Avis du vol entre Palma De Mallorca et Frankfurt en classe Economique avec Condor

Hello and welcome to the return flight of our little late spring/early summer getaway to Mallorca! A couple of days ago, we took Condor's Boeing 757-300 to Palma (click here). Today, we'll be making our way back home. The reason for choosing this flight was plain old convenience; so I was expecting a standard European economy flight, and that was pretty much what we got - keep on reading to find out more ;)

PMI Airport

Our flight today starts at Palma de Mallorca's PMI airport. After being dropped off our airport transfer bus, we moved straight into the airport building.

The building itself is modern, if a bit dreary. It was quite easy to find the Condor bag drop due to its large size, and of course because of the striped planes :) However, there were only two people working at the counters, at some points only one. Clearly far too few for the number of people lined up. Also, the employee that checked our bag seemed to be a bit lacking when it comes to English skills.

But hey, at least we got a pair of real printed out boarding passes. Also, it was somewhat interesting to see how German destinations dominate the departure board of the airport, at least in this part of the airport.

It was easy to find the security checkpoint; and even though it seemed at first that there were quite some people lined up, the line moved quickly thanks to many counters being open. Also, PMI uses the type of security checkpoint that allows multiple people to prepare their baskets at the same time.
As on the outbound flight, the walks at the airport are rather long, or at least they seem so. This walk was ocassionally interrupted by shops, restaurants, and sometimes a window. The different gate areas were clearly marked.

The gate areas themselves feature large windows, even though all the pillars and struts made it quite difficult to get clear and undisturbed photos of planes. Anyway, the views were quite nice. The tarmac was dominated by Ryanair, of course, but look in the gallery above to see Lufthansa (old livery) and Swiss A320s.
It was nice to see the airport featuring free water taps, although they weren't that easy to find. There are no plug sockets to speak of at the seats in the waiting areas, but some on these poles scattered around the terminal. Also note the aircraft models in photo 3.

The airport has enough seats and areas to wait for one's plane, even though I can't really tell how the situation will be in the main holiday season. The areas, however, were not really clean, and we found trash lying around in multiple places.

Boarding & Cabin

Boarding didn't start too well, either. Not only were there two gate changes, the information on the displays in the airport and on the airport's website differed as well. Granted, we didn't exactly hurry to our gate (no big hand luggage), but boarding was already in full swing when we arrived there.
To our surprise, boarding groups were properly honored. The next step would be to display them on the screens as some other airlines do.

Today's ship: D-AIAB, an Airbus A321-200, 9.3 years old, delivered new to Avianca in October 2015. After stored during Covid, it was flown by Lithuanian Heston Airlines for Condor sibling company Marabu, before being transferred to Condor in February 2024. On that ocassion, D-AIAB received a new paintjob and (apparently) cabin.

As usual, there was a rather large number of people lined up all along the way to the plane proper. Once upon entering the aircraft, we were greeted by our friendly crew, who even let kids into the cockpit - an experience I'm sure they won't forget all too soon.
The Eurobusiness section in the front rows featured the usual seats, but enhanced by a free middle seats, pillows, and free amenity kits. Then followed a few rows of XL seating with more legroom, then the cabin for the rest of us who didn't want to pay as much. The flight was not quite full but almost - but more on that later.
On this flight, Condor offer their FlyConnect BYOD IFE as well - for a somewhat superficial review of that see my other Condor review.

This is how the seats in Condor's continental Economy Class look like. Fairly simple and standard, but with an additional literature pocket behind the tray table and a cupholder. Legroom was fine, I guess. And of course, as I had promised my boyfriend the window seat for the flight back, I had managed to choose a row that was perfectly aligned to a window. Something I never seem to get right when choosing a window seat for myself.

These are the seatback pocket contents: the mandatory safety card, the BOB menu, and the inflight shopping magazine. As it has taken quite long for me to find some time to write this report, I have no more idea whatsoever what this EURO 2024 branded thingy is.

Originally, a lady was in the aisle seat next to me. However, there seemed to be a problem… she talked to the cabin crew about it, and once boarding had been completed, I figured out what the issue was. Upon check-in, she was separated from her boyfriend, and the crew were so nice to organize her a seat next to him. A win-win situation, as they could sit together, and we had the row for ourselves.

The ceiling panels featured individual air nozzles. You notice that the cabin is of a younger age, as the non-smoking sign is just a sticker and a sign regulating the use of electronic devices took its place on the illuminated portion.
While the state of the cabin was acceptable in general, cleaning could definitely use some improvements - see the crumbles and sand on the carpet at the window seat.

Some catches on our way to the runway: a Transavia 737-800 (photo 1 in the gallery above), rivals Eurowings and Condor side by side (photo 2), Easyjet taxiing by (photo 3), another 737-800 but operated by Spanish charter airline AlbaStar (photo 4). Also an Air Europa 737-800 clad in a sleek SkyTeam livery (photo 6), an Air Nostrum CRJ operated for Iberia carrying a wine ad (photo 7), a Transavia A321 (photo 8), and finally our Swiss friends from Edelweiss (photo 9).
May I also opine that I think the red Condor stripes look great on our winglets?

