Brussels Airlines main lounge at Brussels Airport is their “the Loft” located in the intra-shengen A-gates area, one floor up from the main concourse, overlooking the airfield and the shopping and dining area below.

As during my previous visits you ended up in the main area after getting checked in by the lounge staff. Centrally you have the dining area with the food presented in a circle in the middle of the room, around it you have different types of seating arrangements, suitable to everyone’s preferences.

To the far left on a podium along the exterior windows you have a separate area for Senator Members. At the rear you have the toilets, resting pods and showers in separate room. As there are only a few toilets here, usually you have to wait in a queue for one to come available.

Recently Brussels Airlines expanded their lounge and added a completely new wing to the right of the main lounge area. This part was sponsored by Lexus and inspired by automobile design. Here you can find a number of different seating styles and an extra food display as well as a number of additional beverages stations. New is the addition of an area with some big sofas and a huge screen, which could be used to broadcast live events on.

At the rear of the lounge there is a mysterious corridor, unfortunately it is not indicated what could be found beyond it. Of course being a curious person I went to explore and discovered a number of additional showers, nap rooms and a huge extra toilet facility.

As the entire wing is sponsored by the Japanese Lexus, the toilets here are of the fully automatic gadget equipped Japanese ones, something you rarely see in Europe. As no one is around here these toilets are the ones to head for as they will always be available and clean.

Furthermore they also have two massages chairs tucked away in a quiet corner overlooking the food court below.

We were in the lounge during the late morning, so the breakfast spread was still put out. There is a vast choice of different types of breads, pastries, meats and cheeses as well as fruits and vegetables.

The hot dishes on offer where scrambled eggs and beans in tomato sauce, a bit later they started putting out the hot lunch plates which included rice, goulash and some delicious vegetable quiches.

On the beverage front you of course had a choice between different types of alcohol, soft drinks and juices. Besides glass water bottles in the refrigerators you could also tap the water from a number of coolers where they added in some lemon, lime of grapefruit to give a subtle taste to the water. Hot water and different types of coffees could be made with a special coffeemachine.

The Loft by Brussels Airline is an impressive lounge for an airline the size of Brussels Airlines, especially new it almost doubled in size with the opening of the new wing. While the lounge used to suffer from overcrowding this expansion should solve most of it. The food and beverage offer is more than acceptable, and offers some typical Belgian touches. Especially compared to the Diamond Lounge next door, the Brussels Airlines lounge is worth a visit and a longer layover could be spend here.

Have you been in the expanded Brussels Airlines lounge already? What is your opinion about it? Let us know in the comments below!