Düsseldorf Airport

I arrived at the airport quite early for this flight as I had to return a rental car prior to 08:00 and traffic could be quite busy in the morning. So I left home earlier that it was necessary, but later as I had to by using public transportation and arrived at the airport at 07:15 and was at the check in counter for First Class and Star Gold Passengers a few minutes later. All three boarding passes were issued, but the US Airways segments only showed M&M instead of the LH*G. A reprint did not change it, although the status was shown in the system. I was told to eventually recheck with the US Airways staff in Munich. Security, which is now directly accessible from the First Class Check In area was fast as they were not many passengers queuing at this hour. I headed for the SEN lounge, which was not that busy and had a cup of coffee and a croissant did some work which I could not finished during the previous day, made a few calls and read the paper. I also watched the reports of the US Airways Hudson landing in NYC running on CNN.

The flight was delayed by twenty minutes due to fog and cold weather in Munich in the morning and so I headed to the gate twenty minutes after the scheduled boarding time which was 09:10 now.

16 January 2009
DUS – MUC
[Düsseldorf – Munich]
LH 833 (Lufthansa); Airbus A 321-100 (D-AISG / 'Dormagen')
Gate A 72
09:25 – 10:35 [effective 09:46 – 12:37]
Economy Class
Seat 05 C

Boarding had not yet started as I reached the gate A 72, which is just opposite the stairs to the SEN lounge but did so after a few minutes. Boarding was done by rows, but all people were invited to board the plane by using the scanners. I did so, but it is not very clever to board by rows and invited everybody to use the self-boarding facilities. Anyway I think I did not cause a mess, as I stored my trolley in the overhead compartment and the laptop under the seat in front of me. The middle seat remained free and it seems seatblocking was working. Therefore I was able to convert the seat into a business class seat and got a bit more space.

The captain informed us about the delay, but at this point he hoped to make some time good once in the air.

The safety demonstration was done during push back and as there were only four rows of Business Class on this flight, the flight attendance had to go back and forth between Business Class and Economy Class as there are lavatories in the first third of the plane and the curtain were closed over the seat, so we could not see her.

The plane was not completely full and we pushed back at 09:50 and taxied to the runway, where we took off at 10:00 and headed towards Munich.

The first minutes of the flight were quite bumpy but as we had passed the clouds it became a calmer flight. Seat belt signs were switched off after 5 minutes and the service began a few minutes later with Business Class and then we in the back of the plane got our choice of beverage. I opted as usually for a cup of coffee and water. Tray tables were cleared around 20 minutes later.

A few minutes after the beverage service had finished the captain came over the microphone and had some bad news. The weather in Munich had changed again and unfortunately it had become worse than expected causing a big delay in the number of planes approaching MUC and we had to be in holding pattern for an hour or so. Since we did not have enough fuel, he decided to divert to NUE and refuel there. This would cause a delay of at least an hour.

After we had touched down at 10:50 in Nuremberg we were waiting on the tarmac along with quite a few other planes (among them Air Berlin aind a Privatair plane).

The flight attendants were very helpful; they offered orange juice and water and checked the timetables for connecting flights. The captain made a statement in the cabin and telling us the reason (fog, heavy air traffic) and that he hoped to get us out of NUE as soon as possible. The captain tried also to get a solution for a few passengers who had asked it they could leave the plane in NUE. They had searched the web and discovered that ICE trains were running every 30 minutes to Munich main station from Nuremberg main station which should be reachable in 20 minutes by taxi from the airport according to a passenger who had been to Nuremberg. After a few minutes he came over the microphone and told us, that it was possible to leave the plane and so a few passengers left the plane. He apologised for the delay and also that they were unable to get additional information for passengers with connecting flights.

I had checked the departure information on my web enabled PDA for flights leaving for PHL from MUC and US Airways seemed to be on time. There was a later LH flight to EWR and I was hoping to get a seat on this flight which would get me into the greater New York area around the same time than I had arrived on the originally booked flights via Philadelphia.

The plane was fuelled and a little bit sooner than expected we got the okay to continue our journey to Munich at 11:55 and were airborne 8 minutes later for the last 25 minutes or so to Munich, were we touched down at 12:33 and reached our bus gate at 12:37.

I was in the First Bus and we reached the terminal after a not so short bus ride.

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