Review of LOT Polish flight Warsaw → Berlin in Economy

Hello and welcome to this report about LOT Polish Airlines Flight 389 between Warsaw and Berlin on an Embraer 170. 
 

Flight Information

Aircraft : Embraer E170
Flight Number : LO 389
Registration : SP-LDG
Flight Time : 00:56
Seat : 17A
Departure Gate : 33

Airrport & Check In

I arrived by bus at the airport from Warsaw central since the train I wanted to take got canceled. Pretty long ride to reach the airport, i took me about 45 minutes. 

During the first flight between BER and WAW we flew on an Embraer 175 and they made us checkin the hand luggages at the gate, no choice. So this time I decided to go directly check my luggage in (it was included in my ticket). 

The self drop off computers are pretty badly indicated (you don't really know if it's for LOT or not), I tried and eventually was able to print out the luggage tag. Went then to the drop off line and there the lady in front of the queue looked at me as if I had nothing to there and was disturbing her "looking for something ?", yeah obviously I want to drop off my luggage. Then she oriented me to the big line with passengers without luggage tags. So I showed here again that I had it already and eventually she let me in. After a 5 minutes wait I arrived to the counter, handed over my passeport and boarding pass to the lady there and she took my luggage. 
-> Long story short : if you use the self drop off, it's not fully self drop off since it's a company worker who will check in your luggage and check you ID and Boarding Pass. 

I made my way to the Security and there I was pretty surprised by the amount of people. It was packed as you can see on the picture.  It took me about 30 minutes to pass through. 
 

LOUNGE

I had some time left before the Boarding so I decided to go to the PP Lounge offered there for Shengen Flights "Preludium Lounge". 

The only thing I can say : it was packed so they made us wait outside for about 15 minutes (but at least I was able to get in) and the food offer is pretty poor.. There are some huge counters which are empty.. So weird feeling there. 
I was pretty happy that I didn't had 3 or 4 hours layover..  

Boarding

Gate 33 for the boarding which started on time. 
Before it started they checked the weight and size of the hand luggages. Pretty happy that I checked in mine before … 

We then took the bus to the aircraft. No separation between Business Class passengers and other passengers. So forget about priority boarding. You would be only first to board the bus. 

I always enjoy (when the weather is nice) the boarding by bus since you get a nice view over the field (see the 787 alignement) .

While entering the aircraft you get welcomed by the purser and they hand you over a sanitizing wipe.
I was one of the last ones to board the aircraft and pretty amazed by the cabin of those Embraer. Very large and confortable leather seats. The pitch is not huge but okay for this small flight time, and somehow it feels big. The only annoying thing with embraer is that the windows are pretty far from each other, so it can be that you don't get a window at all. But on the other hand they are pretty big. 

some plane spotting on the way to the aircraft

Flight

05:00 pm the pilots starts the engines while the safety demo is being presented. The lady seating next to me was very focused and even looked at the safety card ! Something that I haven't seen in a while.. 

We take of at 17:15pm after a rather short taxi time, but we were number 4 for departure. Pretty bumpy take off as it is usually the case on those small aircrafts. 

Shortly after take off they start with the onboard service. Exactly the same as the flight I took to come to Warsaw three days ago. You get a veeeeery sweet snack (as far as I remember they also offer a salty snack). Better than nothing if you ask me. After this they come back with the drink cart, and here you get only to choose between coffee and water, nothing else is offered. Honestly I don't even know if you can get a coke or something if you're ready to pay for it, i don't think that they offer in flight shopping during these short flights. Anyway, again, better than nothing. 

In the seat pocket you will find their onboard magazine "Kaleidoscope", the safety card and a trash bag. Nothing special here. 

Descent, Landing and Arrival

After a short 30 minutes flight we start the descent towards Berlin. Just while leaving the cruising altitude the pilots switches on the seatbelt sign (pretty early from my opinion). He also makes an announcement, but absolutely no idea of what he said since the volume of the loudspeaker was not high enough… I guess as usual some infos about the remaining flight time and the weather in Berlin upon arrival.

06:13 pm we land on Runway 07R, approach was definitely smoother than take off and climbing phase of the flight. 
After a short taxi time we reach the Parking gate A34 and another perk of those small airplanes : the deboarding is very fast ! 
I made then my way to the luggage carrousel where I waited less than 5 minutes to receive mine.