Brussels Airport aircraft noise: flight paths, runways and night flights

Three runways and a preferential system

Brussels Airport has two parallel runways running roughly east to west, 07L/25R to the north and 07R/25L to the south, and a third, 01/19, that crosses them running roughly north to south.

Unlike airports that simply turn round with the wind, Brussels follows a preferential runway system: a fixed table of which runways to use for take-offs and landings, by day of the week and time of day, applied by the air traffic controller skeyes. By day the standard is take-offs from 25R and landings on 25L and 25R, so planes land and take off towards the west. Skeyes leaves the table only when it has to: when the crosswind reaches 20 knots or the tailwind on runway 25 is more than 7 knots, gusts included, in low cloud or poor visibility, with wind shear or thunderstorms, or during runway works.

Runway 25 may be used with up to 7 knots of tailwind, while runway 07 and runway 01 allow at most 3 knots, so the airport stays on 25 through light easterly winds. Over the last year, Brussels was mainly landing towards the west on 78% of days and towards the east, on runway 07, on 11%. On the other 12% it changed during the day. Easterly days come in spells, mostly in spring and summer: 30% of days in April 2026 and nearly one in five in July and August, but none in October and November 2025 or in January and September 2026. For why the wind decides so much, see why flight paths change with the wind.

Where landing planes fly

Landing planes line up with the runway well before they reach the airport and descend on a straight line, so the same streets hear them at the same height every time.

On most days landings come from the east, over Flemish Brabant. Runway 25L, the southern runway, took 66% of them over the year. Its approach passes Rotselaar 15 km out at about 2,550 ft, then Wijgmaal, Tildonk, Winksele at about 1,400 ft and Erps-Kwerps in Kortenberg at 750 to 1,050 ft. The approach to 25R, the northern runway, runs a couple of kilometres further north, over Werchter, Wakkerzeel and Wespelaar in Haacht, and Buken, Nederokkerzeel and Berg in Kampenhout.

On easterly days, nearly all landings use runway 07L and come in from the west, straight over Brussels: Dilbeek 15 km out at about 2,650 ft, then Molenbeek-Saint-Jean at 2,150 ft, Koekelberg at 1,800 ft, the north of the City of Brussels at 1,450 ft, Schaerbeek at 1,100 ft, Evere at 750 ft and Diegem. Neither 07 runway has an instrument landing system. Since the runway works of summer 2025, landings on 07L have followed a satellite-guided (RNP) approach, which puts them on the same line every time.

Landings on runway 01 come from the south, over Hoeilaart, Watermael-Boitsfort and Auderghem, then Kraainem at 800 to 1,150 ft and Zaventem. Over the year, runway 01 in this direction carried about 4% of the airport's traffic.

At 10 km out, a landing plane is typically 1,750 to 1,800 ft up on every approach. A large jet at that height is loud well to either side of the line, so a house 1 km off the centre line still hears every one.

Where take-offs go

On most days, take-offs leave from runway 25R towards the west. They are about 1,800 ft up 2 km past the runway and over 4,000 ft by 8 km, and they split onto several routes. The largest group, over a third, turns left and heads south, passing Wezembeek-Oppem at about 4,550 ft. About a quarter head west, passing Strombeek-Bever at about 3,850 ft, and the rest fan out onto other routes. On weekday nights and some weekend periods, flights heading south and east may take off from runway 19 instead, while aircraft over 200 tonnes always use 25R.

On easterly days, take-offs head east, and four in five continue north-east, passing Veltem-Beisem in Herent at about 3,850 ft.

The difference in height is large. At 8 km from the runway, a landing plane is typically about 1,400 to 1,450 ft up, while a take-off is at about 4,000 ft or more.

Night flights and quiet hours

A large share of Brussels Airport's traffic flies at night. Over the last year an average night, from 23:00 to 07:00, had 74 flights, 13% of the day's traffic; at Schiphol the share is 5%. The busiest night had 117. Summer nights are much busier than winter ones: 92 to 94 a night in July and August, against 61 to 64 from November to March.

