What had been in the works for a while has now become official: Brussels Airport Ombudsman Philippe Touwaide has been fired. Touwaide had come under fire for his lack of neutrality and his personal conduct toward the airport’s top management.
The dismissal comes as no surprise. The Federal Public Service Mobility has recommended Touwaide’s dismissal after he was sentenced in early April to one year of actual imprisonment for harassing the CEO of Brussels Airport, Arnaud Feist. In 2024, the federal ombudsman had already been convicted of defamation and harassment against airport executives.
Two major issues
In fact, there were two major issues surrounding Philippe Touwaide, head of the ombudsman service for Brussels Airport, which was established in 2002 at the request of environmental and neighborhood associations to compile complaints about noise pollution and flight paths.
In late February, an investigation by the French-language weekly Le Vif revealed that Touwaide’s name had appeared as a director of the action group Belgian Union Against Aircraft Noise (BUTV) in the eastern suburbs, opposing noise pollution caused by the airport – a conflict of interest that is not permitted.
On April 1, Touwaide was also sentenced by the Brussels Criminal Court to one year in prison without probation for intimidating Arnaud Feist, the CEO of Brussels Airport. Furthermore, Touwaide had already been convicted in 2024 of defamation and harassment against airport executives.
For example, the court found that Touwaide had bombarded the management of Brussels Airport with hundreds of emails and text messages, sometimes daily, at inconvenient times, and in an aggressive or offensive tone.
Touwaide appealed the ruling. He declined to comment further but reiterated that he was the victim of a witch hunt. According to Touwaide, the situation within the action group, which resulted from negligence by former leaders, had also been resolved in 2017.
Restructuring principle of the ombudsman service
Following the ombudsman’s ruling, the minister asked his employer, the FPS Mobility, to take all necessary steps in light of it – Touwaide had already been suspended for a month. Several parties on the Flemish side, including the N-VA and Vlaams Belang, had also called for his resignation.
On Monday, the resignation followed. Minister of Mobility Jean-Luc Crucke (Les Engagés), who had agreed to the proposal for a one-month suspension, emphasized that the ombudsman must possess impeccable integrity, but also that there must be trust.
Crucke has also begun a review of the 2010 law governing the ombudsman service, with the following key elements: a five-year term, financial independence, a bilingual board, a clear definition of its responsibilities, and the ability to issue recommendations.
‘Institutional barrier’
The Ombudsman’s Office for Brussels National Airport receives tens of thousands of complaints each year, with a peak of nearly 7 million in 2009. Touwaide regularly complained about his powerlessness and the fact that his recommendations were not being followed, such as the construction of a noise barrier around the airport area or a covered test hangar.
As a result, it appears the Touwaide case has become primarily a dossier in which personal feuds and professional frustrations have become completely intertwined.
For instance, Touwaide insisted that Belgium still lacks a federal aviation law that definitively establishes flight paths and noise standards – one of the reasons why residents and the Brussels Region continue to demand penalty payments. At the same time, the government systematically uses every possible appeal procedure to delay payment or have the penalty payments overturned.
He was also a fierce opponent of the high number of night flights (operated with outdated aircraft) and of the method used to calculate noise contours. Moreover, while he could make recommendations, the government and the airport are not obligated to implement them.
