2025’s big trip: India! Part 3: BHD-LHR

This next flight is the beginning of my ticket to India: Belfast to London.  You’ll notice that I had previously flown into Dublin.  I didn’t actually spend any time in Dublin but rather immediately got on a bus to Belfast.  Had I booked the same Dublin-San Francisco-Dublin ticket starting instead in Belfast, it would’ve cost more than $2 000 more, which is absolutely insane.  So the bus ride was definitely worth it.  After spending a few days in Belfast (which reminded me a lot of Liverpool actually), it was time to begin the big journey to India. 

Belfast Airport has only a single lounge, which is the Aspire lounge beside Gate 4.  This lounge used to be only a British Airways lounge, but it was closed a few years ago along with the Manchester BA lounge (which I last visited before I started this blog, unfortunately).

My previous Aspire lounge visit in Manchester in March was perfectly serviceable, so I was hoping that it’d at least be at least on par with that one. 

Immediately upon entry, it was obvious that they had put a lot of effort into the aesthetics of the lounge.  Everything had a marbled finish, and everything was fresh and fully functional.  The drinks area consisted of self-pour spirits and mixers, as well as bottled alcoholic drinks and some additional drinks on tap.  There was also a coffee area.

The food area, on the other hand, was less exciting.  Everything was very nicely displayed, but there was nothing particularly interesting available.  They had the standard offering in a British lounge of biscuits, but also a pancake machine and some additional bread options.

In addition, there was a hot food area, which consisted of a chicken curry; moon bread; and mushroom carbonara, and a cold food area, which consisted of cold cuts and salad trimmings.  The hot food options look pretty sad (and tasted sad as well).

I primarily took a small selection of cold cuts and then also poured myself a Guinness (0%).  It seemed rude not to have a free Guinness while in Ireland.

The views of the taxi area were excellent.  We were able to watch the previous flight to London (among a couple others) takeoff and then we watched our aircraft arrive from London and pull into the gate.

The best part of the lounge for me was the view because it also meant that they specifically called for the boarding of this flight in the lounge. When it was time for this flight, the lounge completely cleared out (it was actually impressive how quickly it emptied). Interestingly, we had to show some form of ID at the gate to board the flight, which I hadn’t previously experience on a UK domestic flight. Maybe it’s a Northern Ireland thing.

I boarded the plane toward the end of boarding since I’d be sitting in the first row and didn’t really want everyone to have to filter past me. For a short flight like this one (only about an hour), having a larger seat continues to not be a high priority for me, and just having a blocked middle seat (and a tray table) was great because it did really provide a lot of extra space between the window and aisle seat.

Like my previous (though international) flight to Dublin, a light meal was served promptly after takeoff. I believe that this was my first domestic UK flight since 2020 (and last time I flew domestically in Club Europe, I got a fun charcuterie platter).

The meal consisted of a cold, light salad of lightly seasoned chicken served on a piece of lettuce and cucumbers. It was served with a passionfruit mousse (a common Do&Co dessert option). I ordered a sparkling water to go with it, and overall, it was a great meal for such a short flight. The flight was short enough that the light meal took up most of the cruising time, so although I didn’t need any IFE, I will note that there was no in-flight WiFi.

Upon arrival in London, we were ushered to the tiny domestic arrivals area that consists of just two baggage belts with a retaining wall separating it from the rest of the arrivals area. The bags still take a long time to arrive, and it feels exceptionally long because you don’t have anything to eat up time (i.e. passport control) between deplaning and waiting for your bag.

In summary, boarding directly from the Aspire Lounge was fun, in principle, but although the lounge was nicely appointed, the hot food was bad (4/5).  The blocked middle seat on a short flight like this one, coupled with the bulkhead extra legroom was great (4/5).  The service on the flight was good (4/5), and the food on offer was good for this type of short flight (4/5).  There was no IFE offered, not even WiFi, so unfortunately no points there (0/5).  That leaves the flight with an overall score of 16/25, so whenever this aircraft gets WiFi, this flight would go from slightly below par to slightly above par.

I booked this flight as part of a UK-Chennai and back using (other) Michael’s upgrade voucher.  In theory, I should prorate the cost of the ticket across the three flights, but since this flight was literally free to add, I’m going to put the cost of this leg as $0.