The rules limit the night rather than close it:

• Night slots: at most 16,000 a year, of which no more than 5,000 for take-offs, under a ministerial decree of 21 January 2009. The slot night runs from 22:45 to 05:40 for departures and from 23:10 to 06:05 for arrivals.
• Weekend nights: no take-off slots from 01:00 to 06:00 on Saturday mornings, or from midnight to 06:00 on Sunday and Monday mornings. Since 29 March 2026 there are also no landing slots from 01:00 to 05:00 on those three mornings, except for the quietest aircraft.
• Noisy aircraft: from 23:00 to 06:00 no aircraft above a noise quota count of 8 may land or take off, and aircraft that only just meet the older Chapter 3 noise standard, with a cumulative margin of less than 13 EPNdB, are barred from 23:00 to 07:00.
• Runways at night: the preferential system spreads the night. On weekday nights take-offs use 25R, or runway 19 for flights heading south and east, and landings mainly use 25R. On Saturday nights take-offs and landings use 25L, and on Sunday nights runway 19, with planes landing from the north.

The Brussels-Capital Region also sets its own limits on aircraft noise measured on the ground, under an order of 27 May 1999. Brussels Environment measures it at stations under the flight paths and sanctions airlines that exceed them.

Our recordings show flights in every hour of the night: about 13 between 23:00 and midnight, 9 in the next hour, then 3 to 6 an hour until 06:00, when it jumps to 27. On a typical night the longest stretch without a landing or take-off is under an hour. Between 23:00 and 06:00 our sample days average about 44 flights a night, which over a year is roughly the 16,000 the slot limit allows. For how Brussels compares with curfews elsewhere, see night flight rules, curfews and quotas.

Busy days and quiet days

Brussels Airport counted 198,000 commercial flights in 2025, about 540 a day. Our count is a little higher, about 560 a day, because it includes every recorded flight, not only commercial ones, and covers a later twelve months. January is the quietest month, with 470 flights a day, and July the busiest, with 626; the busiest day of the year was 3 July 2026, with 683. Thursdays and Fridays are the busiest days of the week and Saturdays the quietest.

The mix of aircraft is changing. Brussels Airport says 42% of its flights in 2025 used the most noise-efficient aircraft, against 20% in 2016, helped by airport charges under which the quietest aircraft pay up to 20 times less than the noisiest.

The flight path dispute and the airport's permit

Where planes fly over Brussels and the Flemish municipalities around it has been disputed for years, between the Brussels region, Flanders, the federal government and residents, and often in court. Two questions are open at the end of September 2026.

Landings over Brussels on 07L. The satellite-guided approach to runway 07L, first used during the runway works of summer 2025 and continued afterwards as a test phase, puts easterly-day landings on one line over Dilbeek, Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, Koekelberg, Schaerbeek and Evere. In June 2026 the Brussels government decided to take the federal state to court over it, and in August a group of 42 families from Dilbeek, Lennik and Roosdaal also went to court. The test phase was extended until 1 October 2026, the date by which the federal mobility minister aimed to settle how the runways are used.

The airport's environmental permit. The Flemish permit of 29 March 2024 would have capped flights, at 218,000 in 2025 rising to 240,000 in 2032, and required 30% fewer people highly annoyed and highly sleep-disturbed by 2032 than in 2019. In July 2025 the Council for Permit Disputes annulled it, because restrictions like these first need the EU's balanced approach procedure. The Flemish and federal governments started that procedure in January 2026, with the same 30% target, and the Flemish environment minister has until 30 June 2029 to decide again. Meanwhile the airport operates as before.

Complaints, insulation and help

To complain, use the complaint form of the federal government's airport ombudsman service, the Ombudsdienst voor de luchthaven Brussel-Nationaal (Service de Médiation pour l'Aéroport de Bruxelles-National), at airportmediation.be: go to Contact and choose to file a complaint. It is independent, and it handles complaints from residents and municipalities and publishes information on flight paths and nuisance. If you live in the Brussels-Capital Region, you can also report aircraft noise to Brussels Environment through the IrisBox form. It does not handle individual complaints, but it keeps the reports in a register that it analyses and passes to the region and the federal services.

To check a flight, the Brussels Airport Traffic Control website, batc.be, shows the runways in use and air traffic in real time.

For insulation, help depends on the region. In the Brussels-Capital Region, the Renolution renovation premiums contribute to acoustic insulation of walls, floors and ceilings, with a bonus for acoustic windows and doors, and the amounts depend on income. In Flanders, the noise action plan for the airport for 2025 to 2029 works towards insulation standards for new homes in the most exposed area.