Review of Lufthansa flight Frankfurt → Edinburgh in Economy

Introduction

Welcome, everybody, to another Flight-Report! In this review, I will be taking you along with me to fly with Lufthansa on the Airbus A320 in Economy from Frankfurt, Germany, to Edinburgh, Scotland (UK).

This review will cover the airport experiences in Frankfurt and Edinburgh, as well as the onboard hard and soft products. 

Booking the flight

This was the third leg of a five-leg return trip between Singapore and Edinburgh, UK. For this trip, I booked through Lufthansa for a routing of SIN-BLR-FRA-EDI-FRA-SIN for SGD1660/EUR1130. The first leg was operated by codeshare partner Singapore Airlines, a fellow member of STAR Alliance, while the other four, including this flight, were operated by Lufthansa.

Expectations

I did not have much expectations for this flight. After all, what could one possibly expect from an intra-European flight in economy, other than getting from point A to point B? All I expected from this flight was professional service, the usual Lufthansa chocolate and bottle of water, and not much else. I did look forward to the legroom situation, since Lufthansa had assigned me an exit row seat during online check-in back in Singapore.

Departure airport - FRA

Transport to/from the airport

Frankfurt Airport is well-connected to the city of Frankfurt and surrounding areas via a network of public transportation and motorways such as the A3 and A5. The airport is served by the S-Bahn, which is the city's suburban rail network, as well as the national rail network Deutsche Bahn, with long-distance trains such as the ICE trains stopping at the airport's train station, which is also connected Terminal 1.

From Frankfurt Main Hauptbahnhof, the ‘main’ (get it?) station serving the city of Frankfurt, I headed on board ICE service 228 bound for Dortmund, making use of my return ticket I had bought earlier that day.

This service was being operated by an ICE T, a Pendolino (tilting) type train manufactured by Siemens and Alstom since 1999.

Frankfurt Airport was just one station down, taking just 12 minutes to reach.

Operations at the airport

Frankfurt Airport currently has two terminals (T1 and T2, with a T3 under construction) and four operational runways: 07L/25R, 07C/25C, 07R/25L, and 18/36. Frankfurt Airport serves around 330 destinations across the rest of Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia, making it the airport with the most direct routes in the world. Frankfurt Airport’s busiest year was in 2019, when it handled 70600000 passengers, making it the 15th busiest airport in the world that year. In 2020 and 2021 with the COVID-19 pandemic, the numbers drastically declined, but are rising again as air travel bounces back. In 2023, Frankfurt Airport handled around 59400000 passengers.

Immigration

Since I had already checked into this flight back in Singapore, I headed straight through the check-in hall to immigration.

Two Happy Christmas signs in sight, in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.

The queues at immigration were rather short, and an immigration officer soon cleared me airside. Right before security was some really nice views of the ramp.

Security

Security was done in a rather large hall, with several lanes. The process itself was quite efficient.

Airside and gate area

Once airside, it was just the usual Frankfurt Airport stuff, nothing special at all, but pretty clean and efficient. 

I made my way to inspect my gate for later, B33, but did not stay there since I still had around 7 hours before my flight departed.

Plane-spotting

Since I had so much time to kill, I headed off to do some plane-spotting from the terminal. Below are some of the better captures (before it got dark outside).

D-AIGW, a Lufthansa A340-300 featuring the Star Alliance livery being towed to its gate to operate flight LH600 to Tehran:

PT-MUF, a LATAM 777-300ER at its gate waiting to depart as flight LA8071 to São Paulo:

HL-7578, an Asiana A350-900 at its gate waiting to depart as flight OZ542 to Seoul Incheon:

D-ABUK, a Condor 767-300ER at its gate waiting to depart as flight DE2198 to Varadero:

This unidentified United 767-300ER being towed to its gate:

A7-BAM, a Qatar Airways 777-300ER heading to Doha as flight QR68:

OO-SND, a Brussels Airlines A320 featuring the Smurfs special livery, ready to head to Brussels as flight SN1808: 

D-AECG, a Lufthansa CityLine E190 at its gate waiting to depart for London City as flight LH934:

This trio of Lufthansa 747-8s. The one in the left taxiing in the back was D-ABYG heading to Seoul as flight LH712. I flew on this same aircraft later in December 2023 from here in Frankfurt to Singapore in Business Class: 

SU-GFT, an Egyptair A321neo taxiing to the runway for departure to Cairo as flight MS786:

Dinner

Getting a little bored and peckish, I stopped by one of the food stands near gates B26 and B27 and got myself a chicken panini for some 8 euros or so. A little on the small side, but quite tasty nonetheless.

Right after, I settled down and watched some football on my iPad using the airport’s free Wi-Fi before it was time to head to my gate. On my way, I was distracted by the Discover Germany duty-free shop, which had many scale models of Lufthansa aircraft. Very hard to resist, but I did manage to curb my temptations here.

