Computers will always be... computers - Brussels Airport version

One of the attractions of Brussels airport is a long series of computer screens showing a real time temperature scan of the people passing by on the rolling carpet. Publicity for one of the electricity companies of our united state.

Unfortunately, computers will always remain... computers:

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Rumble: Brussels Airport: "Kiss and Drive!" and a bad luck logo...

I am at Brussels airport, waiting for my flight back to Rome. After six weeks with the family, we are off on our own again. The kids go off to sports camp, Tine starts working in Belgium and I am off to Italy, back to saving the hungry in the world.

Hey, they have new roadsigns at the airport, saying "Kiss and Drive", meant to guide people to a passenger drop off zone.
I am not sure if the combination of kissing and driving is really safe, but I am all for it. However, maybe "Park and Kiss" would have been more appropriate!

So far for the smileys.

At check-in it seems they have changed the system for self check-in: you will need your reservation number. You can't check in via your name, passport scan (as in Rome), or credit card swipe. No, you need your reservation number. Damned if I would take out my computer, boot it up, and check my email for it. Damned if I would print it out on paper before I come. Thought eTicketing was all about paperless and effortless booking and checking in? Not so with Brussels Airlines, it seems. Nope you need your reservation number, sir!.

Ok, so I try to check in at the "Express check-in", thinking "I only have hand luggage, so I guess this is 'express check-in' "? Not so. A young man stopped me asking for my boarding pass. I told him "No, I am checking in, and am following the signs." He said: "No checking in here, you need to follow that line", and pointed to another row of check-in counters.
I told him this was confusing. He just shrugged his shoulders and looked the other way, ignoring my comments. He told a colleague who approached me to explain and said: "Ignore him, difficult customer!"
He then turned to someone else, who wanted to do the same thing as I: check in through the express check-in. And another, and another.. Soon enough we were standing with 4-5 people complaining about the confusing signs. I just stood by and smiled. Ah the sweet taste of a little revenge! Life can be so sweet...

So, I am checking in. They ask to weigh my hand luggage, which is a compact trolley with my computer bag in it. In the bag some small chargers, my laptop and a book: 9.6 kg.
"Sorry sir, you are only allowed 5 kg handluggage, you will have to check it in", she said.
Dah. Checking in a computer bag? To Rome? Rrrrright. *If* it would arrive, i'd have to wait for 90 minutes at the luggage belt.
"Nope", I said, "I can show you one kilo of handluggage and then shop and buy 50 kgs of duty free goods, and you would not even know. So..."
She let me go... I *am" a difficult customer!

Anyways, last thought of the day: Did you know the Brussels Airlines logo originally had 13 balls on it. People said it would bring bad luck, so they added a 14th ball at the last minute. Some planes were already painted with 13 balls, so the 14th came with some expense. You don't believe me? It is true, as it was in the papers!"! ;-)

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Rumble: And Brussels Airport?

I forgot to mention in my previous rumbles about Sabena, the Swiss Air Crook-ery adventures and the merger of SN with Virgin Express, what happened to Brussels airport.

Well, I guess they recovered. After being used for a fraction of its capacity for years, they recovered, and seem to be doing well. They have more traffic now, So yeah, when coming back home after wandering the world, landing at Brussels national airport certainly puts a smile on my face. Highly recommended for transit travel too.

Two minuses, though:

One of the two handling companies’ customer service sucks. If you decide to loose your luggage, and your end destination is Brussels, you’d better hope your flight is handled by a company called “FlightCare” and not by “AviaPartner” !! If it was not for the goodwill of the FlightCare staff, I would still be waiting for my luggage lost between the islands of St-Martin and St-Kitts, a connecting flight on my way home just before Xmas. This was a return flight handled (or rather, not handled well at all) by AviaPartner. They never even bothered to pick up the phone… In the end the FlightCare staff traced the luggage even though it was not even their flight to handle..

