Although there are four airports in Belgium neighbouring Amsterdam Rotterdam Charles De Gaulle Düsseldorf Lille Luxembourg and Frankfurt all take away some not insignificant traffic
The opposite is also true. FIVE Belgian airports are also taking away passengers from neighbouring countries.
e.g. Number of Dutch passengers at Antwerp airport is +10% and likely to grow,especially when the Dutch government will increase their taxrates on departing passengers soon, ANR having the cheapest airport carparking rates in the Benelux,and number of offered destinations out of ANR growing every season.
Similarly ,also OST is gaining more and more passengers from Northern-France and the Netherlands.
As stated before ,the reinstatement of a direct airlink between OST and a UK airport offering also some connection possibilities to other cities, would defenitely be of added value to the region. e.g. SEN-OST would be the fastest routing between London+counties NE of LON and Flanders and v.v. Some connecting flights to MAN,DUB,GLA,EDI,JER,BFS,... could make it a profitable operation. Chunnel is an alternative indeed,but not the best one in terms of total door-to-door traveltime and even total price.