Review of Lufthansa flight Panamá City → Frankfurt in Economy

Hello everyone and welcome to a new FR. This is the second flight of the day in my way back home from Bogota to Barcelona. The route taken was :

1. Bogota-Panama - Copa Airlines 737-800
2. Panama-Frankfurt - Lufthansa A340-300
3. Frankfurt-Barcelona - Lufthansa A321

at the airport

As I said before, Panama Airport is not my favourite. It is very cramped during some hours of the day and it needs urgently to be upgraded if it wants to be a real world hub. Another thing I don't really like from the airport is that you just have 30 minutes of free Wifi, which is very limited if you have to talk with friends and family.
But, one of the things which is nice from the airport is that you don't have to pass any passport control, just a small security check at the boarding gate if you are travelling to Europe (at least on Lufthansa flight).
Security started on the same gate some good 1 hour and 15 minutes before boarding. I was one of the first passengers to pass the control, but, as the flight was nearly full, It was cramped for the whole time.

I took the picture before boarding, which started about 30 minutes before STD.

And another one before walking

LH485 panama city-frankfurt

Today's flight was full. There were only 3 free seats at the rear part of the plane. I was seated on the 27K, the last row of the first part of the cabin. This seat was automatically generated by the airline. I like to have an aisle seat on longer flights, so I can walk through the cabin during the night, but as I didn't had the chance to change it, I stayed here. Well, seatguru doesn't recommend this seat because of the limited recline, but, personally I like it. You don't hear the toilet at all, and the fact to be the last row allows you much more privacy and you can left your bags at the rear part of the seat, which is empty.

Cabin view

And of course, wingview

Next to me, an old woman from Koln, and coming from La Paz, in Bolívia via Lima, Panama and Frankfurt was also making a very long way back home. We started talking about many different areas and she became my friend for these 11 hours. She was very warm and friendly. Lucky seatmate.

Captain welcomed us on board and gave us some flight information such as duration, weather and expected arrival time. As one of the passengers was drunk, he wasn't allowed to board the plane, so he's bag had to be removed and we suffered of a short delay.

Safety video was made while pushing back.

We are ready to go

We made our taxi to the runway and waited until a Copa 738 landed. There were a few airplanes landing at that time. Just a bad picture about traffic in PTY.

Cabin lights were closed for takeoff

Takeoff and inflight

We entered into the runway and a few moments later captain powered up the 4 engines. We made a long ride into the runway and we took off at 19:40, 25 minutes after STD. We made a right turn before heading to the northeast in order to across the Caribbean Ocean and the Atlantic tonight. It was fully dark outside.
Cabin crew made an announcement to inform about the service of the flight. Appetizer, dinner and breakfast will be served on this flight. I think on all LH long-haul flights crew makes these announcements, but not on shorter or intra-european flights. 

A few minutes later seat belt signs were turned OFF and cabin crew started the service. IFE wasn't very interesting, even there were some good movie and TV shows selection, but I wasn't really interested at all. But Mike Wazowsky never fails :P

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Snack service started about 30 minutes into the flight. As always, drinks came some good 15 minutes later.

Hot towels were served just before dinner started, some good 1:30h into the flight. In my opinion it was quite late, and maybe if they do it earlier, lights can be dimmed sooner and enjoy more time resting. But they know what they do, I guess. As I was at the middle of the plane I was one of the last passengers to be served.
There were 2 choices: pasta or chicken with rice. As always I went with the pasta. The main dish was macaroni with tomato sauce and some cheese and onions. As appetizer there was a salad coming with tomato and cucumber and a very good lemon/vanilla cake as a dessert. Of course, a hot bun came with the meal. Overall was quite good, and lufthansa still provides metal cutlery on their longer flights.

After dinner coffe/tea was served. After that an on-board shopping was passed through the cabin, but most passengers weren't interested. Toilets were quite cramped, but the distribution isn't that bad. 5 on economy class, all together at the middle of the cabin.

Lights were closed quite later and window shades were requested to be closed.

We still had a long way to go.

Today's flight took a rather northern route. I guess the idea was to avoid Lorenzo's hurricane. The flight was very uneventful and there were no turbulence at all. We experienced some light bumps during the end of the dinner, where the crew took their seats for a few minutes, and another 5 minutes over the North Atlantic. But generally, the flight was very relaxed.

The sun started to rise a few hours later

I took a short nap and I woke up when lights turned on and cabin crew started the second hot towel service. We weren't far away from the irish coast

I tried to play some games but the screen wasn't responding fast. Maybe LH should remove this IFE, but I think they will not do it as their A340 planes will be slowly replaced by the A350.

Good morning!

Breakfast was served 1:45 before landing, but again I was one of the last passengers to be served. For breakfast we had an omelette with tomato and mushrooms, some fruits, yoghurt and another bun. The omelette wasn't the best and the fruit neither. I was expecting a little more on LH breakfast, but at least the yoghurt was very good. I think breakfast service on long haul flights is never valorated. Cutlery was made of plastic now.

When drinks arrived I nearly finished my meal. I took an orange juice and a coffee, which was quite good. After breakfast was collected I started talking with my seatmate.

Overcast skies over the UK

A small A350 documentary, which will replace the A340 on lufthansa fleet, I think.

descent and landing

And we entered to the european continent over Belgium. A few more minutes later descent started and cabin was prepared for landing. The skies over Germany were a little better.

And getting closer

Down there we find Frankfurt. We made a U turn for landing.

Cabin before landing

Final approach

And we landed after 10 hours and 20 minutes in the air. It was 13h in Frankfurt. Welcome to Europe again.

We landed on the "new runway", which I don't know which name it has. We made a very long taxi to our gate, but at least I managed to take a few pics. It was a long time since my last time in Frankfurt, at the beggining of 2012.

And finally parked at gate B26.

Disembark was made but it took quite long, as the police was waiting at the gate. Every passenger should present it's passport to the authorities, I think they make that in order to prevent illigal immigration? But it was my first time watching this.

And after the security I took the train to connect with the other side of the terminal. I realized Frankfurt changed since I was younger. It was my favourite airport when I was a child because it was full of people from all over the world, strange airlines which at that time they didn't fly in Barcelona (Emirates, Cathay, Singapore Airlines…) but this time I found frankfurt a bit old and cramped airport. There was a long queque for the security control because there were only 2 gates opened of 14 and the personal of the airport was very rude.

But finally I made to pass it and walk a little bit in my childhood memories.

Thank you very much for reading!