Take-off occured at 5:14pm. We took off towards the Southwest and made a big u-turn over the ocean, basically right to where we came from on our outbound flight.

Some last views of Palma, then the island, and then we were met by the final realization that our nice Mallorca vacation was truly over… ;)

Inflight experience

Not long after take-off, the BOB service began. This time, I went for a coffee, which is Starbucks-branded and comes at a tolerable cost of 2,99€. Okay, maybe I should write barely tolerable, as it was very obviously freeze-dried instant coffee.
An interesting aside: while conducting the payment, the flight attendants note down your seat number in their system. I later asked why this was the case, and the answer was that after the flight, you can see your purchases and receipts via their website just by retrieving your booking.

Some time during the flight, I decided to head to the lavatory. I found it to be very much standard in terms of equipment and amenities (none to speak of), but everything was functional and the facilities were sufficiently clean. I noticed the sticker below the mirror, which asks passengers to give the wash basin a quick wipe before leaving. A nice touch, even though I can't fathom how effective these stickers are. Anyhow, I found the sticker noteworthy as I have only seen those on Lufthansa before.

Pretty much exactly one hour after take-off, the onboard sales commenced. Much of the merchandise on offer didn't catch my interest or wasn't available on flights within the EU. And usually I don't buy anything on board - but this time I was very much tempted by the airplane models in the catalog: one for 19€ and two for 29€. It turned out that all the planes in the fleet can be had in different colors but that of course not every combination was loaded on board, far from it. And there was a huge run on these models. Still, the cabin crew did an amazing job mediating between the different interests, leaving everybody satisfied in the end.
I for my part wanted a 757 as first priority, and maybe another model. My choice for the second model would have been an A330neo, but there was only one available and that was "reserved" by a kid in front of my row. In the end, I got my first choice, and a good second plane as well, as I now "own" both types I took on this trip :) And by the way, the model planes are made of plastic, but considering that I find their fit and finish to be great.

And this was the view out of the window for pretty much all the flight.

Arriving into Frankfurt

At around 6.50pm, the first officer made the announcement that we were closing in on Frankfurt. About three minutes later, the seatbelt signs came on and there was another announcement that informed us about overcast weather in Frankfurt. Indeed, the approach turned out to be somewhat bumpy, but still enjoyable.
We approached Frankfurt from the East. Sat on the left side of the plane, I was able to take some pictures of some landscapes in Franken, of the Main river along the border of the states of Bavaria and Hessen, and the town of Neu-Isenburg. The light in the cabin changed its tone and turned reddish.

Another pic of Neu-Isenburg and a somewhat foggy Langen in the distance…

The landing was also rather bumpy, but we arrived on the ground safe and sound. We were greeted in Frankfurt with the words "Meine Damen und Herren, liebe Kinder" (ladies and gentlemen, dear children).

As Frankfurt is a rather large airport, the way back to the parking position offered various opportunities to spot other aircraft. Even though it was basically the same as always… a SunExpress 737-800, a Lufthansa Cargo 777F, one of the ubiquitous Lufty A320s, a somewhat foggy/blurry Lufthansa 747-400, and a discover A320neo.

We came to a stop somewhere on the apron. Due to bad weather conditions, deplaning was delayed a bit. However, it was not as bad as we thought after the announcement by the cabin crew. So we took a last glance of the plane until we were ushered into the already full bus that was waiting for us.
Yes, the bus was filled to the brim. At least that meant that we would get good views of passing planes, such as this extraordinary (*cough*) Lufty A321neo, an SAS A320 in the vicinity of a blue Condor A330neo, a landing Bulgarian Embraer, and finally the central fire station building.

We drove a lot towards the East, which meant that we passed the non-Schengen portion of Concourse B. Also, am I alone with the impression that Air China easily manages to make every plane like it comes straight from the 1980s, even if it is a rather new one?
(Also, nice Singapore Airlines tail in the background).

We arrived in a dark and dingy bus gate down in the bowels of the airport (which are not even subterranean, I think). We were greeted by the exciting sight of various baggage carousels, even though there wasn't a lot going on here today. We quickly found our baggage belt and waited… and waited… and waited… first, the display showed a wait time of still acceptable 20 minutes, then 45… let's say the baggage arrived eventually. The literally translated (and explained) German proverbs on the wall as well as the seats made the wait bearable.

We made our way to the station and we were lucky, or so we thought. An S-Bahn headed for the city came within a couple of minutes. However, our trip was shorter than expected, because the train broke down in the Frankfurt Stadium station. Still, we came home with the next train, which concludes this report on a rather bitter note - still, the trip with Condor was very enjoyable and all in all, we'd do it again.