#65 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
1598 reviews
Hello and welcome to my first written trip-report!
I have already been reading all the interesting reports here for ages and some days ago, I finally decided to create a account and furthermore, publish my own flight report.
Because of the god-damned Coronavirus, our original routing got changed 4 times what results in a mess of re-booking and waiting in Lufthansa's standard Callcenter line as they haven't got a dedicated one for C passengers. I was even supposed to fly 4 instead of 3 times and from Zurich to Porto in SWISS First Class, but more regarding the re-booking crap in the FRA-OPO trip report.
Please excuse me that I haven't got that many pics of my journey but nevertheless, let's just jump right into it!
Have fun reading,
Lars
Key information:
- LH 133 from STR to FRA
- A319-100 D-AILE, new color scheme
- Flight time: 23 minutes
- load factor in business 16/16 -> 100%
I arrived at medium-busy Stuttgart Airport about three hours before the scheduled time of departure, so I went spotting at the observation deck as I knew that the Lounge was closed and I did not want to wait so long airside.
The view from above onto Terminal 2, pictured are I think the Eurowings counters.
Check-in was obviously very fast as we were the only ones at the Business and First counter. We got into small-talk with Lufthansas Manager for Stuttgart who has already checked us in very often, such an amazing person that I even took a selfie with him because he'll retire this winter and I won't fly from STR until then. (But yes from Munich, stay tuned!) I'm not sure If I am allowed to post the pic of us both here, even with faces blurred, that's why I won't do it.
The security was kind of, let's say, confused. The main security was absolutely packed and that's why I was happy to be allowed to use the fastlane. Matter was that there was no staff there! I waited some more minutes but there came nobody, not even any other fastlane pax. The friendly LH manager saw us standing there doubting what to do and asked us why we didn't get in. We told him everything and he immediately talked with the securities supervisor who then finally opened the fastlane. Way too chaotic if you ask me.
Fastlane sign in the entrance.
After finally being through one hour before scheduled takeoff, I decided to download me some newspapers for free from the LH App in order to kill some time. The Spiegel downloaded from the Lufthansa App. As a Business Pax, one is allowed to download three magazines for free.
I was very delighted when I saw that my flight would be operated by an A319 in new colors, more specifically D-AILE, called Kelsterbach, a small town directly next to Frankfurt Airport, I have already made some stayovers there on spotting trips.
Boarding was of course done in groups. As Business Class passenger (Group 2) I was allowed to board directly after the HONs. I think I was third to board after two of them. Normally, families with younger children would be called first, but there were none on this flight.
D-AILE chilling at the gate waiting for me to board.
I must admit that I LOVE this feature on the planes with new color scheme! The message written on the yellow surface can be erased fastly and I know same captains that write individual messages for each flight!
About the seat. In contrast to the US american domestic first, these are completely identical to the ECO seats, even regarding the legroom. Latter doesn't go with me as I sat in row one where you can find more than enough legroom. Lufthansa seems to block row one always until 24 hours before departure and trust me I am always the first one to open the app and book me onto it :).
Enough legroom for me and my backpack, which I after packing out my camera had to stow into the overhead bins before takeoff.
Condors D-AICG in slightly modified colors was ready to fly to Heraklion.
Taxiing was smooth and very fast so that we soon where on the runway, where we immediately took of as there wasn't particular much traffic on this saturday.
Picture taken directly after takeoff, with some beautiful view over the Fildern.
About seven minutes after takeoff, the cabin crew literally JUMPED into action and rolled the service trolley into the cabin, what is totally understandable at a flight time of 23 minutes.
So let's come to the absolutely best part of the 23 minutes long flight: The food! I don't fly with Lufthansa from Stuttgart that often, way more from Munich, so I wasn't expecting that much service at all! It was a real full meal, unimaginable for all the US carriers that don't even serve meals but snacks in business class on flights up to 2 hours.
In fact, I think it is the same meal that flyAlex got on his flight from Budapest to Frankfurt, only minimally changed.
It consisted of a dry, even though warm bun which was served with a pack of the German Meggle butter, as main course a cold plate with two mushrooms, four slices of Serrano ham, two slices of chicken breast as well as a little bit of what seemed to be a sort of pepper-asparagus salad. The dessert on left top was, I am not joking, the best I have ever had in my life! On top there were some bad distributed chocolate chips, followed by a layer of vanilla creme and then a kind of raspberry jam. It was a dream. I am still in anger that I had only 5 minutes to finish it all, what meant that I did not have too much time to really enjoy this amazing, in overall absolutely surprising meal!
Half way finished, the crew began to serve the beverages. I went, as always, with a diet coke and a sparkling water.
About five minutes after I was reached the amazing meal, the cabin crew already started collecting back the trays as we were already starting our descent into gloomy Frankfurt, overflying Eintracht Frankfurts football stadium and passing by the big skyscraper skyline.
Of course I was allowed to go into Lufthansas Business Class lounge, of which were 3 open at the moment I flew, the lounge I visited at gate A21 will be covered in the next trip report on the Frankfurt Oporto leg.
All in all, many thanks that you made it until here, I really hope you enjoyed my first trip report on this website!
Of course, feedback would be veery appreciated in the comment section, dunno if you can write DMs here, as I really want to know what to improve before posting my next 2 reports!
All in all, comparing the flight time to service, it was surely one of the best business class flights I have taken. A full meal on a flight with 23 minutes, I would have never imagined this as I also counted with service reductions due to Covid.
8 Comments
A well-written first report. The only tiny suggestion I would have is to use photos in landscape mode over portrait mode as they look better on the site.
Welcome to Flight-Report and hope to see more reviews from you!
Nevertheless thanks Thomas, I must say I also really appreciate reading your frs!
STR seemed pretty busy, a pleasant sight in current times.
LH can only be praised for maintaining such a service in J class on a very short flight.
Looking forward to your next reviews.
Thanks again for commenting, next report will follow next week!
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