Second problem is that you can not smoke inside the airport anymore. Nowhere! Absolutely nowhere. They used to have restricted areas, and you could smoke in the bars and courtesy lounges. But now.. NOTHING anymore. Ridiculous. At least restricted areas would do. Certainly if they want to be come a transit airport of fame… Smokers go nuts after an eight hours non-smoking flight, waiting for connecting flights to fly six hours transatlantic again.

My tips: try the toilets and the far end corners of terminals A and B. Everyone is doing it there. Smoking that is.

But, I am far away from that now.. Left Brussels. And the yonder is calling…

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Rumble: SN plus VIRGIN equals ABORTION?

Well, the first thing Brussels Airlines did, was to piss off the aircrew by implementing new work schedules without consulting the crew. So the first days, they did several actions, barely avoiding a strike. Now they threaten to actually go on strike. I think there is one coming in the next days. So hey, it seems things did not get much better!

So what did my first hand expert testing of the new airline come up with?Well, I did not want to test the quality of Brussels Airlines.. (imagine a small high pitched voice with corner of the lips curled down and a real real sad face). I merely wanted to book a ticket with my frequent traveler miles!! Boohoo… And I couldn’t Boohhoooo… (hand me a hanky!).

Booking using miles was a breeze at the time of SN, but boy, on the new Privilege website (the frequent flyer program of SN, now Brussels), it seemed EITHER they hid the booking feature real well, or it was not possible anymore to book flight online with miles…

No problem, I thought, I will call them. The number I found on the web was a paying number (charging 0.75 euro per minute), but they also gave a Belgian non-paying number to dial from abroad. I tried that one, and after two minutes of answering multiple choices (questions and options posed by a lady who sounded they were holding a gun to her head or had taken her children hostage), I was put on hold. And on hold. And on hold… Encouraged to remain on line as “I was to be attended to real soon now!” I gave up after 30 minutes. I tried again, and same thing. (I guess those 60 minutes on the paying number would have cost me 45 Euro, about a third of the price for a ticket.. Ah.. this is how they try to reduce the prices of the tickets! (I wish!)

I tried to find other numbers to book with miles via the phone. No go. Old numbers did not work anymore neither..

Hmm.. ok, I thought, I will book a paid ticket then. I went back online. They have a new webpage since the merger.. I booked destination, date, got the price and got… stuck… No way to go onto the last page to pay for the ticket. “OK”, I thought, “Bad luck, let’s try again!”. But same thing. And again…

So… I tried the normal booking telephone number… Got through in a few seconds, no questions asked, and the guy booked me a ticket in two minutes. Paid of course.

Oh, and the price was EUR152.99, about 30-50% more than what I used to pay with either Virgin or SN !

So I wrote them an email (Customer.Relations(at)brusselsairlines.com and Privilege(at)brusselsairlines.com ) stating how un-impressed I was. Giving my phone number, and stating I was going to publish my opinion and their answer on the Net.

I am still waiting for their answer.

At this point, my impression is: SN Brussels and Virgin Express? They ‘d better had an abortion than giving birth to Brussels Airlines… Now we have one Virgin less in the world and one more average airline…

Update:
I write this just as I got off the plane. Despite my rumbling on the problems to book a ticket, the actual check-in was a breeze, as it always was. Despite the fact I booked a low-fare ticket, they did not mind my luggage was 8 kg overweight, and that I had two pieces of hand luggage (each more than 6 kg) rather than the allowed one piece.
So maybe, just maybe, we’re in for a good thing… Some babies are a pain as newborns, but grow up to be loveable individuals… Maybe also so with Brussels Airlines?

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Rumble: My Love Affair With Sabena

That is Sabena. Not Sabrena, Sabine, or Sabrina! We’re talking about our ex-national carrier. A customer-company platonic love affair! If you are looking for sexual inspired stories, you won't find it here! Or should I tell them about he Mile-High club?

