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Frankfurt
Rhein-Main
At
the “Lounge Meeting Thread” at Flyertalk, I read Flyertalker
Pilatusguy arrived from Toronto the same morning and we decided to
meet at the Senator Lounge at Terminal 1 A. Unfortunately his plane
was delayed by more than two hours. Business / Frequent Traveller
Lounge near Gate A 26 was crowded and now empty seat available.
Lounge staff could not give me any new information about Pilatusguy’s
flight and therefore I decided to head to the Lounges in Terminal 1
B, as these lounges are less crowded than these in A at this time of
the day. I take the pedestrian tunnel, could cut customs by using the
iris-can self service facilities. It is always nice to notice the
strange views you get by other passengers if one uses this service.
From my experience many passengers did not know how to use
it. It is very simple. You need a machine-readable passport and must
register at the desk of Bundesgrenzschutz at Terminal A opposite
Business and First Class Check-In. It takes less than 10 minutes.
Once registered you could always use the Iris scan, which saves you
some time, especially if you arrive during rush hour. You must not be
a German Citizen, it is open as far as I know to everybody, but up to
now, the Iris-Scan Service is only available at customs at Terminal 1
B. There is no need to have status or some similar, it is open to
everybody.
Well the Terminal 1 B was crowded, at least the
gates B 20 – B 28. But as I wanted to use the Business Lounge near
Gate B 48 in the other satellite of the B Terminal no reason to worry
about. The lounge was full, but not as crowded as this in Terminal A.
There were still some chairs and lounge chairs free and so I got another coffee, some cookies and finished the paper and read a little bit, relaxed, watch the planes and the passengers in the lounge.
Boarding was scheduled for 11.20 and gate was C 13. This means quite a long way to go and therefore I left the lounge at round about
11.00. The B Terminal was still full of passengers, luckily the most
used the Skytrain to transfer to Terminal 1 A and so the connection
to Terminal 1 C was empty. Security took some minutes but no comparison with the long wait in 2004 on my SQ RTW. I passed it after
seven minutes with no need for an additional screening by one of the
members of security. Terminal C was not so full, the most planes
seems to have already left. C 13 is nearly in Terminal 2. My pass was
scanned and dumb questions were asked. Sorry, but did TSA really
believe somebody answer a question if he is a member of a terrorist
group with “Yes”? Okay, questions answered and given the answers
they wanted to hear. I got a new boarding pass. Ground Crew of US
Airways (Germans) was not very friendly, I asked if the seat beside
me remains empty, as this was what expertflyer.com showed the evening
before. I was told they could not see this. Well, I doubt they could
not but decided not to discuss this and take a seat in the waiting
area. I looked around for the I-94 form, but did not see it. Last
time I got it at the boarding counter of C 13 of SQ staff. Boarding
began late at 11.35 with Star Gold and Envoy, followed by families.
After this, there was an announcement for all passengers who had not
filled out the I-94 form to get this at the boarding desk. It happened, one
counter had given this to the passengers, and the other counter (the
one where I got my new boarding pass) did not hand it to passengers.
Boarding was by zones and I boarded early, as I was in zone 2
and also got the I-94 form in English and German language when
boarding the plane.
12
January 2006 FRA – PHL [Frankfurt – Philadelphia] US
781, Airbus A 330-300 12:05 – 15:15 [12:10 – 15:10] Economy
Class Seat 14 G
As I entered the plane, I noticed there was no flight attendant greeting
boarding passengers like Thai Airways, Singapore Airlines or
Lufthansa. Okay, I know where my seat was, but he first impression it
the impression you will remember. And therefore, US Airways should
perhaps change this and place at least one Flight Attendant at the
door. Honestly, I saw some minutes later a Flight Attendant at the
door greeting the other boarding passengers.
While I passed
Envoy Class I noticed this was no fully booked, but less than five
seats were free. The seat on this Airbus A 330 – 300 does not look
to bad, though no comparison with SQ, NH, CX, BA and LH’s new
Business Class. Sitting on my seat in Economy Class I thought about
another fellow flyertalker who had been on LH in F to Singapore the
day before.
A blanket and a pillow were placed on my seat. I
put my jacket and my carry-on in the overhead bin and put everything
I need during this flight on the seat beside me and in the pocket of
the seat in front of me.
