Brussels Airport (Dutch: Luchthaven Brussel, French: Aéroport de Bruxelles) (IATA: BRU, ICAO: EBBR) — also informally called Brussels-National Airport (Luchthaven Brussel-Nationaal, Aéroport de Bruxelles-National) or Brussels-Zaventem Airport (Luchthaven Brussel-Zaventem, Aéroport de Bruxelles-Zaventem) — is an international airport in the municipality of Zaventem in Flemish Brabant, 6.5 nautical miles (12.0 km; 7.5 mi) northeast of Brussels, Belgium. In 2019, more than 26 million passengers arrived or departed at Brussels Airport, making it the 26th busiest airport in Europe. It is home to around 260 companies, together directly employing 20,000 people and serves as the home base for Brussels Airlines and TUI fly Belgium. BRU covers 1,245 hectares (3,076 acres) and contains three runways.
The company operating the airport is known as The Brussels Airport Company N.V./S.A.; before 19 October 2006, the name was BIAC (Brussels International Airport Company), which was created by Belgian law through a merger of BATC with the ground operations departments of the RLW/RVA. Since 2011, the airport has been owned by the Toronto-based Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (39%), Macquarie Group (Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund I and Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund III) (36%) and the Belgian State (25%).
On 22 March 2016, the airport’s departures hall was severely damaged by two terrorist bomb blasts. The airport was closed until 3 April 2016, when it was reopened with temporary facilities at less than 20% of its previous capacity. It has since returned to full operations, with a record of 90,000 passengers on 29 July 2016.