Milan Malpensa

I spend the night before my flight at the Sheraton Hotel at Milan Malpensa Airport, which is connected to the terminal. I had already checked in the day before using the self check in facilities at Malpensa. It took me two attempts to get all flights to the final destination to Seattle. Some time ago, I noticed that one is able to check in for more than the flights which are in the 24 hour window. Now you can check in for all flights right after the check in time for the first flight is reached. If one is having a longer (overnight) transfer this can save some time. On the other hand some airports require a boarding pass of the airline flying from this destination or request the boarding pass to be stamped by the check in agent, which requires seeing the check in agent.

Might it as it be, with all boarding passes for the upcoming flight printed I skipped the check in counters and approached the security checkpoint, which was empty. Laptop and liquids had to be put out of the carry on and on the belt but there was no need for a manual search of my carry on, although the many electronically gadgets usually mean the carry on needed an additional check by one of the security agents. The terminal was not very busy at this early morning around 05:15. The duty free shop was not yet open, so one has to bypass the shop to reach the Lufthansa Lounge which is a bit hidden behind the aforementioned duty free shop and the signposts are not very clear. Since I knew the location from previous trips, it was not that difficult, but signposting is still poor. The lounge opens at 05:15 but despite if was already post 05:15 it was not yet open. A few other passengers were already queuing and it was 05:20 as the two lounge agents appeared. The announced to open the lounge in a three minutes, it took another eight minutes before we could finally enter the lounge. One passenger was not very happy and thought that this is not really acceptable to let customer wait.

The lounge was remodeled since my last visit in 2009 and had now the new brown color scheme. The buffet in the lounge offered fruit salad, yoghurt, pastries, bread and rolls, coffee, tea, espresso and pineapple and orange juice. I grabbed a cappuccino but did not eat anything. The newspapers were delivered around 05:55. The papers were mostly Italian one, but also the Süddeutsche Zeitung from the same day was available. I left the lounge shortly before 06:00 and walked over to gate A 12 were our flight was scheduled to depart at 06:35. Boarding was announced for 06:05 and had not started as I reached the gate slightly after the announced boarding time but the agent was about to make the pre-boarding announcement. Priority was given to passengers traveling in Business Class, passengers holding HON Status, Senators and those with Star Gold status.

25 June 2013
MXP – FRA
[Milan Malpensa – Frankfurt Rhein-Main]
LH 259 (Lufthansa); Boeing 737-500 (D-ABIB / ‘Esslingen’)
Gate A 12
06:35 – 08:00 [effective 06:31 – 07:46]
Economy Class
Seat 12 C

At 06:10 boarding started with priority boarding and I approached the gate together with other passengers. At the gate was a Boeing 737 instead the scheduled Airbus A 320, which means my pre-booked seat was no longer in an exit row offering more legroom. Not a problem on such a short flight. I stored my belongings in the overhead compartment. The other passengers boarded the plane, which was full but not sold out. I had checked the availability the day before and seats in Business and Economy Class were available. A passenger delayed the boarding process because it took him close to three minutes before he got everything out of his backpack and it seems he had to search for some things. The other passengers had to wait until he had found everything. It is really that difficult to pack in the way, that one has everything one needs at one place or at least let other passenger pass? Anyway, the passengers were patient and waited in the aisle, though the flight attendants looked what was going on but did not step in.

As mentioned our plane was a Boeing 737 with registration D-ABIB, which was delivered to Lufthansa as new plane on December 18, 1990. It was equipped with two CFM56-3B1 engines by CFMI (Joint venture of General Electric Aviation and SNECMA). The CFM56 engines are developed for the Boeing 737-300 and Boeing 737-500 planes. Our plane was equipped with the smaller 3B1 which have a thrust of 20000 lbf or 89 kN. Each engine has a weight of 1.94 tons. No other engines are available for the Boeing 737 than those by CFMI.
The Boeing 737-500 has an average range of approximately 4200 - 4400 km by a cruising speed of 0,74 Mach or 780 km/h and its usual cruising altitude is 37000 ft.

This Boeing 737 was not always in the fleet of Lufthansa. It was leased to Polish Smart Wings from April 2004 to April 2005. During this time it flew with the registration OK-SWZ but an unchanged configuration with 111 seats. The only different was, the Smart Wings only sold Economy Class, while Lufthansa had the moveable curtain to divide the cabin into a separate Economy and Business Class, the later with a free middle seat. The plane was reconfigured with the so called Neue Europakabine (NEK) in 2011.

Back to our flight, the doors are closed and the captain had already welcomed us on board and mentioned the flight time. He expected an earlier arrival into Frankfurt and a smooth ride. The crew announced the safety demonstration, which was done while we were still at the gate. We pushed back at 06:31 ahead of schedule and taxied for our runway. There was no wait and we were airborne at 06:39 and climbed into the sunny sky over Milan. The flight was uneventful and smooth as expected and mentioned by the flight deck. A quick beverage round was done in Economy and the breakfast was a croissant. I skipped the croissant but had a coffee. The was no special recognition for passengers with elite status nor was I addressed by name, though the flight attendant had a print out of the passengers manifest with all status passengers on her cart. There were quite a number of Senators on board and at least three passengers with HON Status.

As we began our descend into Frankfurt, the captain came over the microphone again and informed us about our remaining flight time and the weather in Frankfurt. During the final approach the purser on our flight mentioned our arrival gate and gave gate information for a few flights which had now new gates assignments.

We touched down on runway 24 R at 07:36 and taxied to our gate B19, where we arrived at 07:46.

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