Reassure me about Brussels Airlines please!

[Cardinalita90]

I have flights booked with Brussels Airlines in September. Manchester to Ljubljana, via Brussels.

I've just made the mistake of checking Trustpilot and the reviews are DIRE! Cancelled flights, forced check-in of hand luggage... Should have checked beforehand i know, but there were limited routes available so thought a national Airline would be a reliable choice.

Has anyone flown with them before and can reassure me they're not Satan in the sky?

I’ve not flown with them before but my advice is to pick the last three airlines you’ve flown with and check their trustpilot scores. Airline scores are dire even for what I’d consider very good airlines. Cathay Pacific, Qatar, Emirates, Virgin Atlantic all have scores of less than 2.0. EasyJet has a score of 3.3. When I looked up airlines that I’ve flown with recently their trustpilot scores made no sense to me at all.

I live in Brussels and have flown with them lots. They are not better nor worse than anyone else in my mind. Slightly more likely to be delayed than Ryanair maybe - but not noticeably so. I have flown with Ryanair, Vueling, Transavia, Brussels Airlines in recent times and nothing stands out. One thing does spring to mind, that if you are flying into Brussels - terminal B - there can be massive queues to enter Schengen and move to terminal A for an interschengen flight. How long is your layover between flights?

There are bigger seats and more legroom than Ryanair definitely.

The forced check in of hand luggage is reasonably common on small busy flights for many airlines unless you happen to have status with the airline.

I've heard similar to a lot of the above: they are OK, as in they are fairly standard european short haul.

I think a lot of the review sites can be subject to some manipulation or ratings skewed by one or two bad experiences.

I’ve flown with them a bit - but not connecting flights. I have occasionally had a forced check in of luggage on very full planes - they usually say it will join you at final destination if more than 1 leg. And I have seen people successfully argue back that they can’t accept checkin - but it gets to a point where the lower numbered groups must as they’ve run out of overhead bin space.

they generally do board by group number fairly strictly so if you are in group 4, or especially 5, be prepared for the possibility.

But they are not the worst by a long way.

I've just flown with Norse to the USA and was feeling similar to you after reading reviews. We've had a brilliant experience. I think people who review airlines are primarily doing it because something went wrong, which happens sometimes when you travel, and especially when you ignore the rules set out by your carrier.

Yep..

It's similar to the old story that sales and marketing type people used to tell in the (almost) pre-internet days:

If someone feels wronged by an airline they'll go out of their way to make sure they tell at least ten of their mates.

If OTOH the airline does what was advertised or even a bit more than that they'll maybe tell one or two friends if they can be bothered.

Thanks so much. Just checked and its 2hr35 assuming the first flight is on time. Does that sound do-able do you think?

Thanks everyone! For some reason only just been notified of responses.

Fair points about what reviews of other airlines might also be like. I have good travel insurance luckily so between that and your responses, feeling a bit more reassured!

That should be easily OK I would think. Website suggests a minimum of 70 minutes. It's not a small airport - so from one end of Terminal B to other end of terminal A could be a 20 min walk in itself - worst case scenario.

We have just flown Brussels Airlines into Ljubljana from Heathrow via Brussels airport. Booked via Swiss Air. The experience wasn't great tbh. There are ZERO signs at Brussels airports alerting you to the fact that you have to go OUT of the airport and back into to get between terminals an and b. You also have to go through security again. We were tight for time and if it wasn't for another family on the same flight we would have got completely stuck.

The airline also lost a bag containing a mixture of our son's stuff. The bag turned up after nearly 3 days. I am now applying for compensation as we had to buy him new clothes and swimming stuff to be able to enjoy our holiday. First time in 25+ years of travelling to ever have a bag lost. Basically, the airport handling crew at Brussels forget to put the bag on board as we received the notification that it was delalayed when we arrived in Ljubljana.

I flew from Manchester to Toulouse via Brussels with Brussels in March of this year. To be fair our connecting flight from Brussels to Toulouse was cancelled int the week beforehand but we managed to change no problem. We had no issues at all, most of the people on our flights were catching connecting flights and they even announced which gates we needed before we got off. I'd definitely fly with them again. There was quite a large queue to get into the other terminal so I'd say set straight off to the 2nd gate, some people we were travelling with stopped for a drink in a bar before the passport bit and nearly missed the 2nd flight!