Hi everybody!
I usually publish reports only in French but under these special times, I have decided to translate some interesting reports I have :) From January to May 2019, I had the opportunity to spend 5 months in Singapore, a city and country I really appreciate especially thanks to the almost unlimited number of destinations to travel to on week-ends and holidays.
I choose Air France - KLM for 3 reasons:
- Youth fare. For the same price of the standard fare, you get a full flex ticket, very useful for a 5-month trip
- Air Europa Elite status, allowing me to bring a second suitcase for free
- Earning miles on my FFP
I will be leaving from Brussels and not Paris, since ex-BRU tickets were cheaper than CDG. Thalys will bring me from Paris-Gare du Nord to downtown Brussels in only 1h25, for the decent price of €29. BRU is usually a budget friendly starting point when flying on Air France, and easy to reach.
Flight routing
- 1KL1732 - Economy - Brussels –> Amsterdam - Embraer E-175
- 2KL835 - Economy - Amsterdam –> Singapore - Boeing 777-300ER
At that time (understand before Covid19 times), Thalys was offering 15 to 20 daily departures.
On-time arrival at Brussels-Midi Train station after a short journey of 1h26 min at 300km/h.
Quick connection to find a train to Brussels Airport. At least 6 trains/h stop at BRU.
The next one will leaving in about 10 minutes.
30 minutes later, welcome to BRU, my first time there :)
Quick and easy access to the check-in area, with a huge thought for the victims of the Brussels Airport attack (2016).
No issue to drop-off my two suitcases 3 hours before departure.
Spotting time with Turkish Airlines A321 and Brussels Airlines A320.
Red Devils livery for the SN A320 :)
B737-700 Jetairfly and A320 Brussels Airlines
A319 Brussels Airlines
A320 Vueling
Let's walk to the Schengen concourse.
This concourse is spacious with plugs everywhere.
The FIDS, BRU-AMS is the shortest flight from BRU, a 98 miles journey… This line was supposed to close for environmental purposes and to be replaced by Thalys trains, like Air France Paris-Brussels line. 4 daily-direct trains are running between Brussels and Schiphol and the journey takes 1h30 min. However KLM continues to fly between both cities, but for how long?
Time for boarding, our EMB175 just arrived from Amsterdam.
Boarding started on time.
10A for this short journey. Flight was full, with almost everyone connecting at Schiphol.
A321 Alitalia
Pushback on time.
Quick taxi to the runway, apologize for the quality of the next pictures…
Take-off at 6h13PM !
We climbed to an altitude of 14000 ft, and guess what ?
Catering was provided 7 minutes after take-off ! For a 30 min flight, KLM provides a very decent snack I was not expecting. No beverage choice to save time.
Legroom was fine but seats were hard and uncomfortable, even for a 30 min flight.
Announcement from the cockpit, we will be landing in the famous Western Runway, or Polderbaan in Dutch, which means taxi will take some time :)
Landing at 6h44PM, 31 minutes after leaving BRU.
Taxi to B gates.
10 minutes later we were at the gate, ready to disembark on time.
The bus dropped us near D gates, saving me time to join my connecting flight to Singapore :)
I have now 2 hours to catch my next flight to Singapore ! Thanks for your reading and feel free to comment :)
Thanks Nico for that FR in english which I confess might become collector and therefore more than interesting :)
Catering is impressive for the flight time. LH offers zero on STR-FRA or STR-MUC which is the same length. Seats of the E175 are definitly not taste of anyome :(
Ah and just a last comment, the Polderbaan is the most Western runway, not Eastern ;)
Thanks again and looking forward reading your next FR in that beautiful language ^^
Thanks Vincent for the comment :)
It might and the following reports ex-Singapore will provide even more interesting content!
And tomorrow nothing on every short or medium European flight...
You are right I will make the update :)
See you !
Hey Nico, cool to see one of your reports in English! BRU seems like a good option for those in the north of France. Kind of like BCN has much cheaper fares for those of us in the south of France. When I last flew through BCN, there were French everywhere haha.
It's surprising that KLM operate such a short route, when AF don't even operate BRU-CDG anymore, just codeshare on TGV, which I believe KLM also do on BRU-AMS in addition to flights. There must be a lot of demand, I guess!
Too bad the seats themselves aren't comfortable...a shame for an e-Jet which usually have a very comfortable cabin being so wide in 2-2. Kind of ruins the potential to have hard and uncomfortable seats.
Thanks for sharing!
Hey Kevin :)
And very convenient with Thalys high speed service.
Not surprising ! And Vueling offers good deals for European flights.
Yes you can book from ZYR instead off BRU. However transfer time at Schiphol takes longer, and very often, it's cheapper with the BRU flight !
See you !