Frankfurt Rhein-Main

I am not a huge fan of Frankfurt, since quite often one needs to pass immigration again, despite there is no need to do since the departure airport is considered safe. The reason, that there is simply no possible way inside the sterile area from one gate to the other. To me this is one of the reasons I try to avoid Frankfurt as often as possible. If I have to connect, I prefer Munich or Zurich, especially since Zurich moved their security checkpoint to the entrance of the terminal and not to the entrance of each concourse, which also means most of the lounges were outside of the sterile area before this change. So I was happy to notice, that one could access the tunnel from our gate at Frankfurt’s B concourse to the gates at A / Z concourse where the flight to Houston was scheduled to depart.

I walked through the tunnel to the concourse A/Z and took the elevator up to second level with the Z gates and walked over to the new Senator Lounge. If you know the old Tower Lounge, the new Senator lounge is really a big improvement. The new lounge is spacious, bright due to the large windows overlooking the tarmac and the use of warm color – a variation of brown and beige. There are dedicated areas, depending if you want to relax, work, eat or lounge. At the entrance to the lounge are the restrooms and the shower facilities. A large buffet is in the front part. In the rear part is a second smaller buffet with a coffee machine. I took a seat in the rear part of the lounge at one of the windows overlooking the tarmac. I grabbed a latte macchiato from the buffet and checked mails and answered a few ones. I wanted to have this done in Milan, but since the lounge was opened later as scheduled, I did not have enough time to do this in Milan.

The most people were sitting in the front part of the lounge, close to the buffet, the restroom and shower facilities and the entrance. Thus this part was quite busy, while the rear part was not very busy and there were many empty seats and armchairs available and it was quieter than in the front part.

I checked the signboards in the lounge every now and then and the flight was still showing on time, so I headed to the gate Z 54, which was a few meters away. Contrary to the A concourse this part offered moving walkways long enough to really speed up the walking time.

Boarding had not started as I arrived at the gate despite it was already later than the scheduled boarding time. Long lines with passengers were queuing at the gate. An announcement was made, that boarding time was delayed to some technical problems with the plane, which had to be fixed first. I had noticed a gate change for the earlier SFO flight using the Airbus 380 as well. This flight was now leaving from where our flight was earlier scheduled to board. So it seems the planes were swapped and now SFO had the planed which was disposed for IAH. Now, the flight showed as 30 minutes delayed on the screens. After 30 minutes families with children and those, who needed assistance were asked to board the plane. A further ten minutes later the boarding announcement was made for those traveling in the upper deck. Passengers traveling in Economy Class were requested to wait since the lower deck still was not ready. This means no priority boarding for Star Golds. Finally, nearly an hour after the scheduled boarding time, we could board the plane. An additional passport check in was done in the jetbridge.

25 June 2013
FRA – IAH
[Frankfurt Rhein-Main – Houston George Bush Intercontinental]
LH 440 (Lufthansa); Airbus A 380 (D-AIMC / ‘Beijing’)
Gate Z 54
10:05 – 13:50 [effective 10:51 – 14:22]
Economy Class
Seat 76 A

I walked towards the back of the plane and stored my carry on in the overhead bin and took my seat at the window. Row 75 is an exit row, but I was unable to get this row reserved so I took the window seat in the row behind, which offers also a lot of space since there is no seat in front of this seat due to the overwing exit. The aisle seat in this row has the disadvantage of limited legroom due to the box  of the inflight entertainment system under the seat in front which limits the legroom significantly.

I had noticed earlier this morning while still being in my hotel in Milan, that the middle seat was blocked. I hoped that seat blocking would work, as only 408 seats of the 420 seats of this Airbus A 380 were taken. But a young lady got the middle seat as new seat while boarding. Luckily for me and the passenger in the aisle seat, who also was Senator, the lady moved later to a seat closer to her friend further in the back of the plane, so we had our free middle seat, which is nice to have on a longhaul flight.

The captain welcomed us on board of our aircraft and updated us about the status of our flight, which was now more than an hour behind schedule. He hoped to catch up at least some of the lost time in the air, but would update us later in the flight. The purser welcomed us soon later and announced the safety video which was shown on the in-seat screens.

We were pushed back at 10:51 and taxied to the runway 24R. We had to queue for take off behind a Lufthansa 747-400 and a narrowbody. Time to give some information about the Airbus A 380 on today’s flight. It was my first flight in an Airbus A 380.

