Brussels Airport Closes for 2 Hours on Controller Strike

Brussels Airport, Belgium’s largest, will close because of an air-traffic controllers’ strike at 6:45 p.m., as European Union leaders prepare to converge on Belgium for a two-day summit that starts tomorrow.

This “first strike action” will target a “complete closure of airspace” until 8:45 p.m., “and then a gradual reopening,” said Kurt Callaerts, a labor leader in the Confederation of Christian Unions that called the strike. Belgium’s other main labor groups didn’t backed the action.

An EU official said the organizers of the summit, which begins with a ceremony in Ypres tomorrow to mark the start of World War I, don’t foresee any complications for now. Brussels Airport said it expects to learn this evening if strikes are planned for tomorrow.

The Belgian strike comes after similar action by a union in France that led Ryanair Holdings Plc to cancel about 15 percent of more than 1,600 scheduled flights today, the company said. France’s main air traffic control union SNCTA retracted a strike warning on June 22.

Melchior Wathelet, the Belgian government’s mobility chief, hopes that the Confederation of Christian Unions will realize that the strike is premature and return to the negotiating table, the Belga news agency reported.

Spokespeople for Brussels Airlines NV, which has its hub in the Belgian capital, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Second Stoppage

A second two-hour work-stoppage is expected to start at 2 a.m. tomorrow, said Christian Delcourt, a spokesman for the airport in Liege, a major cargo hub. TNT Express NV, which moves cargo through Liege mainly between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., is developing a plan to work around the strike, said spokeswoman Veronique Simons.

“While strike action by one of the French air traffic controllers’ unions is ongoing, Belgian air traffic controllers are preparing to stop work from tonight onwards,” the Association of European Airlines said in a statement. “The reason for this social unrest is linked to the self-interest of the unions, which refuse to accept much needed efficiency improvements to their working practices.”