The first aeronautical activities in Gosselies date back to 1919: a flight school was opened on Mont des Bergers—the highest point in the region—then, the following year, the Société Générale d'Aéronautique (SEGA) began aeronautical maintenance activities. The British aircraft manufacturer Fairey Aviation settled a subsidiary Avions Fairey on the site in 1931, making Gosselies a centre of the Belgian aeronautical industry. During World War II, the site was arranged as an Advanced Landing Ground (A-87) for the allied air forces, from 14 September 1944 until 10 August 1945. After the war, the Gosselies Airfield became a public aerodrome operated by the Belgian State through its agency Régie des Voies Aériennes (RVA)/Regie der Luchtwegen (RLW), but the main activities of the site remained aeronautical constructions (installation of the Société Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aéronautiques (SABCA) in 1954, then the Société Nationale de Construction Aéronautique (SONACA) in 1978, taking over the activities of Fairey). In the 1970s, the Belgian national airline Sabena launched a Liège–Charleroi–London service, but this was soon dropped because of poor results. Gosselies was left with almost no passenger traffic, the airport being mainly used for private or pleasure flights, training flights and occasional charters to leisure destinations around the Mediterranean Sea or to Algeria. On 9 July 1991, the limited company Brussels South Charleroi Airport (BSCA) was created. This operation was part of the effective transfer from the State to the Regions of the powers to manage and operate regional airports, which took place on 1 January 1992. During 1992 and 1993, a series of management procedures were put in place, which began to take effect in 1995 and even more so in 1996. Operations at Brussels South Charleroi grew in the 1990s, with this new commercial management structure and the arrival of Irish low-cost airline Ryanair in 1997, which opened its first continental base at Charleroi a few years later. Although criticised for the subsidies paid by the Walloon government to help its installation, Ryanair opened new routes from Brussels South Charleroi (they also closed two destinations: London–Stansted and Liverpool, although Stansted was re-introduced in June 2007 before being suspended again). Other low-cost carriers later joined Ryanair in Brussels South Charleroi, such as Wizz Air. The Polish airline Air Polonia operated services from here to Warsaw and Katowice before going bankrupt in August 2004. In September 2006, it was announced that Moroccan low-cost airline Jet4you would launch three weekly flights to Casablanca (on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday) starting 1 November 2006, in code-share cooperation with Belgian airline Jetairfly. A new terminal opened in January 2008. It has a capacity of up to 5 million passengers a year, which means that it has reached its maximum capacity in 2010 (5,195,372 passengers). The European Commission objected to assistance the airport offered to Ryanair, since the airport is owned by the Wallonia regional government and thus the discounts and other benefits could be considered state aid. However, the Court of First Instance (a European Union court) decided on 17 December 2008 that the commission's decision finding that illegal aid had been granted to Ryanair should be annulled and quashed as being erroneous in law. However, in March 2012, the commission reopened the case in order to take this judgment into account. In January 2017, a second terminal (Terminal 2) was opened in order to relieve the T1 during rush hours and to be able to accommodate 10 million passengers a year in the future. In May 2019, work began on an extension of Charleroi Airport's runway, bringing it to a total length of 3,200 metres. Runway 06/24 is undergoing a 650-meter extension on the 24 end of the runway.