Airplane or airport experiences...

[RdKetchup]

Nice to hear about Qatar, I have heard a lot of good things about them, though I have never flied with them. Did you take any pictures?

Looking forward to hearing about your Lufthansa experience, I have only flown with them very briefly OSL-FRA-VCE-FRA-OSL ten years ago, and FRA-CPH on my way home from Star Megado I (2009). I'm going to fly Lufthansa on September 5th, going OSL-FRA-LAX, which will be a number firsts for me: First time in a Boeing 747, the 747 in question will be a 748i, and I will be seated in 86A which is on the upper deck. Not only will this be my First proper experience with LH, but also my first time on their business class with their new lie-flat-seats. Back home will be SFO-CPH-OSL on Scandinavian Airlines, also first time in an Airbus 340, SK operates A340-313X on long intercontinental routes. I will provide a report...

Sorry it took me a while to answer, I have been quite busy.

I have not taken any pictures of the cabin or seat on the Qatar flights, but it was normal economy, nothing special. To expand on the service, it was good, but not excellent or anything extraordinary.


Now the AirCan/Lufthansa trip...

First leg, Montreal Frankfurt, on a Air Canada B777.

The beast:

I had a pretty bad seat, middle seat of the center group, first row of a section, so not a lot of leg room, no view, and people on both side of me. It was a night flight, but I ended-up spending most of the flight reading, watching a movie and finally talking with one of my neighbor (something I usually never do).

Second leg, Frankfurt - Dubai on Lufthansa, flying on a B747-400 for the first time.

Again, normal economy, but this time I was able to select a pretty good seat, window in the row right behind the emergency exit , so nobody in front of me

On the flight back, the first leg (Dubai - Munich) was on a pretty new A330-300. Normal window seat. It took me a while to find the USB power, located underneath the armrest.

Service was good, food was ok.


The moving map was not as fancy as the one on the 787 higher on this page, but pretty nice nonetheless.

30 minutes before landing I realized we had access to a front facing camera

Finally, the last leg of my trip, Munich - Montreal, was on a Lufthansa A340-300

I had a window seat in economy reserved, but totally out of the blue, when I scanned my boarding pass, it printed a little slip, saying "New seat, 3G, business upgrade"

So got to drink this bubbly

And choose giant prawns for the appetizer

It was my fist flight ever in business class, and the difference with economy was way bigger than I imagined as far as service and food is concerned.

Now going back to regular economy will be depressing

 

[calvinhobbes]

Now going back to regular economy will be depressing

It certainly will be - apart from all the obvious differences, the drinks selection makes a huge difference. When I can, I like to have something before, during and after "dinner" so as to make its taste fade into the background. In economy, that'll be a Campari-O, wine and Bailey's or, well, little else. In business, I was starting to feel quite happy indeed as the last drop of grappa went down with part of the after-dinner cheese plate.

 

[RdKetchup]

One thing I have started recently is measuring the noise level while in cruise using an app on my phone.

One of the reason for that was getting fed-up with fan boys on both side of the Boeing/Airbus stupid little war claiming that "their" aircraft was more confortable/silent than the other.

So here are my first results.

B777 - Air Canada - cruise at FL350 - seat 51e (middle seat of the centre of the cabin)
average 57.4 dB

B747-400 - Lufthansa - cruise at FL370 - seat 33a (window seat, over the wing)
average 60.5 dB

A330-300 - Lufthansa - cruise at FL350 - seat 21a (window seat, over the wing)
average 61.1 dB

A340-300 - Lufthansa - cruise at FL340 - seat 3g (center of the cabin, first row of business class)
average 53.2 dB

 

[Hatmouse]

Or in other words, wings are louder and sitting in front is quieter.

 

[calvinhobbes]

I've just got back home from Argentina, flying Buenos Aires-Houston on United and Houston-Frankfurt on Lufthansa. There was Top Gear 19x02 in the UA IFE and 19x03 in the LH IFE.

Oh, and LH listed it under "documentary". So either someone knew exactly (12x02) what they were doing - or not at all.

 

[marcos_eirik]

Nice report there RdKetchup...

Ok, so here's my trip over to LA from Oslo. It all started very early in the morning with the flight down to Frankfurt. First, very few people in the lounge this early:

"Breakfast..."

LH A319 to FRA

Seats were OK, but the seatbacks were very hard, almost like the leather-clad church benches found in Norwegian (A LCC)...

Leg room was okay-ish, not much room to spare there...

German precision, pushback 06:10, exactly as scheduled...

Some breakfast onboard:

The beast that took us to LAX, B74H "Sachsen Anhalt"

I got a change of seat, 84A. Very comfortable seats, no problem that they are pivoted towards eachother. Also very nice with extra storage, there is a large hold between the seat and the fuselage

What it looks like fully reclined:

Plenty of leg room:

Now to the food, it was ok, which is kind of a disappointment, as I expected more from a full service carrier in business class, especially on a flight departing from their home base. Sloppy vegetables and over-cooked meat, meh...