Anyway, just a few months ago, SN Brussels Airlines and Virgin Express merged into Brussels Airlines. I was a regular customer of both “parent” companies, so when flying to Rome I was curious to experience first hand the excitement of the new merged airline.
I used to be a regular customer of SABENA, the Belgian national carrier. Back in the eighties and early nineties, they were a shabby airline, deserving their nickname “Such A Bloody Experience Never Again”. Back then, Brussels national airport was a dump, a national shame. Run down, inefficient, unattractive. It was the only airport I knew then, where you had to pay with a coin (then still Belgian Francs), to get a luggage cart in arrivals. Would the international traveler arriving in Brussels, with a Bef 20 coin in their pocket please raise their hand? Right. So most people had to drag their luggage out of arrivals. Pathetic, it was.

Mid nineties, it all started to change. Sabena expanded their network, renewed its fleet of aircraft, and had an overhaul of its staff. Actually it became a pleasure flying with them. And I flew Sabena a lot, as they had loads of African destinations.
Brussels Airport did not get a facelift, no, it went further than that. They amputated the departure halls, then the arrivals hall and cut off one of the oldest departure/arrival wings, all to be replaced by brand new state-of-the-art buildings.

After flirting with SAS, courting KLM, seducing British Airways and winking at Air France for a while – the latter relationship being blocked by the EU – Sabena decided to partner up with Swiss Air in 1995. And Swiss Air spoiled it all. They literally sucked up all liquidity and valuable assets, and run off with it, declaring bankruptcy themselves right after 9/11 (a handy excuse, 9/11 was!). They left behind a sad-faced Sabena management who could not have been too clever having Swiss Air get away with all the sucking! The souvenir of the short lived partnership was a huge debt and a flabbergasted Belgian Government (who was then a part owner of the national carrier).. They are still fighting as to determine who mismanaged Sabena. They went bankrupt also. Sabena that is. The Belgian state was bankrupt already a long time ago.

Gone was the holy shrine of the jet-era flashy status of being a pilot or air attendant. They all joined the long queue at the employment office. Left was just.. a shrine.. And a massively under-utilized brand new national airport. Oh, and thousands of stranded passengers of course… “Sorry, we can not fly you back to Belgium, madam as ‘We’ don’t exist anymore!”
It took “Swiss Air” only weeks to get reborn into “Swiss” – no wonder with all the cash and assets they ran off with from Sabena. But the Belgian carrier is still picking up the pieces today.

First reborn into SN Brussels Airlines (who invents these names? People actually get paid to come up with a name like “SN” Brussels Airlines?), as a small regional carrier, slowly expanding their network. They were still a pleasure to fly. And the left-over air staff from Sabena, still showed a pride.

Virgin Express was born in 1996, using Brussels as a regional hub, servicing several destinations in Europe. They were to be a low cost carrier, but after a few years they became just as expensive as SN. Minus leg room (you wanted to bring your legs aboard, you had to pay extra..), minus food, minus drinks, minus the frequent travel scheme and often minus the smiles too. Plus the attitude, often.

It is a mystery to me why SN wanted to merge with Virgin and create Brussels Airlines… Just as it was a mystery to me who invented their TV publicity spot announcing the merger (people actually get paid for stuff like this?). The spot showed (tricked of course) two aircraft (one Virgin 737 and an SN Avro Jet), courting in the sky, flying loops and upside down stunts together (rather a scary sight to see a 737 passenger jet fly loops and upside downs, I am sure there is a law against that, but hey it’s TV!…), to clearly show how much in love the two planes and the two parent companies were.
Result of the courtship was a rather distasteful televised birth of a small plane (including all the slime, blood etc..) pressed out of the back of a Virgin Express 737 (clearly in the female role!), and.. taraaaaaa, the small plane had the logo of Brussels Airlines. How inventive, those TV commercials people! Oh wow!

So I guess Virgin Express was no longer a Virgin anymore. They stopped being ‘Express’ a long time before the merger… Mr. Branson probably said ‘Thank you’, took the money and ran, to buy another island in the Caribbean (actually quite a nice one, we anchored right beside it last summer!) leaving all of us mortals to wonder what the merger would do..

And what did the merger bring? Read about it tomorrow in "SN plus Virgin equals abortion?"

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