Review of Lufthansa flight Athens → Munich in Business

Hi,

Having an hour to transfer at Athens from a domestic flight I quickly headed to the Lufthansa Business Lounge. The lounge in general was nice and in good shape, however very small and already very crowded when I arrived. It was hard to find a spare seat and another huge disadvantage of this lounge is that no toilets are available in the lounge. Instead you have to use the public ones outside the lounge down the corridor. 

Food & drink selection however was very nice and really tasty. Some components like drinks are served by a service attendant behind a bar.

Most food items can be picked up in small portions from self service buffet.

Here is my small lunch selection which tasted really good - especially the warm Moussaka dish.

Soon I left the lounge again heading to my gate passing an SAS Airbus waiting to depart for Copenhagen.

Here is shot of my Munich bound Lufthansa A320.

Boarding had just started when I reached the gate and was extremely chaotic and very bad organized without any distance respected etc. You had to fight yourself through to get to the entrance for priority boarding.

At the aircraft entrance disinfection towels were provided any I took my window seat 3F. Seat pitch was very good and the cabin felt extremely clean and well maintained as typically is the case with Lufthansa.

Business Class consisted of 6 rows that were fully occupied - mostly by US Americans heading back home from their holidays in Greece (finally as of November we Europeans will also be allowed to travel to the US again as tourists).

Pushback started perfectly on time and an expected flight time of 2 hours 20 minutes was announced.

While a manual safety demonstration was conducted we passed some heavy metal parked at the International section of the terminal.

Soon we reached the runway and departed direction East while climbing out over some nice coastal areas including nice shots on the sea.

Once the seatbelt sign was turned off, curtains to Economy Class were closed and nice small printed menu cards were distributed to the Business Class cabin. As of 1st September 2021 Lufthansa has changed to a new catering concept in Business Class within Europe called 'Tasting Heimat' focusing on typical German dishes. Munich was the sponsoring town for my flight today. A choice between two warm main courses was listed in the menu.

About 20 minutes into the flight the drinks trolley made its appearance and a nice aperitif service including cashews was provided before the meal service. I had some Gin Tonic and water served by the friendly two older ladies serving Business Class today.

Flight progressed quiet and I enjoyed some cloudy outside views enjoying my aperitif.

Trash was cleared away and about 1 hour into the flight the meal trolley rolled down the aisle from the front of the cabin. I opted for the pork main dish that was served in new porcelain also implemented this month by Lufthansa. Nice to see a real cloth napkin was still provided as was the case before the new concept started on those hot meal flights within Europe.

Looking nicer without the plastic covers - warm bread rolls followed shortly from a separate basket. For me the meal tasted very nice - especially the main dish and dessert. However the taste indeed was very on the Bavarian side including Sauerkraut components in the main meal and I heard several Americans not liking the meal at all.

More drinks were offered very soon from a second trolley where I opted for some white wine.

Drink refills were offered two more times and I opted for a cup of tea at the end of my meal.

The friendly cabin crew cleared away the trays and I enjoyed the rest of the flight heading north over the Balkans.

Ca. 30 minutes before descending the cabin crew walked around with another basket offering a fresh apple as a typical German fruit and part of the new concept. I actually liked this idea and the apple indeed tasted extremely fresh and juicy.

We reached the Alps soon and the flight came to an end.

Some nice scenic views above the Salzburg Alps region.

Finally starting our descend and banking into Munich Airport through some nice partly cloudy skies.

We touched down on time but unfortunately parked at a remote position and had to jump on a bus that took quite long to get filled and depart to the arrivals area.

The real bad end of the journey was the extremely long waiting time for the luggage: It took 1 hour after touchdown until the first bag from our flight started its appearance on the belt - that is extremely slow and an annoying bad service provided by the ground handling here at Munich Airport.

Thanks for reading,
FlyAlex