The cheese for dessert was good:

Made sure to get a good 4-5 hours sleep to make up for having to get up that early:

Before arrival we were served some dinner. A salad with portobello mushrooms and a goulash. Again, tasted meh...

Some more pictures from other places in the 747-8, first the upper deck business cabin:

Mini-cabin down on the main deck:

staircase from the upside:

from the main deck:

Glad I wasn't stuck here for 11 hours:

Huge wing and huge engines:

The rental:

That was one way, looking forward to comparing with SAS going the other way, SFO-CPH... Except for the food, I'm still pleased with what I got on business class at Lufthansa 456 to LA, I hope SAS selects these seats to go in business class on their upcoming A350-900s and A330E...

 

[LP]

I just want to come here and insert one very important statement.

DON'T FLY AIR INDIA

 

[calvinhobbes]

I just want to come here and insert one very important statement.

DON'T FLY AIR INDIA

I've made only one roundtrip with them and apart from the connection at DEL, everything was fine...

 

[Hatmouse]

I've never flown Air India, but no one in my family seems to like it for some reason.

 

[marcos_eirik]

A short report from my journey home. I flew SFO-CPH-OSL this time with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS, SK), all the way.

SK's A340-300 at the gate: (OY-KBD) My first time in an A340.

SK's business class seats, nice for a 10 hour flight.

170 degrees "angle lie-flat". There are quite a few who hate on these seats, but I think they are perfectly OK. They are obviously not as good as the new seats in Lufthansa's 747-8, as fully lie-flat is better than the angle. little bit of wear on the bulkheads, noticeably worse in row 7 and 8 than in the forward business cabin, mu guess is that the mini-Business-cabin behind door 2 has all the passengers passing through it. The seat itself wasn't particularly worn...

The starter was tuna and couscous-salad, went for a glass of white wine for this

For the main course I chose "Braised short ribs, Lyonnaise Potatoes, sauteed spinach, sun blushed tomatoes, with a glass of red wine:

For the dessert I got some cheese, a piece of cheesecake, and since I don't like dessert wines, I got some champagne in stead:

Breakfast:

All in all the food was very good. I have never been a fan of tuna, but they made it taste fine, which was a nice surprise. The main course was one of the better ones I have had onboard a plane. The cheese wasn't particularly interesting, but the cheesecake was very good. Breakfast was also rather good

Compared to Lufthansa the food was much better here, which is strange considering the Lufthansa flight I went on departed from their home base, and SAS wasn't. Usually the catering is better when departing the airline's home town. In terms of comfort the Lufthansa seats were more comfortable, being lie flat and all. One surpising moment was that the aging A340 felt quieter than the 747-8, there was a fairly large amount of wind noise on the upper deck

Fairly spacious restrooms on SAS's long-haul-aircrafts

Err, at least leg-room earns a pass...? - Yes...

Absolutely approved:

Also, has anyone ever wondered how strong the electric motors in the business-class seats are...? One of my danish fellow passengers found out... He forgot his iPad in a place where it god wedged against the seat while he adjusted it. The result was as follows: Business class seat - iPad: 1-0: (If it does this to an iPad, imagine what it will do to your fingers if they get caught in the mechanism...)

Weh flying back home CPH-OSL we flew SAS Plus. I chose a ham & cheese sandwich from the BOB-wagon (Included in SAS Plus)

Now that's it, more or less...

 

[Hidden_Hunter]

United LAX-DEN

Avoid

 

[marcos_eirik]

United LAX-DEN

Avoid

Really? Why? What kind of aircraft was that? I flew UA from SFO-DEN in the spring that was an A320 with the old United business class seats, they are much better than the ex-CO business seats found in UA's 737s spent six hours in those EWR-SFO and three more DEN-LGA. Service was good though, as much ice cream I fancied...

 

[jibduh]

I flew on Air Canada a bit ago. The 110V plugs seem to cut off depending on load... There were times where I couldn't do a thing to get my 60W inverter to draw power no matter what I did. Other times I would slowly increase load by plugging in the cable, then cable to inverter then to laptop in standby, and finally booting out of standby... I felt very superstitious performing the whole operation.

 

[Hidden_Hunter]

Really? Why? What kind of aircraft was that? I flew UA from SFO-DEN in the spring that was an A320 with the old United business class seats, they are much better than the ex-CO business seats found in UA's 737s spent six hours in those EWR-SFO and three more DEN-LGA. Service was good though, as much ice cream I fancied...

the whole thing was a massive fuckup from beginning to end, they told us boarding was delayed due to mechanical fault, then boarded us anyway, sat around for an hour before they go "flights cancelled because of springs in the pilots seat" then 2 minutes later announce "this flight is actually delayed, but you need to get off a rebook, go to gate 63" (from 72) we get to gate 63 and this rude women (after queuing for another 45 minutes) tells us that we "should have known" to go to gate 70 to rebook. So we go to gate 70 they print a new ticket and tell us to go back to gate 63 and tell us "that we should of gotten our boarding passes printed at gate 63". Awesome customer service...

I'm flying united to Miami friday and then from DC->Melbourne the following week - I'd be loathed to ever fly united again after this trip

plane was a very tired 757 that arrived about 5 hours late...

