Welcome back!
Given that Amsterdam is 95% of the times my final destination to go home, it is somewhat odd that I'm actually here to transit through my home airport and it did feel odd to make a left turn when dropped off by the bus that brought us over from our flight of Copenhagen, but let's head upstairs instead of exiting the airport and try to kill around three hours before I'm due to depart on my flight to Brussels.
The terminal itself wasn't overly busy by the time I arrived and it's nice to see that Amsterdam is investing a bit to renovate their schengen zone as it was needed, however I'm not entirely sure that I'm a massive fan of the newer modern style they intend to implement as it feels a bit cold to me.
As I had plenty of work to do, I decided to quickly head to the Privium lounge, which is my prefered lounge to access through (via my Privium membership) as this lounge is generally pleasing and quiet compared to the Aspire lounge (via Priority Pass), which is very outdated, has little to offer and tends to be overcrowded.
While the lounge isn't overly large on itself and does not offer a lot, the atmosphere here is pleasant, has a good view over the apron between D & E Pier and offers a terrace on warmer days.
While the lounge is definitely not overcrowded and a good choice to escape the busy terminal, the offering of food and beverages is somewhat limited with a variety of cheeses and meats. The hot option is usually a soup, though the type differs depending on the day and who's on duty and normally one can find some pre-made sandwiches, pastries and wraps too. In terms of beverages, you find find a small selection of alcohol including beers, wines and a few spirits, some softdrinks and the usual coffee and tea. Obviously you could also just opt for some sparkling and still water if you don't fancy anything else.
Given that it was the 4th of May in the Netherlands and I was present in the airport, several announcements were made before 8 pm to inform passengers to remain silent in honour of those who were killed in the Netherlands during the 2nd world war or those in the wars that followed serving our country. The airport also does not allow any aircraft to maneouvre or land in the next two minutes. It's strange for an airport to become so silent at once for a solid two minutes, though unfortunately not everyone was obeying this request.
About 30 minutes to our departure, I decided to exit the lounge as I had quite a distant walk to the B-pier. I already spotted the bird that was going to bring us over to Brussels, so I knew we were going to board to get to our plane via one of the bus gates in the B-pier.
And of course the flight that was boarding our flight was the furthest of them all as I was one of the last to actually check-in….
The downside was that I had to check-in my luggage in the hold as KLM's limit of 30 trolleys was already reached and the ground attendant was fierceless by not letting me through with the trolley (turns out that the limit of 30 is well below what the E175 can handle as I saw huge empty spaces in the overhead bins). It wasn't a huge hassle though, but I'm always a bit worried about my luggage in Brussels as it can take quite a while for them to offload our luggage (previous experiences) and I had a train to catch as there was no alternative to missing this train for the same day to get to my final destination.
Obviously I'm not blaming her for following KLM's protocol, though it was worth a try to get it through.
Once in the bus it took over 15 minutes for the bus to actually depart as one of the passengers was not present with checked luggage and that specific person actually appeared right on the scheduled time for boarding to be closed, though I had a feeling that the ground attendants were willing to wait a bit longer for him to appear as it would be the last flight for the day and we were planned to be on time.
About five minutes to our scheduled departure time, we were finally dropped off in front of our aircraft that was going to bring us over to Brussels with a baggage car in front of the stairs as those (including me) had to leave our trolley on there.
PH-EXW, we meet again.
PH-EXW is a 7.2 year old (at time of flying) Embraer 175 that has solely been flying for KLM Cityhopper since March 2018 and is configured with 88 seats in a 2-2 configuration with an Euro J & Y configuration.
Upon embarking the aircraft, we were greeted by two flight attendants who welcomed us on board of this flight and eventually made it to my seat 19F. The seat itself is quite comfy in terms of padding, though it gave me a worn look. The legroom itself is not horrible for a hour flight, but is by far not impressive.
Also if you book a window seat for the sake of being able to look through your window, please do not reserve a window seat in Row 19 like I did (I didn't know it by then) as this row isn't properly aligned to the window and both of them are mostly blocked by either your seat or the seat of the person in front of you.
Though if leaning against the seat in front of you, you will find a view like the photo below.
An individual air vent is also available to adjust the temperature to your likings.
By the time I finished taking my photos of the seat, the captain came into the cabin to talk to us through the intercom of the flight attendants to inform that we were fully ready for our departure to Brussels, but as Amsterdam was quite busy, we were assigned a slot that was allowing us to start up in about ten minutes past our scheduled departure time. I can only assume that he used the intercom of the flight attendants as the intercom in the cockpit was malfunctioning as he did not make any announcement through that specific intercom throughout the entire flight.
Eventually about 19 minutes past our scheduled departure time we were rolling for a northerly departure out of Runway 36C followed by a quick right hand turn to head south as soon as possible for a direct path to Brussels.
This path gave us a spectacular view though on the right hand side of the aircraft with a beautiful sunset and Amsterdam's Airport right below us.
About ten minutes into the flight, the seat belt signs were turned off immediately and the two flight attendants rushed to their stations. While this flight is scheduled to be 45 minutes long or so, the flight itself usually takes not longer than 30 minutes in reality and it is quite the challenge for two cabin attendants to provide all 88 passengers with their complimentary drink and snack.
Though in the time they were preparing, I decided to grab a photo of the literature contents which contained of KLM's magazine ''Holland Herald'', a sick big and a safety card of the correct type of aircraft.
The cabin attendants finished their service at a staggering speed as the aircraft was already descending to Brussels by the time they gave the bottle of water to the last passenger in the back of the aircraft. While KLM is usually providing you with a choice of drink, they tend to cut that on those shorter hops as there is simply no time for that and will hand you a small bottle of water. Next to that we were given a pack of Cheddar biscuits, which is a new one to me as I have not seen them being served before and were definitely better than those mini tomato bocaditos. Those cheddar biscuits are very similar to Tuc's.
Enjoying the Sunset over the Scheldt that is leading to Antwerp's Harbour.
Once clean up was engaged by flight attendants which they managed to complete about 7 minutes to landing, the cabin was dimmed and we were lining up for Runway 01 in Brussels. Landing was smooth and given that Runway 01 was in use, it also meant a short taxi to one of our gate resulting in an arrival time that was five minutes past our scheduled arrival time.
Disembarkation followed soon after and everyone managed to disembark in around 5 to 10 minutes saying our byes to the two flight attendants and the captain who took his time to say his byes too. The huge benefits of flying on a smaller aircraft and now we had to walk about ten minutes or so to baggage claim.
Time to find the belt for our flight and hopefully it doesn't take more than an hour for our bags to appear.
While Brussels Airport is a great alternative for me to use for flights if needed, the major flaw in my experience is that immigration and baggage claim could be a disaster. Over the ten flights I took in the past years to Brussels, it took over an hour for my luggage to appear on belt (even on smaller regional jets), so let's hope it improves today as I won't be so pleased..
Thanks to whoever was listening as luggage was already on belt within 20 minutes of our arrival time and now I had plenty of time to head downstairs to catch my train to Ostend.
With this surprising event, It even meant that I could catch a train departing a bit earlier than the one I planned to provide me a more suitable connection in Brussels itself for the last train.
Thanks for stopping by and I have a new trip heading to Asia coming soon for those who are curious about my reports.
