CHARLEROI AIRPORT - Aéroport de Charleroi Bruxelles - Sud !

Welcome to Brussels South Charleroi Airport.

That is what you read when you arrive for the first time in this small airport located 60km far away from Brussels. This distance can be a small one if we think of big capitals (London, Paris, etc). But in Belgium 60km is a big deal. Actually, if you drive double that distance, you will probably have crossed the whole country.

Being Brussels the Capital of the European Union, you would expect it to have superb connections to its airports. Well, let's be clear. Connections with public transport to the ZAVENTEM Airport are OK; however, connections to Charleroi Airport could not be worse. Only one bus every 45 MINUTES!!!!!.

Despite of the outrageous trip fare (13 euro), the buses sometimes are so full of people that you have to wait the next one, or take a taxi to Charleroi Airport (150 euro approx.) since you have no other choice to get there.

Last month, a friend booked a flight to arrive in Charleroi. His flight was scheduled early in the morning (something like 6:30 am). When the plane arrived to the sky of Belgium, everything looked grey. Yes, grey because of the intense fog that covered the country those days.

The thing is that The Brussels South Airport is not equipped with special anti-fog RADAR systems. In other words. When the weather is foggy, bye bye Charleroi Airport. It is in fact unusable under those weather conditions.

The plane of my friend remained in the sky of Charleroi turning around during almost two hours, waiting for the sky to clear up. Since they were running out of fuel, they were forced to land in the Liege Airport (I call it aerodrome). After that, a Bus took one hour and a half to go there and pick everybody up and bring them to ....Charleroi!!!!!!

I think my friend lost one whole day....he woke up 4:30am to arrive in Brussels at 5:30pm. That was indeed a long day for him.

QUEUES IN BRUSSELS

Queues in Brussels.

I am sure you have experienced them several times in Brussels.

Queues are normal, they happen everywhere. However Brussels has something about queues worth mentioning, and that is: People is used to it, and even worse, I think they like them.

I think that is one of the problem, people is used to it, and they do not complain, and that is why none does anything about it. What was first the chicken or the egg?

Well, believe it or not, I have never seen such a submissiveness for queues anywhere else in the world. There can be queues, but not always. When there are always queues in something, people must complain to the responsible people, otherwise none will move a finger.

Here there is a good example in Brussels: ATMs or Cash dispensers. Not to mention that most restaurants and shops do not accept credit cards, and also not to mention that most of the times these machines do not have more money.

Would you believe that in the whole MIDI train station there is only ONE ATM???

Look at it:




And would you believe in Zaventem international airport, until a few months ago, there were only TWO cash dispensers in the whole airport!!!!! (actually there was a third one in the inside post office, but you could barely see it). Fortunately DEXIA decided to put two or three more down there. But still, I think this is really crazy.

Anyway, until people don’t formally complain about this, it will always be like that.

Need some cash??

just wait...