Hi,
After a long break welcome to the 6th and last flight of this series covering my late winter getaway to Cuba with stopovers in Munich, Germany and Toronto, Canada. The whole trip consisted of the following 6 flights operated by Lufthansa, Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge:
28.02.2020 - LH1613 - WAW-MUC
29.02.2020 - AC847 - MUC-YYZ
29.02.2020 - AC1876 - YYZ-HAV
14.03.2020 - AC1877 - HAV-YYZ
14.03.2020 - LH471 - YYZ-FRA
15.03.2020 - LH1348 - FRA-WAW
but as the last flight has eventually been cancelled due to covid-19 pandemia and closing of Polish borders on the 15th of March, we've been offered a flight to Berlin instead:
15.03.2020 - LH178 - FRA-TXL - you are here!
After a quite short transatlantic flight from Toronto (6:30) we landed in Frankfurt and should be now waiting for our LH flight to Warsaw. But as covid changed everything, we were now waiting for the flight to Berlin. After two almost sleepless nights and a time zone change I was so exhausted that all I was dreaming of was my own bed at home. At that time I didn't know I would need more than 12 hours to reach it!
THE FLIGHT
After a short wait boarding begun and within minutes I was sitting inside a 100% full A319. I heard many people speaking my language and talking about being in exactly the same situation: instead of flying to Warsaw or other destination in Poland they were forced to fly to Berlin and try to get home on their own.
View from my seat with a classic United 767.
Legroom on this A-319 seems quite average
Some views during taxi. That day I wouldn't believe that A380 would be one of the covid biggest victims :(
AC 777-300 departing back home from where we have just came
Take-off
It was so strange to be on a domestic flight in Germany intead of on a flight straight back home, with memories of hot Cuba and cold Canada still in my mind and fear of what was going to happen in the next hours, days, months, this 40 - minutes flight wasn't pleasant at all.
We were offered a sweet snack while getting into the plane and after reaching the cruising altitude the beverage service (full choice) begun.
After approximately 20 minutes spent on the cruising altitude, we began our descent towards TXL.
View of Berlin - Brandenburg Airport
Approaching Berlin
Landing
A positive aspect of this situation is a possibility of visiting the very classic TXL airport that I have never been to before.
Last view of the A319 that brought us from Frankfurt. Now it is time to find out how to get back home from Berlin, let's try…
BERLIN->WARSAW by bus, train, taxi, on foot…
After receiving our luggage we went to an information desk where we were told that there was just one way to get to Poland right now: we need to take a train to Frankfurt am Oder (that's a border city) and then cross the border on foot and then try to get to Warsaw from the nearby train station. So first we took a TXL bus to Berlin Hauptbahnhoff
Then a train to Frankfurt am Oder
Then we needed to walk to the border that's located on the Oder river. The temperature was about +3 degrees Celsius with a freezing cold wind.
During our walk we met many people coming home from: Argentina, Switzerland, USA, UK, Australia that have all finally met on a small station (after a 20 minutes taxi ride from the border) of Rzepin to wait for a train to Warsaw.
We arrived home at midnight, almost 12 hours later than scheduled, as tired as anyone could be after such a long and stressfull journey, ready to begin a 14-day quarantine that at that time was obligatory for everyone arriving from abroad. I never thought it would end like this when I was buying my ticket last year in October… Many thanks for reading!
Hi, Lukasz!! How are things!! I hope everything is OK with you and your loved ones.
I never thought we could make it to the end of this nightmarish year. I haven't flown during 2020 even though flights from ZAL resumed months ago, but now that vaccination started in Chile I was bitten by the flying bug again, so I thought I would pay a visit to flight-report.com to get back in the mood, and decided to start with my favorite author! Haha. I had skipped the last part of your trip to Cuba. My goodness!! The things you had to go through! It would have been a nice stroll across the river in a different situation, but not after all that delay and stress. So glad you made it home safe and sound!
No one would have ever imagined something like this would come over us so suddenly, I think!
Take care, Lucasz! My best wishes for 2021.
Nelson!!! How nice to see you back! Despite some air travels I was able to make in 2020 I'm totally not in the flight report mood for the last couple of months, so I fully understand your point. "Favorite author" - hahaha! I'm fine, hope you are ok too. Many thanks for your comment and let's have a year full of air travels and new flight reports! All the best!