Brussels Airport
international airport northeast of Brussels, Belgium
Brussels Airport (IATA: BRU, ICAO: EBBR) is the main international airport of Belgium. It is located in the municipality of Zaventem in Flemish Brabant, 12 km (7 miles) northeast of Brussels. Also informally known as Brussels-National Airport or Brussels-Zaventem Airport, Brussels Airport handled more than 26 million passengers in 2019, making it the 26th-busiest airport in Europe. It is home to around 260 companies, together directly employing 20,000 people and serves as the home base for Brussels Airlines and TUI fly Belgium. The airport covers 1,245 hectares (3,076 acres) and contains three runways.
On 22 March 2016, the airport's departures hall was severely damaged by two terrorist bomb blasts. The airport was closed until 3 April 2016, when it was reopened with temporary facilities at less than 20% of its previous capacity. It has since returned to full operations, with the same year record of 90,000 passengers on 29 July 2016. In 2019 the airport handled it's busiest day ever with 96,000 passengers on 2 August.
The airport is owned primarily by the Flemish and Belgian government, who own 39% and 25% respectively.
“Brussels Airport” enters the record as international airport northeast of Brussels, Belgium. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Brussels, Airport and international can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Brussels Airport” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Brussels, Airport and international provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28934. VIAF identifies the subject as 839153716395758820001. Authority coordinates are 50.901, 4.484. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2019 and 2016.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Brussels Airport” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.