Review of Lufthansa flight from Munich to San Francisco in Economy

This report is second part of short series following my trip to San Francisco in February 2014.
These are the segments :
PRG - MUC - http://flight-report.com/en/report-6363.html
MUC - SFO - you are here
SFO - FRA - http://flight-report.com/en/report-6534.html
FRA - PRG - http://flight-report.com/en/report-6686.html
After being bussed to terminal we quickly got over passport control to the upper level, where departure gates H are located. At the time of booking this trip I had no experience with longer flights and transits at the airports and I was too cautious about providing us enough time. Well, it ended with 5 hours stopover for us, but fortunately the time ran quickly.
First of all we had a look around and went to see, where our H01 gate is located. Than we decided to spend about an hour in the relax zone and then get some lunch

I quite like Munich airport. There are computers passengers can use when day need for some smaller fee. Wifi was presented as well, but only the first hour was free. This relax zone was very good, nice calm place where you can comfortably sit or lie down. I made myself comfortable here and checked the internet on my phone
Well, the picture doesn´t say too much, right? Hopefully I´ll remember to make more of them next time..

This was first time I saw a 787 in real life. And really not the last time in these 10 days

SQ B777

We opted for this Vienna schnitzel for lunch. We took twice the same and ended up paying about 40EUR, that´s actually price of European one way flight. Although it wasn´t particularly tasteful, were not hungry after that
Later we took a sit for about an hour and then we decided to head to our gate as we didn´t know what kind of checks and controls were we going to experience prior to our flight to US

On our way to gate H01

I was very surprised that the only thing that was checked was our passport. At the security checkpoint there were about 5 baggage scanners, but 3 of them were out of order and we just went by. I thought there should be some strict controls prior to flights to United States. Although my baggage was scanned at Prague, it felt strange to me that no one wanted to see anything. So I went back from the gate to checkpoint and I asked security agent if it´s ok that I was not checked at which she replied It´s ok. Was I right to expect some more checks while transiting to US?
H01, and flight I was waiting so long for, displayed here

D-AIHY, 10,5 years old A346, my first widebody aircraft and the first that is going to take me over the Atlantic

Gate area started getting crowded just almost in final minutes prior to boarding

Boarding was called few minutes before 15:30, first for premium passengers and a moment later second door were opened for economy class. In no order, passengers were invited to board based on their position in the queue. Although flight was expected to be over 12 hours, we were one of the first in Y to board. Was too excited to be in widebody

Also my first experience with 4-engines equiped aircraft

This is not for us today

This is where we belong

These were our seats if I remember well. 35H and 35K. It was decided it´s me who starts at the window after short briefing with my lady

The seat was quite comfortable and I felt it shouldn´t be painfull experience throughout the flight ..

.. and legroom really fine for me as I´m not tall. Problem was with the recline of the seat ahead, it reduced level of comfort significantly

View of the massive wing, loved it

Cabin wasn´t entirely in the best shape. Armrest in front proves it

LH A330 for some North American destination

Everyone boarded. Two young ladies seated ahead of us and by their sweatshirts it was clear they are Olympionics coming back from Sochi. In the end it was one day after the ending ceremony. They were both Australians and they represented in freestyle skiing I found out later throughout the flight

This flight was expected to be something like racing the Sun. I desired for being able to see Greenland and my father made some calculations days before and said that there should be some light while flying over it. Departing on time was essential for this so I was happy pushback was done on time
Captain came on the mic announcing some details about our flight and also mentioning we should be at San Francisco over 40 minutes ahead of schedule
After pushback, flight controls check.

Hello Austrian Fokker

Departures were done to the east and we were taxiing to 08L. After arriving there, traffic was quite dense. So we had to wait few minutes and everything got delayed a bit more as LH A330 had to reject their takeoff or something. After running slowly they vacated the runway and stopped and stayed on the taxiway

Traffic around departed and then it was time for us ! Lufthansa four-five-eight heavy, runway 08L cleared for take off

Rocketing past the poor A330 that was unable to depart

First moments it felt quite lazy, but later we gained fine speed and slowly rotated into the skies!
We were climbing really slow as it´s common for A340, in few moments it really almost looked like we have to stall

Bye bye Munich airport

Later we turned left and countinued northbound

By the time we were almost in our cruising altitude everything was hidden in the clouds

35 minutes into the flight FAs jumped into the action with first drink offerings.
One woman attendant, originally looked like being maybe from somewhere in middle east was awesome. She had really good level of English and she seemed to be so passionate about her work. Once I went downstairs to the toilet I overheared her chat with one of the passengers. He told her she is doing great job at which she replied that she loves it, but that it´s also sooo tiring sometimes. Really amazing job from her throughout the flight
Others were fine as well, but they were rather too professional.
I asked for a wine followed by juice. Enjoyed both of it.
As Lufthansa offers wifi on their longhaul fleet I was happy to spend 20$ for 24hour pass. My dad everytime watches my flights on flightradar so I gladly reported to him 45 mins into the flight. Being in chat with him was the best IFE

Then it was time for meal to be served. I don´t remember the other option but I went for chicken with mushroom sauce and rice

I´m not the right person to rate the food as I´m really choosey, but this was fine and filled me enough for next few hours

After I finished the meal it started getting darker outside and in combination with clouds I said farewell to possibility of seeing Greenland. My father however told me that it´s still looking good

Racing the night

Entering Greenland and how it looks outside?

Like the Greenland !

These views were awesome, we both enjoyed it with my lady

And now we are actually faster than the Sun!

I had an airshow on my monitor for the whole flight. IFE itself did not impress me too much. Music selection was not any good to me and movies were a bit difficult to hear due to bad quality. Also the response was slow and touching display wasn´t good either. But only thing I need for flying is Airshow and it worked well so where´s the problem?

Cabin view over Greenland

In about an hour we were back in normal daylight

Entering Canada

Overflying Rocky Mountains offered us some beautiful views

Shortly after, with about 2 hours of flight remaining dinner was offered

This time it was absolutely out of my taste interests, but I consider it rather my own fault

Remote control fell out of Australian´s armrest showing again the not perfect condition of cabin

At this time we started our descend to San Francisco and cabin was being prepared for landing

And the Sun got into lead at the end of this 12 hours race with the light

Braking over North California

We flew somewhere over Golden gate which denied us having barely any city views, these are the only we got

Cabin prepared for landing.

We made long left turn and flew directly over San Jose which offered an amazing sight. This was like first taste of America seing the amazing city lights in the dark. Sorry for posting no pictures as they were really in poor quality.
I was shocked by the amount of aircraft in the air, several queues for landing visible, for both OAK and SFO.
We landed at 18:40 which really was 40 minutes ahead of schedule. I felt almost like in a different world. We stayed seated and prepared our immigration forms.

We left the aircraft and went to immigration. As we both had to visit the toilet, everyone got to the front of us and we were among the last to enter immigration queue which turned out to be an hour waiting.
After long time of waiting it was finally our turn and we were given all green to enter the United States of America, the dream came true. We started being really tired at this time and while moving to the city we may looked like zombies.
We spend about 9 days in San Francisco and it was the most beautiful time in my life. Although the weather wasn´t perfect, we still had a great time

Well, if you managed to read up to here thank you for attention. Be sure to join next time as well on my returning flight to Frankfurt.
Thank you everyone and have a nice day!
Michael