Flights axed due to strike at Belgium's two main airports

All commercial flights from Belgium's two major airports on Tuesday will be cancelled due to a strike by security staff, the airports' operators said on Monday.

Affecting Brussels-Zaventem and Charleroi, the strike was called by a confederation of unions to sound the alarm over working conditions in the cleaning, security and catering sectors.

A protest is also planned for midday in Brussels in the European quarter to draw the EU's attention to the issue.

At Brussels-Zaventem, Belgium's biggest airport, all 249 flights scheduled to leave have been cancelled while only 98 of the 243 flights planned to land will be able to do so, a spokeswoman for the airport's operator said.

At Charleroi, around a hundred departing flights were likewise cancelled, but arriving planes were unaffected, said a spokeswoman for the airport's operator.

The take-offs were being prevented by the absence of baggage inspectors, whose screening operations at both airports are carried out by British multinational G4S.

The thousands of passengers affected by the cancellations will be contacted by their airlines, both operators said.