The Airbus with the registration D-AIMC named after the city of Beijing was the third Airbus which joined the Lufthansa fleet. It was delivered to Lufthansa on August 25, 2010 and named after the city of Beijing or Peking, which was the first time the Lufthansa choose international cities for a plane on a regular base. Usually Lufthansa names the planes after cities or states, depending on the size of the city and aircraft. So far, there was only one exception: an Airbus named “Gander / Halifax”.
The Airbus A380 is from my point of view not the nicest plane and far away from an elegant plane like the Lockheed Super Constellation or the Boeing 787. The plane is 72.73 meters long, 24.45 meters high and has a wingspan of 79.75 meters. It has a range of 9,755 miles, which makes nonstop flights from New York to Hong Kong possible. The usual cruising altitude or service ceiling is 13,136 meters or 43,000 ft. It is available with two types of turbofan engines, the Rolls Royce Trent 900 or the Engine Alliance GP7000. Regarding the engine types, the noise reduction was an important goal the manufactures had to achieve to be well under the QC/2 departure and QC/0.5 arrival noise limits under the Quota Count System set by London Heathrow Airport.
Lufthansa has ordered Rolls Royce Trent 970 engines for its Airbus A380-841. Each of the four Trent 970 turbofan engines has a thrust of 70,000 lbf or 310 kN. Only QANTAS is so far using the even more powerful Trent 972 engines with a thrust of 72,000 lbf or 320 kN.

The plane is equipped with 8 seats in First Class and 98 seats in Business Class, both located in the upper deck. The lower deck is equipped with 420 seats in Economy Class.
First Class consists of 8 lie flat seats in 1 – 2 – 1 configuration with a seat pitch of 90 / 92 inch and a seat width of 31.5 inch. The First Class has a better carpet and an increased humidity. The seats are no suites but pretty comfortable with a large bathroom in the front and lockers in the rear part. There are not overhead bins.
Business Class consists of the 98 old Business Class seats, i.e. they are not fully flat but angled offering a seat pitch of 57 to 60 inch and a seat width of 19.6 inch. The best seats are those in row 27 as they offer the most legroom, but have the disadvantage that it takes some time before one is able to leave the plane if only one jetbridge is used. One should avoid seats in row 10, 21, 22 and 28 because they are close to galleries of lavatories. Business Class has a 2 – 2 – 2 configuration.
Economy is configured 3 – 4 – 3 like the 747. The best seats are 76 A and 76 K as they have unlimited legroom because there is no window seat in the row before. 75 B 75 C 75 H and 75 J are exit row seats and offer also a lot of legroom, but are closer to the lavatories. The bulkhead rows are row 50 A – C and 50 H – K, 53 D – G, 60 A – C and 60 H – K, 61 D – G, 76 D – G and also 88 A – K. With the exception of row 53 they do not offer significant more legroom, in reality the legroom is even reduced as you could not use the space under the seat in front. Only row 53 has due to the staircase more space.

One should avoid the seas 51 A, 51 C, 54 E & F, 70 B, 70 J, 76 C and 89 K because the entertainment box under the seat in front of those seats is reducing the legroom. Other seats do not have this box and offer the usual amount of legroom.

There is no power outlet at any of the seats in economy class, only USB ports are available.

The magazine rack in Economy Class is above the second or third row of every cabin part in Economy Class reducing the space in the overhead bin. This is an even bigger disadvantage in the third part of the Economy Class Cabin, as there is no overhead bin above the exit row 75. With the magazine rack above row 76/77 the overhead space in this part of the cabin becomes full quite fast. In so far I recommend to board as early as possible if one is having a seat in this part of the cabin.
Seat pitch in Economy is 31 inch and seat width is 17 inch.

In the meantime we had reached the runway and we were waiting to be cleared for take off. Finally the captain requested the crew to take their seats and round about two minutes later we were ready for take off and at 11:14 the captain powered the four powerful engines Rolls Royce engines and we accelerated on the runway and climbed into the sky. I noticed that the plane was quiet compared to other even smaller planes. .

During the time we need to reach cruising altitude I looked around the cabin of this A 380-841.

