Düsseldorf International

I was brought to the airport and dropped off in front of the Lufthansa concourse of Düsseldorf International Airport. Security was busy, but the lines at the Elites security check counters were not that long at all. Again no beep and I was through security quite fast.

I headed for the SEN lounge and was greeted by another agent than the previous day. I asked about the load of the flight for Bangkok and was told that Business and First were full, but not overbooked, while Economy was overbooked. She did not tell me the exact number, but thought it looked good for an operational upgrade and told me I should gamble and not use two of my upgrade vouchers.

The Senator Lounge was quite busy and I took a seat in the rear part and read a bit in the FAZ and had some Leberkäse and pretzels and a glass of champagne and sparkling water.

Time passed quickly and as boarding time had come I headed for the gate, although the lights at the information board were not indicating that the boarding had already started. But since I was traveling with a trolley and a laptop bag I wanted to secure space in the overhead compartment since this flights to Frankfurt in the evening are usually full.

After some minutes waiting time and after a unaccompanied minor and a passenger in a wheelchair had boarded we were allowed to board the plane.

05 February 2009
DUS – FRA
[Düsseldorf - Frankfurt]
LH 815 (Lufthansa); Airbus A 319 (D-AILN / 'Idar-Oberstein')
Gate A 72
19:40 – 20:35 [effective 19:38 – 20:23]
Economy Class
Seat 15 A

The self boarding machines were not in use and boarding was in rows. But since I had a seat in row 15, I was allowed to board. I was greeted while entering the cabin and headed to my window seat. I stored the trolley in the overhead compartment and the laptop under the seat in front of me. The plane was nearly full and many if not the most passengers seems to connect to a long distance flight.

We pushed back at 19:38 and taxied for the runway. There was no plane in front of us, so we were airborne at 19:48 bound for the short hop to Frankfurt.

The middle seat remained empty, so seat blocking seemed to work. Sitting in the aisle seat were a pilot ofAir Berlin, returning from Moskow after a busy week flying across Europe for Air Berlin. I converted the seat into a business seat and joked since he was Air Berlin staff he would not tell the LH crew. He laughed and told he would not do so, even if he were Lufthansa. We chatted during the flight about airlines safety, esp. the Hudson landing of US Airways, travel in general, destinations in Asia LTU and Air Berlin flies to. I asked him about the introduction of Air Berlins new Business Class and if he had some news, but told me, they also get not much information and he thought it was not a good idea to advertise it and then to postpone the introduction. It was a very interesting conversation and flight time passed even quicker.

As usual there was not service done in Economy and we touched down at Frankfurt at 20:20 and arrived at our gate three minutes later at 20:23

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