Welcome!
Upon finishing my duty in Ingolstadt on friday evening, operations informed me that I will position back to home the following day and asked whether I was ok with the Lufthansa flight to Amsterdam. I agreed and told them to book me a ticket for the express bus X109 too which departs hourly from Ingolstadt to Munich Airport. The bus is quite comfortable, but charges you a total amount of 23 EUR for just a hour ride. Not the cheapest price for a direct ride, but definitely the most convenient.
After a slight delay, the bus dropped me off in front of Terminal 2.
Given that I didn't book any hold luggage, I received a mail from Lufthansa the previous day stating that the aircraft will be full and that space is limited and if I opted to drop my carry-on as hold, it would be free of charge. I decided to take them up on that offer, but the self-boarding system didn't allow me to do so. Upon asking a friendly chap, he kindly sorted it for me and even put the tag on for me. Other than that, the check-in process of Lufthansa was very smooth with zero to no waiting times.
Security didn't take more than a few minutes either with sufficient stations being open and almost no line of people.
Given that I had plenty of time prior to my flight, I decided to grab a bite with Seafood Sylt meets Asia and decided to grab me a beer and an Octopus salad. The restaurant wasn't the cheapest, but it didn't disappoint too in terms of taste.
With about 90 minutes to boarding, I slowly made my way to our gate when I saw this CRJ9 sitting idle on the apron. Despite this aircraft being not so popular in Europe, I find it a sleak looking aircraft.
On the other side, this Airbus A350-900 of THAI was on it's way to Bangkok, Thailand. A destination I will visit soon (within this month).
A Dash 8 of Luxair departing to Luxembourg.
An hour prior to our scheduled departure, our aircraft arrived from Leipzig. D-ACNT would do the honours of bringing us to Amsterdam. It's a 12.8 year old Bombardier Canadair CRJ900 flying for Lufthansa Cityline and is named after the historical city Torgau. It was newly delivered to Eurowings in April 2011 before entering Lufthansa Cityline's fleet in November 2016.
With about 60 minutes to departure, the gate G82 for our flight was yet deserted with just a handful of people.
Boarding was eventually called 20 minutes past our scheduled boarding time and people with trolleys were asked to drop their luggage in front of the wing as those will be loaded in the cargo compartment down below. They would be available to be picked up after disembarking the aircraft. Upon entering the aircraft, we were kindly greeted by one flight attendant and the co-pilot. They also informed us that they couldn't do anything about the delay as there was a shortage of ground staff and nobody was able to help them in time.
I absolutely love the design of the CRJ9.
For a regional jet, legroom was sufficient and more than enough for the duration of the flight.
The view of my seat.
View of the cabin, which to me was in an excellent state with little to no signs of wear. It is also equipped with individual air vents, which are a huge plus to me.
Literature you can find in the seatpocket in front of you contains of a sickbag, BoB Menu, Shopping Magazine & Safety Card of the aircraft.
Pushback was performed 25 minutes past our scheduled departure time.
One of the flight attendant welcomed us via intercom and instructed us to read the safety card in case something happens. Neither one of the flight attendants actually performed the safety instruction, which seems to be somewhat common on Lufthansa by where they are referring you to your safety card. Not sure I'm a massive fan of this shortened version as even less people will pay attention to the safety card.
After a need for speed-like taxi, we were rolling for departure from Runway 26R. It just took a total of five minutes from pushback to departure :).
The friendly flight attendants weren't the quickest in serving us as it took them more or less 45 minutes after departure to appear and hand us a complimentary bottle of water. Upon finishing that, they once again appear with a BoB trolley in case someone opted for that with another round of duty free, but they didn't return to collect any trash. A chocolate was handed out shortly before landing, but I didn't opt for it.
In cruise.
Captain informed us over intercom about the weather conditions in Amsterdam and thanked us for flying with Lufthansa, while also apologizing once again for the delay. Landing was planned for 18C in rainy conditions, though landing was very smooth.
After exiting the runway, I saw an A330 of KLM & A340 of Surinam Airways being parked on one of the many remote aprons.
Parking stand was B15 next to this Airbus A320 of Austrian Airlines
Disembarking via it's own stairs and moving up by stairs to the gate. It is also the final look of the aircraft that brought us over to Amsterdam.
Collected my luggage from the belt within a few minutes and rushed myself to a very crowded train station for my train to Utrecht.
Thanks for visiting!
Great report as always!
Yep, at 31 inches, the seat pitch on CR9s is actually better than more mainline narrowbodies, certainly those in LH group which tend to have 29 inch seat pitch in Y.
The cabin does look well-maintained and clean for its age. Just missing in-seat power, but LH group is really being slow about rolling that out on mainline, so I don't anticipate seeing it on regional jets anytime soon...if ever.
Thanks for sharing!
In-seat power doesn't really bother me on those shorter flights to be honest, but its definitely needed on the longer flights. Thanks for stopping by Kevin