Düsseldorf International

I arrived at the airport around 3 hours prior to my flight. My appointments in Düsseldorf and surrounding areas happened to be much quicker than I had planned. Since I had not slept on the flight, I now began to feel tired and also hungry as I had nothing to eat either, only a few strong cups of coffee and espresso. So I decided to spend the time at the Senator Lounge, hoping that it will not be too crowded.

Security was busy, but the organization was somehow strange and not really in the favor of those traveling in Business Class or higher or holding Star Gold Status. There is a dedicated entrance for Economy Class and further to the left a separate entrance for all other passengers (i.e. First / Business Class and Star Gold). Usually the two lanes to the left are those for the aforementioned passengers but today these were the only ones in use. So one was basically at the top of the queue and while Economy Passengers used both x-ray belts, the left one was the one for First / Business Class. I was literally invited to cut the line by the agent at the belt. And the views from the other passengers in the line were somehow not the nicest ones, one could read that the thought what the heck does this gut think that he is cutting the line …

I decided not to think about it and put my belongings on the belt. I became a witness of a quite upset Lufthansa Agent forcing a couple booked to somewhere in South Eastern Europe to hurry up. They had tons of liquids in their carry on but not the time to re-check their stuff and did not understand why they could not have it in their carry on. From what the agent told the passengers, the other passenger of this flight had already boarded and they were only waiting for these three passengers. In the end many cosmetics remained in Düsseldorf …

After I passed security without further inspection, I was on my way to the Senator Lounge. The lounge was empty and I had no difficulties to find a seat, get a paper and grabbed some munchies from the buffet. I spend the next two hours in the lounge, reading, relaxing and a little bit of working. Finally the signboard was indicating that the flight was ready for boarding and I walked down to gate, which was a bus gate, so no need to be there earlier.

The gate agent handed out “delivery at aircraft” bag tags for those bags, not fitting into the overhead compartment of our CRJ 900 jet

06 July 2013
DUS – MXP
[Dusseldorf International – Milan Malpensa]
UA 3184 (Lufthansa); CRJ 900 (D-ACNP)
Gate A 95
18:05 – 19:30 [effective 18:17 – 19:34.]
Economy Class
Seat 12 C

I had only a small carry on, which fits into the overhead bin so I took it with me on board the plane. I was among the first passengers boarding the plane, since I had a good position close to one of the doors of our bus.

The plane was not full; I had checked the load in the lounge. I would rate the load by 80 percent, but I was lucky and had a free seat next to me. Quite a number of passengers did not understood the concept of bags delivered at aircraft and took their carry on in the aircraft. The flight attendant was busy with other things and did not notice it and so quite a number of bags had to be brought to the front as they did not fit into the overhead compartment or under the seat. This causes a slightly delay  but we had to wait anyway due to ATC reasons for ten minutes.

We were pushed back at 18:17 and taxied to the runway. We took off in Eastern direction ten minutes later at 18:27. Shortly after we took off, we made a turn to the south and flew towards Southern Germany, Switzerland and finally Italy. The flight was uneventful and not very long. Nevertheless I quickly fell asleep until we already were over the Swiss Alps and about to begin our approach into Milan’s Malpensa Airport.

Anyway, out CRJ-900LR was owned by Eurowings who operated in on behalf of Lufthansa Regional. It was quite new and delivered aon December 20, 2010. It was powered by two General Electric CF34-8C5 engines with a thrust of 64 kN. The LR is the long range variant of the CRJ-900 which is a stretched version of the CRJ-700. Maximum range of the LR is 3385 km compared to 2950 km of the ER variant.

We touched down at 19:29 and had a short taxi to our parking position on the tarmac. Like in Düsseldorf we had a bus gate, but the bus was not finally there and we had to wait a couple of minutes for the bus to arrive and also for the delivery at aircraft bags to be delivered.

The bus brought us to the terminal and without need to wait for luggage on the belt I was on my way to the train station.

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Conclusion