 

[marcos_eirik]

the whole thing was a massive fuckup from beginning to end, they told us boarding was delayed due to mechanical fault, then boarded us anyway, sat around for an hour before they go "flights cancelled because of springs in the pilots seat" then 2 minutes later announce "this flight is actually delayed, but you need to get off a rebook, go to gate 63" (from 72) we get to gate 63 and this rude women (after queuing for another 45 minutes) tells us that we "should have known" to go to gate 70 to rebook. So we go to gate 70 they print a new ticket and tell us to go back to gate 63 and tell us "that we should of gotten our boarding passes printed at gate 63". Awesome customer service...

I'm flying united to Miami friday and then from DC->Melbourne the following week - I'd be loathed to ever fly united again after this trip

plane was a very tired 757 that arrived about 5 hours late...

That sounded like a proper clusterfuck... Anyways, according to some of my frequent traveller friends, United isn't what it used to be before the Continental Airlines merger, they seem to have adopted CO's suck-it-up-attitude to their service. If you don't like what they serve in business, you no longer get the option of picking something from the BOB-cart. That said, I love their ice cream.

At least, an old 757 isn't bad, be happy it wasn't an overcrowded 737, I developed a strong distaste for 737 in general after flying EWR-SFO in that old-hat-tube.

 

[Dr_Grip]

Here's an airport experience that does not involve flying. As some of you may or may not know, the opening of Berlin's shiny new airport BER has been delayed for the foreseeable future because of several botchups in construction of the new terminal. At the same time, several carriers planned an increased number of flights from and to Berlin, first and foremost Air Berlin, who wanted to make BER their new main hub.

Now, all these flights have to be crammed into the small-ish, 1970s-built TXL. While I am a huge fan of Terminal A (top left corner in the screncap below), which has a parking garage beneath it and allows you to drive up to your arrival or departure gate, meaning a worst-case five-minute walk from your car to the check in desk.

But last week, I had to pick up someone from the Air-Berlin-only Terminal C (green arrow):

Which has only got a small, badly-lit, bordering-on-inaccessible parking lot, that at the same time is more expensive than Terminal A's. I even missed the entrance cause I thought it would lead to the empty taxi holding are at first try, forcing me to do a full circle below Terminal A, going 'round the outer loop (lower center-left below Europcar in the screencap) and make a second approach.

Damn all you bastards for botching up BER!

 

[calvinhobbes]

forcing me to do a full circle below Terminal A, going 'round the outer loop (lower center-left below Europcar in the screencap) and make a second approach.

So you didn't see the runway when you got to the decision height and had to go around?

 

[Rex Luther]

I?ve seen this plenty of times at the air-port. People who fly with the cheap airlines (ryan-air espcially) with the those limitations on hand-luggage ... on size and weight. Who then stand there at check in and actually wonder that you have to pay extra if your hand-luggage exceeds the limitations. It?s written on your ticket, it?s written 20 times at the check desk, another 5 signs at the gate ... and suddenly it?s all a big surprise ...

Yes, it?s pretty much arbitrarily and obviously a scam ... but you?re flying fucking 1000 miles for 20? ... and you think you can carry 20kilo of luggage for your 2 week vacation into the cabin? Grow a brain ...

This.
Although just a couple of weeks ago, checking in to a flight from Penang to Singapore with jetstar, I got the front of the line, credit card in hand to pay the extra luggage charge (we'd bought a bunch of crap) only to be told they don't accept cards and its cash only. The fuck?
Run off, find an atm, come back with cash in hand. They also had zero change behind the counter and no receipt book.
Slow clap for jetstar.

On the positive side for this trip,
Air Asia for the Singapore to Penang trip. Its only a one hour flight, so its a no frill experience, but the seats are comfy, the crew were friendly and professional and check in was hassle free. Would use again.

For the longer flights (Perth to Singa's, Singa's to Osaka and Osaka to Perth) we used Singapore airlines. Boeing 777's of varying vintages for each of the legs, with the newer ones having a far superior entertainment system and a tad more leg room (Still not really enough, I'm 6.3 and of large frame). As always, out of all the Asian based airlines, Sing Air really is a step above when it comes to in flight service. Really top class crew, although the hostesses must have a really short shelf life with that company, its like Logan's Run up there.

 

[calvinhobbes]

only to be told they don't accept cards and its cash only. The fuck?

That sounds an awful lot like Germany... and if a place does accept cards, there's a decent chance that the one you want to use isn't among those which are accepted. Because we absolutely need 382 different (Geldkarte, Girocard, Maestro, V-Pay, MasterCard, VISA etc.) and incompatible payment systems.

 

[Viper007Bond]

I flew first class from SFO back to PDX last week on Virgin America as they were out of exit row upgrades. Damn first class is nice on Virgin. :lol:

Next month I'm flying to Puerto Rico on another company trip and I'll be using JetBlue for the first time. I already upgraded to exit row for the whole flight (9 hours each way, via JFK). We'll see how it goes. JetBlue was literally half the price of other airlines and was the only one with one stop.