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Hi GhentCommuter,

Welcome to Expat-blog!

Hope members will be able to advice you.

Wish you good luck
Christine

Take the train to either central or midi, and then the train to the airport, no traffic then. Other than that, I am not sure.

The connection to the airport is from Brussels Nord, not Midi or Central.

Melby, are you sure about this? I checked the airport info, and although I have not taken the train yet, only bus, I was told at the airport that there is train from the airport to central & midi. Also it is announced on the airport web site:

There is even a direct train from Gent to Brussels airport looks like from the above link.

And the time tables from central at this hour of the day: hari.b-rail.be/HAFAS/bin/query.exe/en?OK#focus

I know to get there from here we have to change at Nord, I've done it a number of times.

(And there are direct trains from here to to Central & Midi as well, so it's not like that's the only option.)

Not for long... it looks like soon they will have a direct train to and from Antwerpen. But from Gent even now they have direct train, same from Central and Midi. But it makes no sense to go to Central or Midi and transfer, when you can get on the direct train.

Thanks for suggestions.

There is a direct train from Ghent to Zaventem airport such as this:

Departure 07:15     
Arrival 08:08     
Total time 00:53

The problem is not the trains, but the bus in Gent, because they are not reliable and take a long time to get from where I live to the train station. Also on Zaventem the bus is not reliable and takes its time to come and go.

For the moment I am doing 1h 20min with a car while optimum would be 50 min according to google maps.

It seems that with the taxes that one pays here in Belgium, one can not expect great service though.

It's the fat legal mafia which Belgians should get rid of.

ps.

I was wondering that if I leave Ghent at 08:00 that is the traffic jam already dissappeared as I can go to work until 9:30 so if instead of leaving early I would leave late, would it solve the problem?

Are you sure you are looking at the right bus schedules? De Lijn is certainly a reliable company and I have never experienced anything running more than 2-5mins late, and even that is rare. Personally I think you should see if there's any trams/metros you could use for at least part of the ride, as buses are slow in general, due to driving with cars in traffic and the consistent stops. Trams/metro go much quicker as the majority of the time the tracks are in their own area.

Having never driven the route I have no idea what time the traffic clears up, but that is generally the way it works, so you can try it one day and see. Maybe ask your boss if it'd be OK if you came in a little bit late one morning, just in case it ends up taking longer than you expect, but you'll never know if you don't try.

Melby wrote:

Are you sure you are looking at the right bus schedules? De Lijn is certainly a reliable company and I have never experienced anything running more than 2-5mins late, and even that is rare.

So because you say that you have never experienced "anything running more than 2-5mins late, and even that is rare.", then it automatically means that all De Lijn is a reliable company everywhere in Belgium?

Melby wrote:

Personally I think you should see if there's any trams/metros you could use for at least part of the ride, as buses are slow in general, due to driving with cars in traffic and the consistent stops. Trams/metro go much quicker as the majority of the time the tracks are in their own area.

How much quicker in percentages and where?

Melby wrote:

Having never driven the route I have no idea what time the traffic clears up, but that is generally the way it works, so you can try it one day and see. Maybe ask your boss if it'd be OK if you came in a little bit late one morning, just in case it ends up taking longer than you expect, but you'll never know if you don't try.

Thanks for the excellent advice.