Flemish Brabant province

Photo : D.R.

Thanks to its location, the province of Flemish Brabant surrounding that UE capital has become a vital area for both intra-European and international transfers. With 713,500 tonnes of airfreight in 2006, Brussels Airport (Brussels-Zaventem) was the fifth-biggest European airfreight hub for merchandise during this period.
Threatened by the growing dynamism of the Cologne airport, Brussels Airport may fall back a spot in the year or two to come. Explanations? In spring of 2008, DHL transferred a large part of its activities to Leipzig, Germany, leading to a 44% drop in growth in express mail activity at Brussels Airport. Overall, the airport’s specialised airfreight centre (Brucargo) ended 2008 with a total of 661,000 tonnes of freight, or a drop of over 15%, compared to 2007 (785,000 tonnes). With 719,000 tonnes of freight in 2007, Cologne trails just behind – but without taking into the fact that DHL also left Cologne for Leipzig in 2008. The result being that last year, Cologne registered 587,000 tonnes of freight, or not yet enough to worry Flemish Brabant. But recent investments made to bring FedEx to the Cologne airport just may change the situation when the new hub gets to work in 2010 – especially since in July 2009, affected by the crisis, Brussels airport announced a 35% drop in freight.
A simple case of regional competitiveness? In any case, Brussels-Zaventem is going ahead with planned expansions. The new Brucargo West building was inaugurated in late 2008 – the first element in a project that will bring 120,000 m2 of new warehouses to a Brussels Airport freight zone. As an investment of 26 million euros, the building was quickly rented by Belgian Post International, Service Air Cargo, Mozer International, All Freight, UTI and SDV, in offering 30,000 m2 for storage (six football fields!). Finally, one of the runways will be widened by 14 m in order to make room for those mastodons, the Airbus A380 and the Boeing B747/800, in the near future – which, according to the Flemish press, will be 10 or 15 years from now.

Population: 1 060 232
Surface area: 2 106 km2
Air wreight: 713,5 (total goods loaded and unloaded in thousands of tons in 2006)