Birmingham to Brussels on SN Brussels

The first report of my recent trip to Brussels.

We reached BHX early in the morning on 3rd November. It was a cloudy morning, and we were flying out to Brussels on flight SN2038. We checke din as soon as we reached terminal 2, and were given seats 10A and 10C, which made me think we would be flying in an Avro RJ, as they have no B seat.

We sat in the departure lounge and spotted, main sightings being Ryanair, Aer Lingus, Continental, KLM, CSA, Eastern, British Airways and Alitalia. Shortly after 8am, our aircraft arrived, and it was an A319, OO-SSK, which we had flown on in September!

At 08:28, we were called to board the aircraft through door C, gate 14. It was superb to be boarding a flight to Brussels again! We were greeted upon boarding by a male purser, who offered us a newspaper and a copy of the inflight magazine. I was pleased to see that we had been givens eats in the exit row, which meant extra legroom in those wonderful leather seats 😀

At 08:46 we were pushed back (our scheduled departure time was 08:50) and taxied to the runway. The information screens kept going up and down, but eventually the safety video was shown. We were to take off behind a British Airways ARJ going to Paris CDG and a BAe 146 of Flybe. Directly behind us was a little ERJ of Swedish airline City Airline.

Click on here to see a video of our take off

We had a smooth take off, and encountered some turbulence as we climbed through the clouds. It was then cloudy throughout the flight.

The information screens were showing a map with the position, height and speed of the aircraft. I noted that over London we were flying at 30,000 feet with a ground speed of 565 miles per hour.

The two stewardesses in the economy cabin served the snack, which consisted of a cheese sandwich with a cinnamon flavoured muffin and a carton of tropical fruit juice. The sandwich and the muffin were very pleasant, but I had orange instead of the tropical juice.

Shortly before landing, a basket of Neuhaus chocolates was hande dout, and I chose three yellow labelled ones (they are very nice chocolates!) We descended through the clouds and touched down in beautiful Brussels at 10:46.

We taxied to our gate and I saw a 767 of United, a 767 of Delta, a Loftleidir Icelandic aircraft, JAT, Turkish Airlines, bmi and a white 737 with Virgin Express titles.

It was fantastic to be back in my most beloved of airports and cities, but it was only a short trip.

Pictures:

1. British Airways Avro RJ is pushed back.

2. British Airways Avro RJ.

3. A British Airways Avro RJ arrives to operate the flight to CDG.

4. OO-SSK at the terminal in BHX.

5. View from seat 10A of OO-SSK.

6. SNBA in flight magazine.

7. Clouds over Birmingham.

8. The in flight snack.

9. Position map on the screen.

10. Approaching Brussels