red-on-yello,
you told it, politicians! And this is all my point. Before the politicians got involved 20 was not used, at least not as far as I can remember. And I have been here for 18 years.
I gladly accepted the noise of landing a/c because I knew it and it was my responsible decision. Night T.O. are not, nor 20 usage.
I am sad to say but BRU lost its window of opportunity. Can you believe what this airport is sitting at the core of Europe? Now dependent on cargo & charter traffic, i.e. all the worst traffic one can expect. And this only 8 km off Brussels Market Square?!
I believe the solution is, build a new one. Jacques Delors' solution to European unemployment was major construction works... linked to transportation. Just check out Dubai.
ps. I am not complaining about motorways (I live less than 1 mile from one) nor train nor noisy neighbours because it is not continuous. Just take an example: we get T.O. on Sundays SYSTEMATICALLY between 5:12 & 17:00. One morning I counted 20 T.O. between 6:45 and 7:45. This is supposed on one of these days we are supposed to rest.
I repeat, BRU is the wrong place to set it up this way.
One last one - as a french speaking person I was denied a job at SN because there were not enough Flemish speaking employees. Well, now would be the time to open up employment for French speaking people at BRU. This would be a fair position rather than imposing additional noise on people who are only bearing the annoyance with no compensations. I wanted to leave here but my real estate has lost 20% of its value, as nobody wants to come & live here.