Milan Malpensa
After a short night the requested wake up call arrived at 03:45 in the morning. I took a long hot and cold shower, packed my stuff and headed down for check out. LH friends and family had left the hotel half an hour earlier and it seems there were no-one of LH on the shuttle, which took us to the airport.
It had begun to snow since the late evening before and it was still snowing as we arrived at the airport. Stefen0212, hch and rampant checked in as they were not able to check in the day before. They were told only LH SEN could check in in the day before but nobody else. Rampant was asked to check his hand luggage in, as they only allow one bag or one personal item and the flight was full. Regarding the availability of the lower fare classes on this flight, we doubt this.
We took the stairs down the security, where hch and I was able to use the fast track for business and first class passengers as well as passengers holding Star Gold status. We were the only one in line so security was very fast and we waited for our fellow flyertalkers rampant and steffen0212. We decided to head to the gate to see if there was anything going on but there were only LH family and friend sitting. We headed back and searched
the SEN Lounge for breakfast. The SEN lounge was quite difficult to find. Only a sign to VIP lounge were visible and an Alitalia lounge at the end of the corridor, but a bit further one we finally arrived at the SEN lounge. It seems that since the duty free shop was not open yet the signature for the lounge was not very good.
We had some rolls and coffee, espresso and water for breakfast and decided to return to the gate a few minutes prior to boarding time at 05:45.
At the gate area we noticed the gate change and there were also more passengers waiting for the plane. Among LH family and friends were a few passengers and later arrived a film team of LH (according to the logo on the microphone). A speech was made by some official persons and the crew were cutting the ribbon.
The crew wore the outfit of LH Italia, which is different form the one of the regular Lufthansa. It is in a very dark blue without the yellow touches the usual crew uniform had.
A few pictures of the crew were taken which took a couple of minutes and it was still snowing outside.
Boarding began around 06:00 and we were among the first passengers to board the plane.
Boarding was completed in a very short time due to the very low load of the flight.
02 February 2009
MXP - BCN
[Milan Malpensa - Barcelona]
LH 1790 (Lufthansa Italia); Airbus A 319 (D-AKNG / 'Varese')
Gate A 12
06:15 – 07:50 [effective 06:15 – 08:13]
Economy Class
Seat 07 A
The seats were the same as on any other Lufthansa plane, but the covering of the head rest had the Italian tricolore on it. Our plane was named “Varese” and was a former plane of Germanwings (registration was D-AKNG)
We pushed back at 06:17. The safety demonstration was done while we pushed back in English and Italian Language and a summary in Spanish Language was done by tape a few minutes later. Malpensa Airport was still covered in snow and also a few taxiways were partly free of snow. We rolled to the deicing area where we were cleared from the snow and got the deicing liquid. This took a couple of minutes and finally around 06:55 we continued
our way to the runway 35 if I remember correctly
The runway was also not free of snow, a layer of snow was still on it, but nothing to worry about.
We were finally airborne at 07:01 and climbed into the cloudy and snowy sky above Milan. It was a bit bumpy for the first couple of minutes of flight time.
The seat belt signs were switched off after four or five minutes and the crew jumped into action.
We got a breakfast box which consists of a roll, yoghurt and a cookie.
The beverage round soon followed and I opted for a coffee and a glass of water. The crew addressed the passengers in German language rather in Italian or English language. Although it seems that at least one of the crew members was fluent in Italian language, it was a bit strange that they addressed the passengers in German instead of Italian. They changed this later, probably a bit of routine for the Germany based crews.
The cockpit crew began the first word in German but then switched to English and there was no German announcement made by the captain or the co pilot.
The flight itself was uneventful. The most time during flight it was cloudy and we could not see anything on the ground. In the plane the film crew made interview with several people and disturbed the crew and some other passengers a bit.
App. 15 minutes prior to landing the crew distributed a small gift for this flight, a small key clip with a tag as memory on this flight. The last couple of minutes while we approached Barcelona El Prat airport were a bit bumpy. We touched down at the runway at 08:08 and taxied over the airport before we finally arrived at our bus gate at 08:13. During taxiing we got some nice impressions of the new airport terminal of BCN.
A few pictures were taken while waiting for the last passengers to disembark and then we were on our short bus ride to the terminal.
The trolley of rampant was already on the belt while we arrived and we headed for the terminal and checked in for our flight back to MXP. Unfortunately hch was not able to get a boarding pass for his upcoming flight to VIE as the Austrian Airline counters were not open and the self check in machine did not work. So we headed to the train station of El Prat airport.
