Brussels Zaventem Airport

✅ Verified Review | I like Brussels airport. It is easy to get between terminals, there are a number of decent food and drink options, and the staff are pleasant and multi-lingual. My one gripe concerns check-in: numbers for flights are given many hours in advance that correspond to rows of counters, but they are not always manned until two hours before the flight. There is sometimes no indication where to queue and no dividers or lanes. People for various flights line up and ask each other if they are waiting in the right spot. The ground personnel seem to be local and follow the airlines different schedules, setting things up a few minutes before the time indicated by each. Whoever is responsible should realize that many people are told to show up 3 hours ahead for international flights. There should be signs and lanes set up for all flights by then regardless - and a sign telling people when check-in will begin would be nice, too.

✅ Verified Review | My intra-Schengen departure was quite easy. Firstly, the airport is very easy to access by train from Brussels or even other cities (just remember to scan your ticket to exit at the airport station - and it seems like the scanners don't work very well). Check-in and security were fast. The late-afternoon crowds weren't big but it got a bit crowded due to funnelling everyone through shops at several locations - and the right way to go is so unintuitive that they have big signs telling you to go through the shops. The airport is clean and full of restaurants and many toilets. Power points are mainly found in restaurants. There is decent free wifi but there's an oppressive sign-up process to ensure that the government can monitor everything you do - make sure to use a VPN.

Brussels is an excellent airport all around, with the security-clearance area note-worthy for its spaciousness and efficiency. The new "connector" area might resemble a modern shopping centre, but they have retained just enough of that old-fashioned glamour of flying. Good restaurants, comfortable seating, exceptionally clean, excellent views of tarmac activity, interesting architectural design, good signage; the only negatives are the relatively long distances to gates and a drab check-in area. My experience with check-in queuing has not been positive (twice this year), but I blame that on the airlines. A breeze to fly through.

✅ Verified Review | No good for travelling with young children. I was transiting through Brussels airport twice in April 2017 with my 7 month old son and was quite shocked how unsuitable the airport was for travellers with small children. The nursing rooms are hard stainless steel tables and only cold water is available. There's no chair in the nursing rooms so that you can sit and breastfeed and there's no family/breastfeeding rooms at all so had to breastfeed at the gate area. On one of our transits I asked one of the restaurants if they could heat up some food for my son which they couldn't, so all in all im not all happy with Brussels airport facilities. Will recommend avoiding this airport when travelling with small children.

✅ Verified Review | Flying in to Brussel from the busy and well run Airport in Abu Dhabi just exaggerated the extreme understaffing at Brussels Airport that others before me have clearly noted. Both my family and a large group of passengers in transit from one plane to another had to queue up to watch one security lane out of 10 being manned to re-check everyone. I wonder what they were expecting to find, as everyone had been checked before entering the plane they came from anyway. One officer spent her time doing some kind of contamination check by running paper pieces over people and putting them into a fancy machine. At least, upon exiting the security we were greeted by friendly passport control that helped on the mood with a friendly welcome. No queue on the 2 passport boots of course, when one security lane created a huge bottleneck. Further on, in the shopping hall, a large group of Q4S security employees were standing in circle and having some pep-talk with a manager, and it was very difficult not to shout comments that they should get moving and go work instead of just standing around trying to look important. The security delay just ruined the stay at Brussels Airport, we really had just time to rush to our connecting flight because of the long walking distances, but we sat down at the cafeteria to calm ourself with a beer and some food, fully intent to in worst case go home by rental car rather than let Q4S destroy the day. The grumpy man at the register did not help with the mood either. Illustratingly enough, the sign in the cafe's corner cleaning station said: "Please bring your tray here, we'll do the dishes" further illustrating that this airport is all about squeezing pennies out of passengers, not delivering service and creating work for people. We ignored the sign and left our tray on the table and ran to catch our flight. Just to make our day perfect, all the 3 toilets we passed on the way to gate were closed for cleaning at the same time (without any visual sign of any actual cleaning work being done except at one of them).

✅ Verified Review | Very modern building when you are in the terminal. Easy to find your gate. Friendly, helpful staff. High security. There are places where it is busy in moments, but you can find rest in other areas. The beverages and food were wonderful. Great Belgian products and beers. I was lucky I had Finnair for the Check-in as it took only 15 minutes, while the popular airlines had a check-in lines were much longer.

✅ Verified Review | Arrived at the airport by train and my first impression was that they have upped their security quite a bit. I went through a total of 5 Checkpoint (+ scanning) and I must admit I was impressed by the smoothness of it all. I took me about 35 minutes from my arrival at the airport to get to my gate and write this review. No queues at security or passport checkpoint. Good visibility of supporting staff, friendly check in staff. Departure gates could use some extra chairs and the sockets didn't work. I experienced these issues with previous departures as well. Good and reliable Wifi.

Brussels airport is modern and good and check in was fast - benefitting from being not too much traffic. Security was enhanced but many staff worked so it remains efficiently speedy. But two factors that I consider inadequate. The first is that there is no internet (or too slow to connect), and the second, was that if you arrive by bus or to the parking lot you need to walk to the third level for check in, no elevator nor escalator available. Because of this, the ranking is low.

I transited through Brussels twice over the space of a long weekend, having to cross from the B to A terminals on the outward journey, then vice versa on my return. The transit procedure was actually very easy and very well signposted. There is even a video you watch on the airport website to familiarise yourself with the airport in advance. The security and passport control queues took less than 5 minutes each, so maybe I was lucky. Like many airports these days, once through security you have to walk through the Duty Free shop to actually get to the departures area. There are numerous other shops, bars and restaurants so plenty of things to do if you have a long layover. There are also sleeper chairs and big comfy settees dotted around if you have time for a sleep, although these were all taken so maybe they could do with some more. I had breakfast at a place close to my departure gate in Terminal A and it cost 8 euros which I didn't think was unreasonable. There is free wifi throughout the airport which worked OK, as well as charging ports on the seating at the gates which is a nice touch. Overall, my transit worked well, and I would definitely consider using this airport again.

Entry to Brussels Zaventem was very quick and easy. Passport control was pleasant - it seems like more than half of my plane from Washington was transiting instead of coming into Belgium. Exit was an adventure. Apparently there was a power failure that made a bad situation worse. Taxis drop you off at a zone about 300 yards (100m) from the terminal. You then walk for several blocks on to a spiraling parking garage ramp up 4 floors to another road that leads to large tents where they pre-screen select passengers. The police and airport staff did a very good job of maintaining order, even passing around bottled water in the hot sun. Inside the terminal was a madhouse clearly because of the power failure. It took 90 minutes to get to this. But once you had your boarding pass the experience was excellent. Passport control relatively fast, there are a couple of kiosks where a machine scans the bar-code on your boarding pass to allow you to continue, including one to get into the fastrack security screening. Security staff there was pleasant and professional. There was a lot of construction going on in terminal B so the shopping was nothing special. Except there is one very good chocolate store. The trek to the Star Alliance lounge went on forever. Queuing at United gate was very good as they have adopted Southwest Airline's system of forming separate entries for different group numbers. My ratings discount the power failure-created problems.