Back to Brussels Airport and the British Airways Lounge – Train vs Plane
In this… comparison.
- A Surreal weekend Out
- Early Morning Virgin Trains and St Pancras International
- Eurostar ES9116 London St Pancras to Brussels Midi (Standard Premier)
- Crowne Plaza Le Place, Roiger, Brussels
- Enjoying time in Brussels and Leuven
- Off to Trainworld
- Back to Brussels Airport, British Airways Terraces Lounge
- BA399 Brussels National Airport to London Heathrow (Club Europe)
- Heading back to Marylebone, and heading home
- Train vs Plane? Which wins in this round?
After heading back to the hotel to pick up the backpack and repacking it – it was time to head home. I had two choices – I could work out how to use the bus network – or I could cheat and catch a tram to Midi, and then a train Brussels Airport
I chose to cheat. Not at least because it would work better for a train vs plane comparison.
I rode down to Midi. After exiting the pre-metro station, I headed to the ticket machine and spent €9 for a ticket to the airport (with €5.80 of that ticket made up of the Diabolo surcharge). With that, the stopwatch was back on.
Brussels Midi.
Billets?
With a ticket in hand, I began the search for a train to the airport – and caught an IC Train that would stop pretty much at every stop to the airport.
€9… that’s… pricey.
Oh well.
With the stopwatch set off at 15:32, it was a matter of what time this would stop by the time I would get to Marylebone station
Le Train
Le seat
Upper deck seating
Stairway
Eventually, the train crawled into Brussels Airport station. Now, an important thing to note here is that is there is a barcode controlled gate-line here. This means you must hang onto your ticket to exit the station (and ensure it has the Diabolo surcharge applied to it)
`
Le Gateline.
With a beep, I was let through – and into the wonder that is Brussels Airport. And this is a pretty easy airport to navigate around.
Purchase your liquids bags svp.
A modern take on a Solari board.I still miss the click-clack of.a split-flap board.
As I had almost forgotten to the check-in, I headed over to the BA desks and grabbed a boarding pass. With confirmation, my luggage would be fine as a hand-baggage item only, I headed off to security – passing this interesting machine on the way
Club Europe, and Priority.
So a machine you can do you waivers on. Good for some countries. Except the USA has nerfed the instant approvals sadly.
I headed onwards to the passengers only zone and blipped my way through the passenger security gate line. Once through that – for premium passengers – there’s another gate line to clear so you can use the premier line/fast track. Another beep of the boarding pass – and I was heading through to security.
Premium Security Gate Line.
The screening itself was a quick experience, with both my bags through without any difficulty.
With those formalities done and dusted, I headed initially towards to A Gates – the wrong set of gates. Mainly for one reason – did Neuhaus have a chocolate display for Christmas?
The quiet apron
I didn’t need to guess.
Ship to Kevin, Economy Class and Beyond…
Christ-moose. (see what I did there?)
Pepper doing Christmas Greetings
With that done and caught, it was time to turn back to the B Wing, and clear Passport control – with both automated and non-automated solutions available. I chose the automated one. The machines used at Brussels Airport are akin to the ones used at Dublin Airport – they “eat” your passport to scan it, then spit it back at you once they finish reading it.
Exiting Schengen.
As usual, there were no issues in reading the passport, and I was let out of Europe.
From here, you reach the B wing shopping area, which has other sorts of famous Belgians here.
AEROSMURF!
More famous Belgians.
In fact, I flew with these famous Belgians earlier this year. 😉
With little holding my interest in the duty-free shops, I headed downwards to the B gates, and the lift to the lounge.
Going up a floor, I reached the land of lounges at Brussels Airport. I made my way down to the stop for this trip – the British Airways lounge.
To the lounges
The British Airways Brussels lounge
There was a short wait for entry into the lounge, but eventually, I made it in. I also noted at this point the plane was late coming in from London.
Wonderful. Who can see an easy win for “TRAIN” this time?
The lounge itself isn’t massive, with plenty of room to find comfortable seating. Which is always welcome.
Moving onto the food selection, there’s a mixture of cold items, and also two hot dishes – a Chicken Korma (of which the like I’ve never seen before) and a Morrocan style chicken.
Hot food station
Drinks station
Hot items – Chicken Korma and Moroccan Style chicken
Cold items
Interesting options to say the least – but a welcome thing to see at an out-station lounge – hot food. Heck, BA struggles to manage that at Manchester Airport.
I settled down, as when the plane delayed there are only a few things to do
- Catch up on the world.
- Eat
- Drink
- Be Merry.
This brings us to a continuing series I like to call “Kevin can’t pour a drink from a bottle no matter what.”
Nope – can’t pour a drink for toffee still.
It’s a thing now, and now we have to live with it. At least there are not fairy lights this trip report (mainly as I had forgotten to get batteries for them).
The lounge continued to be a useful wait to track the plane, with Internet transactions being awfully fast
Just how fast?
Now THAT’s what you call connectivity people. 210mb down.
Eventually, our Airbus A320 landed and began the taxi into the airport, with it passing the lounge. I didn’t get up straight away, but I did take the time to pack stuff away – for when the call came, I was expecting a rush at the gate.
LATE.
Eventually, it came – and I exited the lounge. Heading down the stairs, I found the perfect view of the waiting Airbus A320.
After grabbing a couple of pictures – I wandered over to Priority Boarding.
With a blip of my boarding pass – I was allowed to board
Well. Almost.
There was a queue down the ramp as the crew were getting the plane ready for the return leg back to London.
A good five minutes passed before the doors were open and we were allowed to head down the jetway
Next: British Airways BA399 Brussels Airport to London Heathrow T5
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