In advance: Please excuse any spelling mistakes and the quality of the pictures.
Introduction:
At the beginning of the year I booked myself a trip to Hamburg on Eurowings via Düsseldorf. I was very excited to finally fly a Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 as I've never flown this aircraft type. On June 2nd I recived an Email from Eurowings which said that they had changed my departure time in Basel and thus had to rebook me on another flight from Düsseldorf to Hamburg because I would have missed that flight. Because I had a connection flight with Lufthansa on a separate Ticket I would have missed those flights as well. So in order to do my trip I refunded the Eurowings ticket and booked Ba Club Europe to Hamburg via London Heathrow. I paid a part of the ticket with Avios so it wasn't that exensive (ca. 100 CHF).
Check in and security:
As I only travelled with hand luggage I checked in online (A thing that annoyes me is that even in Business Class Ba charges between 20 and 30 CHF for a seat reservation when you want to reserve seats during the booking process). The security check was completed quite fast. The Euroairport in Basel also has a Fastlane at the security check.
The Skyview Lounge:
Did you know that the Skyview Lounge is the former Crossair and later the Swiss Lounge? As both of those Carriers aren't around in Basel anymore, the Lounge can be accsessed with a Ticket that grants Lounge accesess, with a Prioritypass or by paying the entrance fee which is 40 CHF. Despite it beeing an "open" lounge I never saw many people in there.
This is the entrance level. Here you can find a small buffet with drinks and cold food. On this level, there are also restrooms and a shower. As you can see it also features a pond.
There is also a Bar. Although I think the Bar is permanently closed.
This is the dining area of the Lounge.
This is the main buffet of the Lounge. As I travelled in the morning, breakfast was served. There are a few options available such as: cereals, cold cuts and pastries as well as a few hot options like scrambled eggs, beans and bacon. A soup was also available. Drinks of all sorts were also provided.
This is the lounge area. The seats are very comfortable. Powerstations with universal outlets are also available altough not at every seat. The third level of the lounge is not accsessible as it is also permanently closed. More restrooms, PCs, small conference desks and small telephone cabins (without coin telephones) are also provided.
There is also a terrace, from wich you can ovrsee the tramac and the main Runway.
Resumee Lounge:
I think the lounge is very good. It is big and provides lots of seating options. It also serves hot food and drinks.
I think it's obvious to see that, this lounge was built for Crossair as they generated a lot of traffic here in Basel. The good thing is, now that there are less business people in the lounge, it never is overcrowded.
The flight:
BA0751
11.07.18
Aircraft: Airbus A320
Registration: G-EUUG
Departure: 06:50 (on-time)
Boarding started on-time with an announcement for Families with small children as well as people who need assistance. After that priority boarding begann and later the reugular boarding (in groupes). I was among the first to board the aircraft.
My seat for the flight was 3A. The flight was very full that day. Club Europe being also completely sold out.
This was my view out of the window. The window had a couple of scratches wich made taking photos more complicated.
After boarding was compleated the crew handed out hot towels.
After a short taxi we took off on-time from runway 15.
During takeoff you could see some of the big Jetaviation Hangars and some customer Aircraft. Among the VIP Aircraft were: 2 Boeing 777-300ER who belong to the goverment of Japan, 1 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner which is for sale rightnow, 1 Boeing 747-8 which belongs to the royal family of Qatar. There was also a Boeing 777-200 from the goverment of Gaboon which is not visible in that picture.
After we reached cruising altitude the crew begann the service. They were very friendly throuhout the flight.
This was the english breakfast which was served. It was the only choice. With the breakfast there were also hot pastries offered. The meal tasted quite good. During the flight the crew multiple times offerd me a refill of my drink.
The view during the flight.
Resumee:
All in all the flight was very good. The food was ok and the crew was very friendly. I have to say that the seatpich was very bad. My knees were touching the seat in front of me regularly (I am 1.8m tall). Also the Inflightmagazines and the Safety Card were in very bad condition. All in all I can reccomend the fight in Club Europe. You can book this flight yourself for 220 CHF.
I hope you enjoyed reading this tripreport. If you hava any suggestions regarding improvements feel free to wirte a comment.
Have a good one.
LxBSL