I looked about the features of this
plane. There was an inseat monitor in the seat in front of me while
the remote unity was as usual in the seat. Therer was also the inseat
phone. The armrest could be lifted and there was an adjustable
headrest but no footrest. The cabin of the plane looked in some way
run down. Several scratches at the seats at the aisle and on the
cabin walls and also on the doors to the lavatories. The in-flight
magazine was not in very good condition; some pages are missing and
some were ripped. The seat had some stains as the carpet in the cabin
had.
Nearly 30% of the seats in Economy remained empty and
the most passengers had a free seat beside them (so had I). The
security announcement was made via in-flight entertainment system.
We pushed back at 12:10 and were airborne at 12:20. We flew
in northwest direction to the Netherlands and than to Great Britain
and Scotland.
After the fasten seat belt sings were switched
off, the Flight Attendants began service. First they began to sell
the headphones for 5.00 EUR / 5.00 USD / 3 GBP; I did not buy one,
though I had forgotten to bring my own, but had on the one hand
plenty to read and on the other hand thought (and still think) this
is a rip-off for an intercontinental flight. It is an AVOD system,
but films were not very interesting so was the music program and you
do not have the bride variation of genres you have on All Nippon
Airways or Singapore Airlines, it is more like the system you have on
the few LH Airbus planes with in-seat system.
Meanwhile it was
13:00 German time and the Flight Attendants began the food and
beverage service. The announcement of the menu was barely
understandable, but the words “chicken” and “pasta” one could
understand. I took the Pasta. Pasta in this case was seven Tortellini
with a sauce tasting neither as pesto nor as tomato sauce. I do not
know what sort of sauce this should have been. The pasta were cooked
to long (“al dente” would have been at least five minutes
earlier). To the Pasta, one got a croissant, a cracker, butter,
cheese, some slices of oranges and a mousse. On the positive side, if
one ordered a beverage in a can like Coca-Cola, Sprite, etc. one got
the whole 0,33 l can which is a nice touch. Spoon, fork and knife
were plastic. After the meal there was an additional beverage round
with tea and coffee but also soft drinks were offered. As far as I
noticed no alcoholic beverage was offered in Economy. A little bit
later the trays were collected.
Approximately half an hour
later the light was dimmed and one was asked to close the window
shade. I will never understand why one should close the window shade
on a day flight. The funny thing is, in Business you are not asked to
close it (at least on my flights on LH and TG), while in Economy you
are. The most passengers used the reading lamp to read or watch a
film. I read and relaxed a little bit, thought about things at
work and my job and some projects I have to finish when I return. I
also make some notes about the flight. During the flights, the
Flight Attendants did not look about passengers. Once or twice I saw
one of them walk trough the cabin. In the back of the plane they have
their seats and read or sleep. Also in the back, there were a tray
with water and orange juice and some pretzels. I walked several times
back to get something to drink. Lavatories were okay, but not as
clean as on other, especially Asian, carriers.
After 7 hours
the lights were switched on again and there was another food and
beverage service. This time, one got a sandwich and something to
drink. The sandwich consists of ham and cheese and tasted like the
one you get on a LH flight in Economy.
During the flight
there were three announcements by the captain. One was made over
Scotland before we headed over the Atlantic, the other was made as we
entered American Territory at Portland / Maine and the last one at
Long Island before we began our descend into Philadelphia. The flight
itself was calm, a few times a little bit bumpy, but especially two
hours before touch down we had nearly a blue sky with no cloud and
could get some nice views of Long Island and the region between the
Atlantic and Philadelphia and of Downtown Philadelphia.
We
flew over the harbour of Philadelphia and the Marine Port; I noticed
a big passenger ship at Philadelphia but could see it only for a few
seconds and therefore I am not sure, but it looks like the Atlantic
Liner “United States” (the last ship who got the Blue ribbon for
the fastest transatlantic crossing), but I thinks, the United States
must be bigger. Perhaps someone could tell which vessel this is
….
We touched down at 15:05 and were at our Gate C 13 five
minutes later.
Nobody hold Economy Passengers back, so late
Envoy Passengers and Economy Passengers deboarded the same time and
headed in direction to Immigration.
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