The Loft is the flagship lounge of Brussels Airlines. In 2018 the lounge was renovated and enlarged. Last year, it won the World Travel Award for being the best business class lounge in Europe. Let’s check if this award is well deserved. Spoiler: yes.

Review by Nico
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Accessing The Loft

The Loft is in the A-pier, where European flights leave. It is quite remarkable that the flagship lounge is here, and not in the B-pier where most long haul flights leave. In the B-pier, Brussels Airlines has The Suite, another lounge that is significantly smaller.

All business class passengers traveling on Star Alliance flights can visit The Loft. If you are the gold status in the Miles and More frequent flyer programme, you can join the lounge even if you are flying economy and you can also bring one extra guest. Passengers traveling in Flex & Fast on Brussels Airlines flights, can buy access to the lounge for €29.

First Impressions

The first thing I noticed as soon as I entered the lounge, is how much natural daylight there is. You have a wonderful view on the tarmac.

Right next to the entrance, you’ll find a dedicated stand of Neuhaus, a premium Belgian chocolate brand. Apparently they make fresh pralines here for passengers to sample. Unfortunately, the stand was closed when we visited. It looked really nice, and they even had Brussels Airlines chocolate planes. Cute!

Seating

A great thing about The Loft is just how many types of seating there are. Cosy couches, lounge chairs, restaurant style seating, bar seats, you name it.

The lounge is divided in two parts. One part is really quiet, in the other part they play some background music. This is really smart, making it a lounge where everybody can feel comfortable.

Food and drinks

The lounge is divided in two parts, and each part has a buffet. Both buffets have the same food, so you can just pick the buffet closest to you. We visited the lounge early in the morning, so there was a breakfast set-up.

There were different kinds of bread, toast, muesli, cold cuts and some warm options like eggs, tomatoes, beans and two kinds of soup. There was also a salad bar and fruit stand.

There is certainly enough food for an extensive breakfast. We see a trend in the industry where more and more lounges are adding restaurant style dining where you can sit down, order from a menu and get a freshly prepared dish. Brussels Airlines doesn’t offer that, but certainly for breakfast I didn’t miss that at all.

When it comes to drinks there is a self service bar with a solid range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. You can also tap your own beers, and Brussels Airlines wouldn’t be a Belgian airline if they didn’t explain you how to tap a beer properly.

Extra features

The lounge has a business center, if you need a quiet place to work.

If you want to sleep: there is one room with several ‘nap boxes’. The green light indicates the bed is free. On the other side of the lounge were two actual private bedrooms, which looked really nice. You can not reserve these bedrooms, they are on ‘first come first serve’ base.

In a lost corner we also found a massage chair:

And upon reservation you also can use showers.

Bottom line

Brussels Airlines does a really good job with The Loft, certainly above average in Europe. I don’t know if it really is the best lounge out there, but the airlines can rightfully be proud of this product. It is definitely a nice way to start your journey.