Review of Lufthansa flight Frankfurt → Munich in Business

Hello and welcome to the return flight of my round-trip to Frankfurt earlier this year, exclusively to fly the A340-300 on the short hop from Munich to Frankfurt. 
This report covers the flight back to Munich after a four hour layover in Frankfurt in Lufthansa Business Class on the Airbus A319.

Introduction

After de-boarding our lovely A340-300 from Munich and saying goodbye to my fellow travel companions, Joris and I decided to do some extensive lounge hopping as we both had a longer layover in Frankfurt. He would later be proceeding back to Berlin, whilst I'd take LH122 back to Munich.

This round-trip was taken in very early May of 2020, when the Coronavirus was peaking in Germany. Therefore, out of the 16 Lufthansa Lounges in Frankfurt, only the following four were open with miserable service and food options due to the restrictions back then:
The Business Class Lounge at A13, as well as the Senator Lounges at A50, B43 and Z50.
We decided to, even though the B43 Senator Lounge was Non-Schengen and we would have to exit and then re-enter the Schengen part through security, check it out as it is one of the biggest Lufthansa Lounges in existence.
Enjoy! 

Lufthansa senator lounge a50, schengen (Will be covered in another report)

As this report is already going to cover the basic three Lufthansa Lounges in Frankfurt and I would be taking exactly this flight (LH122) just three months later again, I opted to let out the Senator Lounge A50 review part in this report so this one wouldn't get too big.

See you soon, Senator Lounge A50!

lufthansa business class lounge a13, schengen

And as one was not allowed to consume the relatively small offering which they was distributed by a lady at the exit in the lounge as lounges count as restaurants and in Germany only take-away was allowed earlier this year, we headed to the Business Class Lounge after leaving the Senator one. That is only a walk of roughly two minutes.

Here we are! The front desk outside the lounge was not staffed, so the check of the documents and Covid tests was made inside.

As we arrived the lounge was really widely empty, though later got fuller and fuller as there was a wave of European flights arriving.
As you can see, the buffet is completely empty. 

The business/work center was entirely empty, too.

D-AIFE, our plane from Munich to Frankfurt can be seen resting their at the gate. Sadly, every window in the lounge has this kind of stripes, don't know why though. Can't be to provide privacy as no one could see from the apron whats going on here.

If you are a planespotter and want to take cool pictures of the planes taxiing, I´ll absolutely advise you to take that 10 minute walk to the Lufthansa Business Class Lounge at A26 as the windows there are not covered and you actually have a really cool sight onto the runways and taxiways. Be aware of possible window reflections though.

But, quite visibly, there was construction work in progress and it seemed as they were re-arranging some seating groups.

I found myself a nice and quiet place, which was absolutely easy in the empty lounge. 
Though later on, there was a group of Eastern European businessmen, who steadily kept making video calls and conferences letting the noise level significantly rise. I don't understand why they just didn't go to the Business Center which is allocated in the lounge, but nevermind. And that is really one of the most significant differences to the Senator Lounges. There is absolutely no noise in latter. They are practical oases of tranquility. 

Now on to the former "buffet".

Complete emptiness. The food was only distributed at the exit, and it was absolutely forbidden to eat or even drink in the lounge.
The only things available were:
Water, coffee and tea on the side of the drinks, not even one juice or soft drink. Sandwiches, pretzels and cookies on the side of the food. The sandwiches tasted actually good and fresh, nothing to complain about. 

As written above, the sandwiches were quite tasty and fresh, there was one vegetarian and one pastrami style one. Especially latter was actually good.

The cookies were some pretzel topping and salted caramel style and tasted mediocre.

After finishing our dinner, we decided to make our way to the Non-Schengen B part of FRA, clearing passport check upon leaving the Schengen-Zone. Was quite a funny talk with the policeman checking the passports.
"Uhm Sir you are flying to Munich, that is a Schengen flight, you are in the wrong part of the Terminal?!" 
Told him that I was just meeting someone in the Senator Lounge and was then allowed to pass.
His answer: "Crazy what people do just for frequent flyer miles" xD.
 

lufthansa senator lounge b43, non-schengen

The Air Canada Maple Leaf lounge was unfortunately closed, but as I've been there some times I can tell you that it's the best lounge in Frankfurt on the Business Class Lounge level.

Did some "planespotting" on my way to the lounge.
D-ABUM, Condor's Retro B767, was resting at the gate waiting for its flight to Malé. 

Beautiful plane indeed!

Air India making its way to the runway.

The star of the evening! It was the first time I saw an A388 since March of 2020. Unfortunately its parking position wasn't the best.

But now let's finally take the stairs up to the Senator Lounge.
 

The entrance. One can already spot the two signs outside which forbid one to consume food or drinks inside the lounge.

As already written, the lounge is just massive. So I'll now just post a sequence of pictures of the different areas and seating groups. The Senator SPA was unfortunately closed (And is still).

The bar, which was  - guess what - not staffed but yes closed. 

The theme of this lounges design is 'Lights', therefore they used bright yellow colours in contrast to Lufthansas brown Senator Lounge design.

The apron was quite empty. 

One of the many seating groups. The lounge itself was very clean.

View onto the former Buffett. And again, not a soul.

The buffet:

After taking a little tour through the lounge I relaxed a few minutes in one of the chairs with apron view, looked upon my phone and though to myself: Boarding starts in forty minutes and you are still in the Non-Schengen part, hurry!
 
That is why I then indeed hurried to the lounge exit, grabbed myself one of the to-go items (was a sort of a chocolate cake, but it was nothing but horrible (!)) a coffee (which was bad, too though) and then speeded to the security control which I had to clear to get to the Schengen part again. 

Frankfurt can be an absolute mess when connecting between the A, B and C parts.

On my way to the security, which is quite a walk, I had a quick chat with the Emirates Crew which had just arrived from Dubai. 
Though while I was entitled to use the Star Alliance Gold Fastlane (Which saved my ass as the normal one was crowded), they even got through crew-security. Was quite nice talking to them about the A388 and the global aviation market recovery though. 

Still not at the security: 

Another hallway to take:

Finally arrived at the security. 

Clearing security I then arrived at the gate, I just saw that my flight was slightly delayed by about 15 minutes. If I had known that, I would not have had to hurry that much, but it's okay though xD.

The biggest surprise though was that my crew from same-days MUC-FRA leg on the A340-300 was dead-heading on the same flight as me! It was lovely to talk to them. They found it quite funny that my friends and me took all these flights just to fly the Lufthansa A340-300 domestically.

Boarding procedure / Taxi

My plane for today's evening: D-AILY, named after Schweinfurt.

Settled into my seat, 3A. That evening our flight hat eight rows of Business Class. That is just the average on Munich - Frankfurt vice versa.

All doors inflight, ready for our taxi to the 'Startbahn West'.

Taking off.

meal service

Shortly after take-off, the meal service on this short hop began.
And as I had already feared, Lufthansa would serve me the same meal they did on every but two business class flights this year. Some sort of very bad luck I guess.

Nevertheless it did not taste that bad, but the plate was just very very cold. The bread roll had the consistence of a stone though. Dessert was great as every time. I was proactively offered refill twice, which is good for such a short hop.

Finished it right in time.

Safely arrived in Munich. We had immense trouble with weather and low visibility, so congrats to the pilot for still bringing us down safely.

All in all, thank you very much for reading and I do hope to see you commenting here or at one of the many planned next reports! 
Safe flights!