Flight and aircraft information

Flight information

Flight date: 28/11/2023

Airline: Lufthansa (LH/DLH)

Operated by: Lufthansa (LH/DLH)

Flight number: LH964

Route: Frankfurt (FRA) – Edinburgh (EDI)

Scheduled Departure Time: 22:00 (UTC+1)

Actual Departure Time: 22:17 (UTC+1)

Scheduled Arrival Time: 23:00 (UTC)

Actual Arrival Time: 22:55 (UTC)

Scheduled Flight Time: 02h00min

Actual Flight Time: 01h39min

Aircraft information

Aircraft Registration: D-AIUM

Aircraft Type: Airbus A320-214 (Sharklets)

Engines: 2x CFMI CFM56-5B4

Line Number: 6577

First Flight: 20/04/2015

Aircraft Age (as of flight): 8 years 7 months

Aircraft Delivered: 27/04/2015

Seating Configuration: J/Y168*

Current operations at the airline

Lufthansa currently operates a large fleet of 325 aircraft with a very diverse fleet of aircraft of all sizes from Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, and Embraer. (35 Airbus A319-100, 51 Airbus A320-200, 35 Airbus A320neo, 17 Airbus A321-100, 37 Airbus A321-200, 17 Airbus A321neo, 10 Airbus A330-300, 17 Airbus A340-300, 10 Airbus A340-600, 24 Airbus A350-900, 8 Airbus A380-800, 8 Boeing 747-400, 19 Boeing 747-8, 5 Boeing 787-9, 28 Bombardier CRJ-900, 4 Embraer E190). The average fleet age as of April 2024 is 13 years and 8 months. As of April 2024, Lufthansa is serving 229 domestic and international destinations across the globe from its hubs in Frankfurt FRA and Munich MUC.

Do check out my review of Lufthansa’s 747-8 in business class for more information on the airline’s history!

*Like almost every other European airline (apart from Icelandair, Turkish Airlines, TAP Air Portugal, and a couple others), Lufthansa features a ‘Eurobusiness’ cabin for its narrow body fleet. This means that instead of a separate cabin with different seats, all seats onboard are the same, with the middle seats being blocked off in the business class section. The business class cabin itself can also vary in size according to demand, done so by the moveable partitions and curtains.

Pre-departure

Boarding

Boarding was done in groups, with me originally being part of the ‘pre-boarding’ group, meaning I would have had priority boarding, presumably due to my 13-hour connection. However, I had spent quite long in the Discover Germany shop, so boarding had already begun by the time I reached the gate. I just joined the queue and headed in alongside some group 3 passengers.

The flight was utilising a bus gate tonight, so all passengers had to make their way down a couple flights of stairs to where the articulated buses were waiting.

After a 7-minute drive, we arrived at our parked aircraft for tonight. I was quite surprised to see the aircraft coated in Lufthansa’s 2018 colours, and had to double check the registration to see if there had been an aircraft swap. I had checked FlightRadar24 earlier on, and the most recent picture showed this aircraft wearing the old 1989 livery. In the fresh coat of paint, our A320 looked very sleek and clean.

Welcome onboard

I boarded through the front door since my seat was closer to there. At the entrance of the aircraft, as usual with Lufthansa, was the yellow section of the fuselage where the crew can doodle and annotate on it using the aircraft skin as their whiteboard (or in this case, yellowboard). I personally love this tradition at Lufthansa, it really lets the cabin crew exercise some of their creativity even when doing their jobs.

Anyways, I soon found my way to my seat, 11A, a port-side window exit row economy seat.

Cabin and seat

Let’s take a look at Lufthansa A320’s economy class cabin and my seat.

Seat details:

Seat: 11A (Port-side window exit row seat)

Seat type: Slimline

Seat model: BL3520 “NEK”

Seat manufacturer: Recaro

Seat pitch: 34” *

Seat width: 17.7”

Recline: 0”

Class: Economy (Y)

Cabin: Economy cabin

Seating arrangement: 3-3

*Since the seat behind mine was also an exit row seat, my seat was not able to recline, since any recline could possibly reduce space and potentially restrict movement in the unlikely event of an emergency evacuation through the exit door. However, this did not have much impact on the comfort of my seat; it is not like the recline on other seats are any good anyways.

One thing that I found very interesting about my seat was that the window blinds on the emergency exit doors shut from the bottom to the top, whilst normal ones shut from top to bottom. This is because to operate the emergency exit, one has to tug the handle above the window, towards the top of the emergency door. Hence, there simply is no space to allow for a top to bottom window shade, thus the bottom to top orientation of the window shades instead.

Features:

Literature compartment

Retractable table

Seat-back pocket

Personal overhead reading light

Individual air nozzle

Some thoughts about the seat:

Seat comfort: This seat had acceptable padding. It was not uncomfortable by any means, but it could do with a little more cushioning. While it is fine for such a short flight, the lack of a headrest could be quite undesirable for longer ones, such as flights to farther destinations such as Iceland, for example.

Legroom: The seat pitch, at 34”, was fantastic. The amount of knee room I had was simply insane, and definitely the best in any economy class seat I have ever sat in.

Seat storage: On top of the standard under-seat storage, there was also a pretty sizeable seat-back pocket and a handy literature compartment above the tray table which housed the safety card and buy-on-board menu. 

