My experience on Brussels Airlines' from Washington IAD to BRU

[Wim fan]

My experience on SN516 IAD->BRU 20/06 A330-300

LF almost 100% in Y, could not judge C.
Food is superior to US based airliner.
Superb IFE. Maybe the announcements could also be transmitted through the headphones in addition to the overall loudspeakers?

Boarding process was rather chaotic, somehow everybody coming from other flight needed new boarding pass for the SN flight?

I connected in IAD, so don't know a bout check-in process there.

Happy to have flown SN.

[rix]

Boarding process was rather chaotic, somehow everybody coming from other flight needed new boarding pass for the SN flight?

It was probably the US visa check. Seems that no improvements have been made by SN since my flight last December: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=49545

[Wim fan]

Hi Rix,

It was at IAD, so not the procedure you described when departing in BRU.

This BRU procedure of extra checking at the gate is by the way not unique to SN, with UA or US I also had the additional check at the gate itself past few times I flew them.

Although this time at BRU, I could skip the extra "boarding gate passport + baggage questions" check since I was picked out of the queue by a Securitas employee, apparently they can randomly allow people to skip the extra check provided they have been checked at check-in I guess.

So my question remains: why did almost everybody (the ones connecting?) had to get a new boarding pass at IAD and why was that not made very clear, making the boarding itself rather slow as people needed to wait till they got the correct boarding pass.

[Inquirer]

According to this newspaper article, the return flight was indeed 100% full, but what is more interesting given the discussions about the timing of the flight, is that it mentions it carried 85 connecting passengers to Africa.

http://www.lalibre.be/economie/actualit ... 9e300fa994

[Inquirer]

Another report with an interview with their CEO:
http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/econo ... lsairlines

[Wim fan]

Interesting articles Inquirer!

Mind you, I was on the second return flight, so not the first. But close to 100% LF on the IAD->BRU flight seems to be the norm for the next couple of days.
Additionally, 85 of the passengers being of African origin or identity as the article says, does not mean they are connecting on to Africa.

However, based on the connecting flights information we got on the IFE just before arrival in BRU (and the few people I talked too, but this is less reliable), a lot of passengers were connecting onwards from BRU. Most of the time this means lower yield however. I paid more for my ticket then the woman next to me connecting on to Hamburg, although we both booked end of April. Same is true most of the times when looking to depart from Paris instead of BRU with SN. Interesting comparison of the discount for the inconcenience of a connection compared to the real extra cost I guess.

[airDD]

According to this newspaper article, the return flight was indeed 100% full, but what is more interesting given the discussions about the timing of the flight, is that it mentions it carried 85 connecting passengers to Africa.

http://www.lalibre.be/economie/actualit ... 9e300fa994

This article mentions LAX as another potential destination for next year, we need to add it to the poll

airDD