Having decided an early 2025 to start focusing on Star Alliance rather than One World, and in particular avoiding British Airways flights, my first opportunity came up with a very short trip to Brussels.
Ticketing
I was not going to bite my nose off to spite my face, so I did check very thoroughly, including British Airways and Eurostar options for getting to Brussels. Both were quite expensive and as it turned out Brussels Airlines was the cheapest, even in business class. In fact, the business class ticket was very reasonable and pretty much came into the budget I was given. For a 2-day trip to Brussels, I booked a return ticket via the Lufthansa website, but flying on Brussels Airlines (who are owned by Lufthansa).
Outbound - Heathrow Terminal 2
As Brussels Airlines is part of Lufthansa, they operate out of terminal 2 at Heathrow. I took the Super Loop bus to get round there, and I really wish I’d been quicker on the camera as the bus goes right down the side of a runway for a bit. On the top deck of a double decker bus, you can easily see over the fence and there was a BA 777 taking off right by me. For such a short trip I was going hand luggage only, so I skipped check-in and went straight to fast-track security. There was practically nobody there and I was through very quickly, although they did have the old scanning machines which meant I had to remove everything from my bag. I thought they had replaced these in all fast-tracks, but obviously not. Once through to the other side, the main lounge here is the Lufthansa lounge, so I headed there. I was soon checked in at the counter and was given my little QR code on a piece of paper. That allowed me to pass through the main business class lounge into the Senator lounge at the back.
Lounge time
Last time I was here the entire Lufthansa lounge was closed for refurbishment, and I had to go for a bit of a trek to find another Star Alliance lounge. But today it was open again and I had a chance to look at what they had done. If I’m honest, it wasn’t much. I definitely think there’s more seating in there, but I’m pretty sure the seats are the same. There was new lighting and I think new dividers here and there. They’d put new tables between seats, with charging points. However, they were disappointing as they were only 13amp UK power or wireless charging. No USB and no European sockets for travellers. I’d allowed plenty of time so I could enjoy the lounge and have a meal, therefor I relaxed, found some snacks and had some Prosecco while I waited.
There was a simple enough food offering of some kind of chicken dish, a vegetable dish, some rice, potatoes and a soup. As well as this there were plenty of snacks, including a huge pile of cookies, cake, cheeses, fruit and of course pretzels.
I’ve always been curious to know if the Senator lounge is any better than the normal lounge, and I don’t think it is. I didn’t fully investigate the alcohol options, but I did check the food and it was identical in both lounges.
The flight out
This was a pretty new A320NEO, around about one year old. It looked very clean and shiny. Pretty much the standard European short haul seats, no different to the newest ones that BA and Lufthansa have fitted in their newer aircraft. What business class does have of course is an empty seat in the middle, there’s no fixed tray table here and not even a funny little curtain to divide the two sections. All they seem to do different was put a tiny little notice on the back of the seats dividing business and economy. The seat was quite hard, I don’t think I’d like to do a flight longer than two hours in it, but the legroom was good. I settled in and we were soon on our way for a 45-minute hop across to Brussels. I was quite impressed that they managed to produce a very small meal for us, it had two savoury and two sweet items on it. Some kind of fish thing that I didn’t really like the look of, a bread thing with tomato on it, and two little sweet treats. Then drinks from the bar, I took champagne, which was very nice. I was even offered a second glass before we landed. The crew were very pleasant, and I was impressed that they managed to get the service through very quickly for such a short flight. I was just finishing my champagne as we were starting our descent into Brussels. Arrival in Brussels was very easy, I was through passport control and into the train station very quickly and on my way for my trip.
Return – Brussels Airport
The return trip through Brussels was as easy as the arrival. As I didn’t need to go to check-in I headed straight to security. My gate had been announced by both email and the Lufthansa app quite a while before, so I knew to head to B gates. I had my boarding pass scanned 3 times, which was a little odd. There was no indication of any fast track, just one line of electronic gates with boarding pass readers, so I scanned my boarding pass and after that there were people with handheld readers who read my pass again. Beyond that there was a separate gate for a priority lane, which looked like it was geared for the more commercial approach of charging for fast-track. It had another set of scanners on it, so I scanned my boarding pass once more and it opened for me, and off I went. There was no queue the other side, so I went straight through security, and I was done. Had plenty of time before my flight, I didn’t know what time work was going to finish so I’d booked a later flight. I headed to one of the Brussels airport lounges. They don’t seem to have individual airline’s lounges, most of them seem to be generic airport lounges covering all airlines. I headed to the recently renovated lounge called The View and went in to have a look around.
The lounge
I was very impressed, this lounge was huge and, as the name suggested, had plenty of windows on both sides, with outward facing seats looking out over the airfield. As I walked further in, there was an area on the left called The Study which looked like it had lots of good places to sit and work in peace and quiet, it was walled off from the rest of the main open lounge area. In the centre was a full bar, which looked like a proper bar. At first, I was slightly fooled by it, I was expecting to be served until I realise that people were going behind the bar and serving themselves. There was a good selection of soft drinks, wines, spirits and of course Belgian beer on tap, not to mention Prosecco for me to enjoy. At the back was a large food service area which included three counters of cold food, consisting of snacks, salads and sweet treats. At the very back a long bar had hot food which consisted of a selection of different things, the main dish the day being a beef bourguignon, which I enjoyed with some mashed potato. There was a good choice of seating areas, from more relaxed, to proper tables to sit at and eat or work. And given the long nature of the lounge with lots of windows that were plenty of opportunity to sit next to our window whether they were eating or relaxing. Plenty of power outlets with mains and USB ports everywhere as well. All in all, I really enjoyed my time in the lounge, and I’d happily go there again. It might have been helped by the fact that it was also extremely quiet. I suspect some of the other lounges I’ve been to around the world would be equally pleasant if they were as quiet as this was.
The flight home
Eventually it was time to head down to my gate, which wasn’t too far away from the lounge. I arrived at the very small gate area, where a few people were hanging around, I wondered if I was at the right place given it was so quiet. I took a seat and waited for 10 minutes until they called group 1 and 2 to board. I went forwards, and nobody else moved, which seemed a bit odd. So, I said to the guy checking the boarding passes “is it a quiet flight tonight?” He replied, “yes very quiet, there are only 17 people on board.” Thus, boarding was completed very quickly, and we had to wait for our slot to go. The photo here is genuinely of the flight fully boarded with only 17 people on it. There were 2 other people in business with me and that was it. The flight was very similar to the flight out, I was offered a very quick light meal which again had two savoury things and two sweet treats. This time an interesting mini quiche was one of the items, it was nice, and I was again given my choice of drink from the bar. Naturally with the early departure we landed in good time, in fact I think we were 10 minutes early and as again, I was hand luggage only, I was straight through and out the other side ready to meet my other half to get a lift home very good time.
It was a stunningly clear night and I managed to get some great shots as we passed over London.
Bottom line
I was very impressed with Brussels Airlines, everything seemed to go very smoothly and there was nothing to complain about. The lounge was very impressive and if I had to transit through there again, I would do so happily. In fact, I might look at other routes they do around Europe and, rather than going through Frankfurt which is just too big and busy, I’d rather go through Brussels on my way to another destination in Europe. I’d quite like to try the long-haul service, they have a fleet of A330s that they use, but upon checking it they seem to mostly focus on routes to Africa, with only one route to New York outside of that. But maybe one day I’ll fly to New York on Brussels Airlines and see what they’re like.
