The Walloon transportation company LETEC has canceled two of its three bus routes to Charleroi Airport. Especially the cancellation of the bus service from Fleurus Station raises questions.
Both the railway company NMBS/SNCB and the railway infrastructure manager Infrabel invested heavily in the station to turn it into an intermodal hub for travel to the airport. But three years later, LETEC believes the route doesn’t attract enough passengers.
Intermodal hub
For quite some time, Wallonia and Charleroi had been advocating an underground rail link beneath the airport. But in 2015, then-Federal Minister of Mobility Jacqueline Galant (MR) put a stop to that: there was no funding, and instead of a train station, a shuttle bus system was implemented.
Fleurus was chosen as the alternative ‘gateway’ to the airport: the station was just a 15-minute drive away, and NMBS/SNCB and Infrabel invested 15.4 million euros in renovations, new platforms, parking, and a kiss-and-ride zone to turn Fleurus into “a seamless intermodal hub connecting train and bus.” Train service in Fleurus was also expanded.
Line A1 is being reinforced
However, due to lower-than-expected ridership, the Walloon public bus company LETEC is now canceling the A2 express bus service from the Fleurus station. The A3 line from the Luttre station, about a 20-minute drive from the airport, is also being canceled.
As a result, it will once again be more appealing for travelers to take the bus to the airport via the Charleroi station. While that trip does take a little longer than the one from Fleurus, service on the A1 line is being expanded and will now run every 15 minutes instead of every half hour, with no more stops along the way.
The decision raises questions
NMBS/SNCB regrets the decision. “It’s not our decision,” says spokesperson Britt Monten, who also confirms that there will be no changes to the train schedule.
Passenger counts by NMBS/SNCB show that, on weekdays in 2024, an average of 726 people boarded trains at the Fleurus station. That was more than the 466 in 2023 and the 394 in 2022.
LETEC’s decision, however, raises questions about how that investment and the operational decision were coordinated. Since May 2025, there has even been an additional, European-co-funded project underway in Fleurus to transform the station square itself into a full-fledged ‘mobipôle’, with space for pedestrians, cyclists, car-sharing vehicles, and taxis, totaling over 2.4 million euros.
‘Unacceptable waste of public funds’
The report condemns the elimination of the bus routes, in part because “passengers from the north of the country traveling to Charleroi Airport by public transit are seeing their travel time increase by an additional half hour,” but also cites “an unacceptable waste of public funds.”
The association also laments the lack of a long-term vision for mobility in the region, which fluctuates with changes in the political majority, and criticizes public authorities for “never having provided this initiative with the resources it needs to succeed.”
It cites the lack of visibility for this transportation option on search engines, as well as bus schedules that are ill-suited to the realities of air travel.
Navetteurs. be is also calling for the publication of a comprehensive assessment of the project to determine the total cost of the investments, actual ridership, and the communication efforts undertaken. The association wishes to know “the specific reasons for this failure, as well as the lessons that have been learned.”
For your info: For anyone who has to travel by train via Brussels to get to Charleroi anyway, it’s often more convenient to transfer to the Flibco shuttle at Brussels-South, rather than taking an extra train to Charleroi Central and then waiting for the bus there. You’ll pay a bit more, but you’ll avoid a transfer and the risk of missing your connection.