Taxi and takeoff

We pushed back soon, and the cabin crew began the safety demonstrations. Safety announcements were made in both English and German.

It was a relatively short taxi to our departure runway, 25C. We entered the runway from runway exit L6, approximately 20% of distance into the runway. We spooled up at 22:16 local time, and rotated around 35 seconds later at 22:17. Following lift off was a couple rightward banks towards a heading of 319° to put the aircraft on course for Edinburgh.

Flight path

Let us take a look at our flight path for tonight. Our route out of Germany took us over the Netherlands before crossing the North Sea, then flying over northeastern England before starting our descent into Scotland. Cruising altitude was 38000ft.

In-flight services

Food and drink

Not long after takeoff, the crew came around for the in-flight service. It started with a bottle of water being handed out to every passenger. 

Soon after, the cabin crew came around with baskets of Lufthansa branded chocolates, which were absolutely delicious. They came back for two more rounds through the cabin, and I got myself a new one each time.

A little history here: Originally, only SWISS were handing out complimentary SWISS-branded chocolates to all passengers onboard. However, since passengers were so receptive towards this, fellow Lufthansa Group airlines Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines started giving out their own branded chocolates too to their passengers.

If one craves anything else, they can make use of the buy-on-board menu. Hot dishes, light snacks, hot beverages, soft drinks, and alcohol were all available for purchase. The prices seem generally okay for airline standards.

In-flight shopping

Apart from food and drink, there was also a buy-on-board shop, which included other forms of merchandise such as Lufthansa-branded mugs and an intriguing SWISS A340 model. 

I was left quite speechless, however, seeing a service trolley being on sale for EUR2088. This has to be some sort of joke… assuming I bought it, would they just remove that particular trolley from service instantly and present it straight to me? How was I supposed to transport it?

In-flight connectivity

Wi-Fi was available on board with the system being provided by Inmarsat’s GX system, and 30 minutes of free texting was available for all Lufthansa members.However, I could unfortunately not get my phone to connect through the portal, since it had problems logging me into my Lufthansa account.

Cabin crew

The cabin crew on this flight were in good spirits and seemed very happy to end their day off with this hop across the sea to Scotland. They were friendly, welcoming, and very generous especially with the handing out of chocolates. Day and night compared to the crew on my previous flight from Bangalore.

Approach and landing

Soon, the aircraft started to descend below a thick layer of clouds over the Scottish countryside. Having flown in at a northerly heading of 348°, we made a left turn just to the northeast of Edinburgh over the sea (essentially the mouth of River Forth) to align with the runway. 

^Look at the frosting on my window!

To the aircraft’s left, Edinburgh’s bright city centre could be seen, as well as a dark unlit patch of terrain which was Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano sitting just minutes away from the city centre.

The aircraft touched down very smoothly on Edinburgh’s runway 24 at 22:55 local time, 5 minutes ahead of schedule.

Arrival airport - EDI

After a couple minutes’ taxi, the aircraft arrived at its gate. Despite there being a jet-bridge, there was no direct connection to the terminal. Descending from the stairs, the passengers had to make their way across the ramp as a couple buses were waiting to ferry us to the terminal building.

I am not complaining about this, since we were treated to some fantastic close-up views of our aircraft while walking to where the buses were waiting.

Immigration

Queues for immigration were short as this flight was likely the only arrival that these hours. While I was eligible for the electronic gates, the technology had issues picking up my facial features, so I was redirected to a manual counter. The immigration officer there appeared a little glum.

Baggage reclaim

Baggage reclaim on this night took just a little while, around 10 minutes or so. I was a little apprehensive at first about whether my luggage had made it all the way from Singapore through Bangalore and Frankfurt, but was relieved to see it float by on the conveyor belt. 

History and current operations at the airport

Edinburgh Airport (EDI/EGPH) started off in 1916 as Turnhouse Aerodrome, serving the Royal Air Force during the First World War. The airfield was utilized for military use until after the Second World War, when it opened for commercial traffic in 1947. In 1977, the current terminal building was completed alongside the current runway (06/24), which was able to take pretty much all modern airliners including the Concorde back then. The current control tower was built in 2005. Edinburgh Airport currently serves 152 destinations with 33 airlines. Edinburgh Airport’s busiest year was in 2019, when it handled 14700000 passengers, making it the busiest airport in Scotland. In 2020 and 2021 with the COVID-19 pandemic, the numbers drastically declined, but are rising again as air travel bounces back. In 2023, Edinburgh Airport once again handled around 14000000 passengers.

Transport to/from the airport

Edinburgh Airport is well connected to the city centre by road, bus, or tram. The A8 road, which connects Edinburgh with Glasgow, runs past Edinburgh Airport. Public buses, most notably the Airlink 100 service provided by Lothian Buses, runs every few minuted between the airport and the city, connecting the two in around 25 minutes. The Edinburgh Trams service also makes a similar trip toward the city centre, before continuing its journey to Leith in the northeastern part of Edinburgh. While Edinburgh Airport does not have its own railway station, nearby Edinburgh Gateway station is easily accessible through the tram services.