1t) from 6 June 2017, Minister Bellot seems to agree with us.

It is now essential that this independent supervisory authority, as planned within the government agreement, be quickly set up, in order to find a way forward and protect our operational activities in Zaventem, whilst respecting residents from both communities.

Capt. Alain Vanalderweireldt, BeCA President