Passenger flights to resume in Brussels

Associated Press

BRUSSELS

Partial, symbolic airline service was to begin today at Brussels Airport after a 12-day shutdown of passenger flights caused by a deadly bombing attack, the airport’s chief executive said Saturday.

Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport Co., said the Brussels Airlines flights to Athens, Turin in Italy and Faro in Portugal, were chiefly symbolic.

Effective Monday, Belgium’s biggest airport should be back at about 20 percent of capacity and able to process 800 passengers an hour.

It has been closed since devastating suicide bombings in the airport’s main terminal and a Brussels subway train killed 32 people and wounded 270 on March 22.

Speaking at a joint news conference, Feist called it “a sign of hope” and a demonstration of “shared will” that even partial passenger service could resume so soon after what he called “the darkest days in the history of aviation in Belgium.”

The March 22 attacks, in which three suicide bombers also died, were claimed by the Islamic State group. To minimize the chances of a repeat, Belgian Federal Police spokesman Michael Jonniaux said new security measures have been ordered at the airport.