It was the first flight for me in this big bird, but I have been inside an Airbus A380 before. I was able to tour an Airbus A 380 during the second Flyertalk Star Alliance MegaDo back in 2010. During this tour lead by different people responsible for different features of the plane (Inflight, First Class, Engines …), I got the impression that it might be too big with the complete lower floor only being Economy Class. Of course First Class with only eight seats is nice and offers a lot of personal space and Business Class would be also acceptable. However none of the Airbus A 380 had yet the new Business Class seats of Lufthansa but the now old one. The reason is quite simply, the delivery of the first A 380 was expected much earlier and at this time the new Business Class Seats would not have been ready.

Anyway, I wanted to try the A 380 in Economy Class as I want to have first-hand recommendations for my clients and colleagues, as many of them have to book Economy Class due to company policies.
The plane is quieter than other planes which is nice.

While we climbed to reach the cruising altitude the purser announced the service, which would consist of a lunch service right away and a dinner service before landing. Beverage and snack would be available in the galley during the flight.

Approximately 15 minutes after we took off in Frankfurt, the seat belt signs were switched off. The crew went to their stations and prepared the first beverage service. After ten minutes a first beverage service was done. Lufthansa is one of the airlines serving alcohol without additional cost in Economy Class but I only asked for a glass of sparkling water. I was offered a small packet of rice crackers which I declined. I had already started my laptop and updated this report as well as a few other reports I had to finish. A hot towel service was also offered later.

A few minutes later the purser on this flight made its appearance and introduced herself and welcomed me and the passenger in the aisle seat on board this plane and thanked us for flying Lufthansa. It was nice to see a personal greeting on this flight by the purser and as far as I notice the list was quite long with passengers holding Senator or HON Circle Status on this flights. We chatted a little bit before she had to head over to the next Senator in this flight.

The crew serving the last part of the Economy Class Cabin started the service. The service was not started at the same time in every part of the Economy Class Cabin and I am not sure, if this done on purpose. It for sure helped to slow down the rush to the lavatories after the meal service a little bit. I skipped lunch as I was not hungry and despite had only a glass of bitter lemon. The crew was friendly and attentive, though neither the Senator in the aisle row nor I were addressed by name by any other crew member than the purser. The usual “chicken-or-pasta-Question” was this time beef goulash or Picata Milanse. A coffee and tea service was done later as well as refills of wine or water were offered.

There was the usual rush to the lavatories after the meal and compared with smaller planes, it took longer before the plane became quieter with passengers reading books or ebooks, watched a movie or slept.

The crew did a few beverage rounds serving water, Orange juice and water were available during the flight in the galley along with the crackers already served with the first beverage service.

About midflight a small packet of biscuits was served and later the purser brought a small packet with the pralines from business class, which was a nice touch.

The flight was sometimes a bit bumpy but with the exception of a period of 15 minutes as we flew over the North Sea the seat belt signs were not turned on. Our flight path took us over the North Sea right over Iceland and the southern part of Greenland to Newfoundland and Canada to the USA.

I worked on several reports and some other things. My laptop battery was fully charged and I would not have had a big problem to cover the most of the flight time, but after eight hours, I decided to close my laptop and listen to music from my MP3 player. The music selection in the inflight entertainment system was not very appealing and the films also nothing I was in the mood to watch.

About 100 hours before we were expected to touch down in Houston, the crew began the dinner service. First a hot towel was offered and soon later the crew returned with the beverage cart and the food card. The meal choices were vegetarian pasta or a chicken with mashed potatoes. I skipped dinner this time and had only something to drink and asked for a coffee. I was also offered a glass of water in addition to our coffee. Soon later the trays and the item from the beverage service were collected and the crew began to prepare the cabin for the arrival in Houston.

There was again a rush for the lavatories and it was bit difficult for the crew to manoeuver through the aisle with the cart as this was blocked by passenger waiting for the lavatories or trying to get thing out of the carry on or back into the carry on.

We finally touched down at 14:09, still behind schedule and reached our gate at 14:22. Deboarding took some time, since only the lower first jet bridge was used and first the passengers in the upper deck were allowed to deboard the plane. So Economy Class Passengers had to wait quite some time before we finally were able to leave the plane. In the meantime, I chatted with the flight attendant on the jump seat at the rear door about the A380, its destinations and how long they were staying in Houston.

Queues at immigration were long and it took me close to an hour before I was finally on my way to the rental car shuttle pick up stop.

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