| Home | Flights | Hotels | Diary |
München Franz-Joesef Strauß
As flights from the US are considered safe in terms of security, one does not have to re-enter security and could remain in the sterile area of the terminal. So I went to customs and took the escalator down to the Senator Lounge. Here, I got my boarding pass for my flight to Düsseldorf and took a shower. There was not waiting time and I was able to access the shower rooms without wait. After a refreshing shower and changing clothes
I took a seat and had a coffee and something to eat from the buffet as a late breakfast.
I spent the next hours in the lounge, updating my trip report and reading papers and having lunch.
One hour prior to departure I moved to the Senator Café, which was adjacent to my departure gate, which was a bus gate. The Senator Café was not very busy, only two additional passengers were waiting for their flights as I entered the lounge, but the lounge became busier in the next hour. Many passengers were only for a couple of minutes in the lounge before they left for their flight.
The coffee specialties are prepared freshly by the staff and the food items are mostly cold snacks but of better quality than the food in the lounge. No wonder, as far as I know the catering for the Senator Café is done by the same company than serving the First Class Lounge.
20 February 2012
DUS - MUC
[Munich Franz-Josef-Strauß – Düsseldorf International]
LH 2012 (Lufthansa); Airbus 320 (D-AIPS / Augsburg)
Gate G 30
14:45– 16:00 [effective 14:50– 15:51]
Economy Class
Seat 07 D
As boarding time had come I walked to the gate, where boarding had not started yet but was about to start a couple of minutes later. As expected it was a bus gate and soon the first bus was send to the plane waiting on the tarmac.
The A 320 was delivered to Lufthansa on September 13, 1990 and one of the older planes in the fleet of Lufthansa. It was equipped with two CFM56-5A1 engines by CFMI with a thrust of 25,000 lbf or 111 kn.
This plane was originally equipped with 156 seat but retrofitted with 168 seat of NEK, i.e. two rows more seats. The reduced seat pitch is still a disadvantage of these planes and since there is not difference in seat pitch between Economy and Business Class there is not really any need to pay more money. The only difference between Economy and Business will be the free middle seat (but the movable arm rests and the table in the middle seat are no longer there) and catering. There is also no closet available
to hang jackets and blazers, which is also a down. I really could not understand that Lufthansa is going this way. Why should I pay more to fly Lufthansa if I get the same low service as the less expensive competitors? I have flown the Business Class of British Airways recently and quality and the wider seat are an advantage and I paid 40% less for Business Class ticket than on a Lufthansa flight?
But back to this flight …
I stored my trolley in the overhead bin and the laptop under the seat. The flight was quite full, but seat blocking worked and the middle seat remained empty. However the lady on the window used the middle seat to store here many hand bags.
We were pushed back at 15:50 and taxied for the runway where we took off ten minutes later at 15:00.
The flight itself was uneventful, a usual domestic flight with a beverage round and a chocolate bar as snack. The crew was average. While one of the flight attendants addressed the passengers holding elite status by name, the purser who was serving Business Class and the first rows of Economy did not address anybody by name. I would rate him also as not very friendly.
The captain gave an update about flight time and the expected arrival time in Düsseldorf (ahead of schedule) and the weather situation in Düsseldorf as we had already begun our descend into Düsseldorf Rhein Ruhr.
We touched down at 15:49 and after a very short taxi reached our arrival gate at 15:51.
With no checked luggage I hurried up to catch my train heading home