Instead of heading to the Lufthansa Senator Lounge in the “B Concourse” I headed for the Senator Lounge near A 25. Fellow flyertalkers rcs8555, cathaana and I had arranged to meet there. I wanted to give rcs85551 something to carry for me to Munich and he was flying to MUC from the Schengen area, therefore the B Concourse would not be an option and cathaana was with me on the same flight to Bangkok.

The Senator Lounge was very crowded and only a few seats were free. So I took one of these, get something to drink and to eat and “Die Zeit” for reading. Round about one hour later cathaana and then rcs85551 arrived. They had to look for free seats and even considered to change to the FTL lounge, but it was equally crowded. After some wait we were fortunately able to get three seats in a row and talked a bit about the UA and the DL fare errors of the week before.

Since rcs85551's flight to Munich was leaving from one of the lower A gates we headed together to the elevator to the pedestrian tunnel, where cathaana and I took the pedestrian tunnel to the B concourse while rcs85551 was heading to his gate.

Customs was fast, only a few people were queuing. Nevertheless I used the Iris-Scan Self Service to cut the line of two persons, because I like this electronically procedure very much and it is always very nice to get some strange views by other travellers.

In the B concourse we bought a bottle of water which was packed in one of these liquid bottles. I am still not used to this nonsense, especially if you are behind security ...

Boarding had not yet started as we arrived but after a wait of a few minutes the boarding announcement was made.

As usual first families travelling with small children were allowed and then Business and First Class passengers. This means everybody else jumped up from their seats to board the plane. And since the agents left the counter at the entrance to the jetway no one cares about if all passengers were allowed to board. I really ask myself, if it would be this difficult to check boarding passes. Since I am Star Gold, I am allowed to board before the crowd. But this benefit is useless, if nobody cares about it. This is very annoying from the point of view of the more than average travelling customers and I wish and hope Lufthansa will change this like other airlines do.

18 May 2007
FRA – BKK
[Frankfurt – Bangkok]
LH 782 (Lufthansa); Boeing 747 – 400 (D-ABTB / 'Braunschweig')
Gate B 22
22:35 – 13:55 [effective 22:35 – 13:50]
Economy Class
Seat 32 C

After I have reached my seat I stored my belongings in one of the smaller overhead bins above row 31. Row 32 is an exit row but this means unfortunately only limited space to store your belongings. No seat pocket and no overhead bin could be a real disadvantage, if you need them. It seems that row 33 A or J would be a perhaps better places with a lot more legroom than the usual row. The disadvantage of this seat you are in a window seat with two seat aside, though one could try to leave the seat through the space between seat 32 A and the exit row.

Cathaana had asked to get the seat next to me, but this exit row seat was occupied. So she was in 32 G while I was in 32 C.

While the other passengers were boarding the plane I stand in front of my seat and chatted a bit with one of the flight attendants. Another flight attendant approached and asked her colleague to deal with an angry Senator, who had asked for a blocked seat instead of his exit row seat which did not work. He was angry. The flight attendant seems to know him, because this passenger flies Frankfurt – Bangkok frequently. In the end, we changed places and the flight attendant managed to get two exit row seats so I was able to change seats and had the seat aside cathaana.

The flight was not completely full in Economy and First, but in Business. So my waitlisted upgrade did not clear. Load was app. 66% in Economy and 20 % in First (with only three seats taken).

We pushed back at 22:35 right in time, but had to wait a bit in front of the gate before we headed to the runway. As far as I remember we took the famous “Startbahn West” and were airborne at 22:50. The start was a bit bumpy, due to the strong wind but the flight became calmer after being airborne a few minutes. After the seat-belt signs were switched off the flight attendants began to distribute the headphones followed by hot tissues. I am not sure, if you get hot really towels on TG or SQ in Economy Class, but on LH we only had some sort of hot tissue, not a real towel. A first beverage round followed some minutes later together with a small bag of pretzels. Cathaana decided to try to sleep as much as possible on this flight. She was heading to Australia on Thai after our landing in Bangkok and therefore skipped dinner and the beverage round.

The dinner service began round about an hour after takeoff and this time the choice was pasta or turkey. I took the pasta which reminded me on my flights back on a US Airways in January 2004. The pasta consisted of five raviolis with a “no definable green filling” in a green sauce. There was a small plate with salad, a roll and a dessert aside it. I have to admit I have had much better food in Economy and even the food on my last Economy flights with United had on the segment Chicago to Amsterdam and vice versa. Perhaps I made the wrong choice, but from what I saw the turkey looked not much better. I had not eaten the whole day aside some sausages and small pretzels in the lounge, and therefore was hungry. So I decided to eat at least the pasta but skipped the rest on the food. Lufthansa still had wine and beer on board for free, and offered like TG refills of wine and also of water during the time passengers had their meal. I stayed with water and tonic water.

I was able to hand my tray to one of the passing flight attendants before they cleared it for the rest of the cabin. Like cathaana, I tried to get some sleep, too. I was tired and able to sleep altogether roughly four and a half hour. Luckily there was not that much traffic at the lavatories during the night, so I was not disturbed that much. But after roughly six hours of flight time the most passengers woke up and sleeping was not available because the passengers were waiting in front of our row to use the lavatories and sleeping in an economy seat is probably not the best thing. While some passengers try not to disturb us, some other passengers did not even care for a cent about not disturbing us.

The cabin interior was okay, the plane in a good shape. Only the screens for the in-flight entertainment system were not very good. I am used to have no personal screen, because I have been on UA and TG in Economy quite often in the past but as I have written in the past about flights on TG the lack of a good in-flights entertainment system could be a huge disadvantage nowadays. And I think it is necessary for LH to install screens on the seats of Y. I hope this come along with a wider selection of music channels.

Lights were finally turned on roughly two hours prior to landing. A hot tissues service took place a couple of minutes later. Soon later the breakfast service started, which was this time the usual omelette with asparagus, a roll, marmalade, butter and a yoghurt. One had no choice this time. I had parts of the omelette and the yoghurt and the soft roll and again food was miles away from being good. Together with the meal service was a beverage service, this time no alcohol was served with the breakfast. .

Trays were collected and soon after the flight passengers informed passengers continuing to Kuala Lumpur about the procedure at Bangkok and also marked the seats with a sticker of those passengers continuing on this plane to KUL. The passengers leaving the flight in Bangkok got the immigration document for Bangkok. As I was leaving in Bangkok and my next flight was a domestic flight from Bangkok to Phuket this means I had to pass immigration in Bangkok and therefore to fill the document. Like everybody else I headed for my passport in one of the overhead bins.

For the rest of the flight time I chatted a bit with cathaana about the last fare errors, the new airport and her next flights down to Australia and back on SQ, LX and LH in Business. She is trying to become UA1K this year.

We began our final approach to Bangkok's new airport, where we touched down at 13:45 and arrived at our gate five minutes later.

We had to wait some time before we could disembark through the door of the Business Class cabin.

I have not been on a Lufthansa long haul flight in Economy Class for a long time. But this experience was far away from a nice experience. The one thing is the boarding process, where noone cares about who is boarding the plane. Perhaps this is the question, why the boarding process on German Airports usually takes a lot longer than on Asian Airports. The other thing is the cut back in term of food quality. Food quality was lousy, even for Economy standards. The crew was okay, not unfriendly but not really friendly, too. They have done their job and nothing more. One had not the impression, they like to serve you, but they are primary in the plane for the safety of the passengers. I have to admit, that flight attendants opposite our seat was not that unfriendly while chatting with cathaana and me during our approach into BKK, but she was working in Business Class on this flight.

Top

next flight