Chicago O'Hare

At Chicago I headed from the concourse C to concourse B and to the Red Carpet Club next to B 16. This is one of the newer, renovated and partly refurbished Red Carpet Clubs at ORD. At the entrance I got another two drink chits. Although the lounge was quite crowded, I was able to find a seat near the bar in the lower part of the lounge. I exchanged on of the drink chits into a glass of Chardonnay and started my laptop. The nice thing if you are a subscriber of the t-mobile HotSpot Pass in Germany is, that you can access the wifi network worldwide, though you have to pay for the service. Since I did not get a voucher, I used my German subscription to access the internet and check e-mails.

As boarding time approached I headed for the gate B 16, where my flight to Düsseldorf would leave. I approached the desk to get rid of my green I-94 card in my passport. There had already lines formed for passengers queuing for boarding. I noticed that the boarding pass did not show the SEN status and asked for a new boarding pass to confirm that the status was in the system.

Boarding started half an hour before the scheduled departure time with First, Business and Star Gold Passengers. After a second check of passport I was on my way to the plane. Not Business Class this time, only an exit row in Economy.

29 April 2010
ORD – DUS
[Chicago O'Hare – Düsseldorf International]
LH 437 (Lufthansa); Airbus A 330-300 (D-AIKC / 'Hamm')
Gate B 16
16:15 – 07:25 [effective 16:18 – 07:53)
Economy Class
Seat 30 C

I walked to my seat, stored my belongings in the overhead compartment and waited for the remaining passengers to board the plane. I chatted with the flight attendant waiting there about the load of this flight and was told that the flight was not full.

As the announcement boarding completed was made, I changed to 30 D, since the whole row 30 D – G remained empty. Though this meant less legroom.

We pushed back at 16:18 and later the safety video was shown. The crew informed us about a flying time of 07:25 once we were airborne. We had to queue up for start, as the female captain told us, as there were 12 planes in front of us. Finally at 17:00 it was our turn and the captain powered the engines and we accelerated and finally climbed into the sky 28 minutes after we should have left ORD.

The start was quite a bit bumpy and therefore the purser used this opportunity to ask everybody to buckle up during the flight, although the fasten seat belt sign were switched off. We climbed into the sunny sky over Chicago and once we reached cruising altitude the seat belt signs were switched off and the crew began to prepare the service and also the inflight entertainment system was started.

The purser made his announcements in free speech, giving us all necessary information but not by using the standard announcements. As the start was bumpy, he referred to being in Chicago as the windy city, he also informed us about the name (plane named after city of “Hamm”) and type of the plane (Airbus A 330-300).

As usual a first round of beverage and some pretzels were made. I stayed dry and only had a glass of sparkling water.

The meal service soon followed and this time the question was like so man times: chicken or pasta. I took the pasta and had a glass of white wine – a Riesling – with the meal. The pasta were okay, a bit tasteless but otherwise okay for Economy. They came with mushroom and peas. A salad, a slice of cheese and a slice of chocolate cake were also on the tray.

I was addressed by name by one flight attendant, the (only) one who noticed that I switched seats. I did not notice any special recognition of the purser during the flight to other passengers, therefore I assume there was no special recognition of status passengers on this flight.

Later coffee and tea was offered and as trays were collected Baileys and Whine brand was offered; I took this opportunity to have a glass of whine-brand.

Later the crew offered duty free items and the the cabin lights were dimmed soon later. I turned on my reading light and did some work. I wrote replies to several e-mails, did some other work and continued to write this trip report. A few beverage rounds were done during the night.

Later I took a rest, listened to music and read a bit in the magazines I brought with me from the Red Carpet Club.

Approximately 75 minutes prior to landing the cabin lights were turned on and refreshing tissues were distributed. A snack box, which I skipped, soon followed and also another beverage round.

We were unfortunately already delayed at this stage. The tailwind was not that strong and in relation with the delay at the runway we were unable to safe some time while in the air. The items were collected soon later and the first officer came over the microphone a bit later announcing the turn on of the fasten seat belt signs and he gave us also a weather update. Ten minutes later, the purser mentioned the fasten seat belt signs meanwhile turned on again and highlighted the fact, that we were delayed and this meant a few scheduled connections were already a bit tight. In addition to the gate information shown on the screen he informed the passengers of the tightest connections to Hamburg, Berlin and Frankfurt about their gates and requested those passengers to head to this gates immediately.

The crew began to prepare the cabin for the landing and we flew towards Essen, made an U turn there and approached Düsseldorf International Airport from Eastern direction. We touched down at 07:47 and taxied to our gate A 88. Only the first door was used and we had to wait a few minutes before it was finally our turn.

It was a long walk towards border control and the automatic door did not work and someone from Düsseldorf Airport had to lock and unlock it before the door opened and I was on my way to the skytrain, which brought me to the airport station. Thanks to a delayed train I was able to catch my bus home at Duisburg main station.

Top

next flight