Twelve days after it was hit by Islamic state suicide bombers, Brussels Airport said it will partially reopen on Sunday.
The airport had said it would open partially on Friday before, but suspended the plan.
The new re-opening date was announced today as Belgian prosecutors charged a third suspect with terrorism over a foiled plot to attack France.
The first three “symbolic flights” will begin departing from Sunday afternoon, Brussels Airport chief executive Arnaud Feist told reporters, adding that travellers will be subject to additional security checks as police had demanded.
“These flights are the first hopeful sign from an airport that is standing up straight after a cowardly attack,” Feist said.
Passengers will have to make use of a temporary check-in facility as the airport’s departure hall was wrecked in the March 22 blasts that also struck a metro station in Brussels and killed 32 people.
The attacks came just four days after Belgium arrested the prime suspect in last November’s Paris terror assaults and links have emerged between the attackers, exposing a web of cross-border jihadist networks.
European authorities, under pressure to crack down on home-grown extremists, have carried out a number of raids and arrests since then, several of them linked to a foiled plot to attack France.