Review of Air Malta flight from Luqa to Munich in Economy

Hello everyone! Welcome to the second part of the trip to Malta. This report will cover the return flight from Malta to Munich with Air Malta.

After spending a couple of days in Malta, we were flying back to Munich. We stayed in St. Julian and from there, there was a direct bus to the airport in just 20 minutes.

Although we did the online check-in the day before, I also wanted to get the paper boarding pass. There were not so many people at the counters.

The electronic boarding pass design was somehow different from the previous flight. Boarding time was at 13:00pm and we had plenty of time.

The paper boarding pass I received was just a white card with flight information printed on it, nothing more.

Then we headed to the observation deck at the 3rd floor. Once we stepped out of the elevator, there was a model display of the airport which was very lovely. 

The observation deck was quite small and located at the north side of the terminal. At the background there was an Atlantic Airways A320, OY-RCJ which was preparing to fly to Copenhagen as RC7123. There was also an Air Malta A320ceo, 9H-AEQ which was not our ride to Munich but operating its scheduled flight to Milan Linate as KM624.

Easyjet G-EZTC to London Gatwick as U28824 and Lufthansa D-AIPS to Munich.

On the other side, we could see an Scandinavian Airlines A320neo SE-ROS to Copenhagen as SK2768.

Ryanair EI-EME was pushing back for its flight to Edinburgh as FR6696.

Lufthansa D-AIPS to Munich as LH1977.

As you can see, the observation deck is not very big.

We spent about 20 minutes there and we backed into the terminal. The departure gates were located right next to those check-in counters.

After we passed through the electronic gates, we took the escalator to the 2nd floor where the security control was carried out. Like in many European airports, the duty-free shops are located right after the security control and you must pass through them in order to get to the gates. At 12:45pm, our gate number was revealed and it was gate 09-10. We immediately made our ways to the gates and there was a ground staff who checked our boarding pass and put a luggage tag to my hand luggage.

As I shown her the electronic boarding pass stored in my apple wallet, she gave me this paper and asked me to show it during boarding.

We waited for a while in front of the gate and at 13:10pm, boarding was started. The plane was parked in front of my gate and we just walked directly to it.

Our A320ceo to Munich, 9H-AHS, delivered to Air Malta in April 2018. The plane was previously flown with Sri Lanka Airlines between 2012 to 2018. Our plane was just backed from Vienna as KM515.

I boarded the plane from the front door.

The first two rows were assigned as the business class. Seats are the same as those in economy class with the middle seat being kept empty.

My seat 18A. The seat configuration was identical to the pervious flight and I chose the seat on the left side of the cabin.

Cabin view during boarding

View from my seat.
Emirates B777-300ER A6-EGX arriving from Dubai via Larnaca as EK109. 
Lufthansa A320ceo D-AIWK arriving from Frankfurt as LH1276.
Air Malta A320ceo 9H-AEI arriving from Paris as KM479 and would be operated the flight KM490 to Zurich.

The leg room was quite narrow…

At 13:35pm. pushback was commenced. To my surprise, the safety instruction was conducted in person by the cabin crew instead of the video from the overhead monitors.

Entering the active runway.

At 13:41pm, we took off from RWY 6.

Leaving the Malta island.

Very soon, we were passing through the Sicily.

At 14:40pm, I purchased a cappuccino.

Soon we were passing through the center part of Italy. Somewhere to the east of Rome.

At 15:00pm, I visited the lavatory.

View of the cabin. In this flight, there was even no Airshow from the overhead monitor. As far as I could see, the flight was 90% full.

As we were leaving the north Italy, we entered the Alps region which allowed me to enjoy some stunning scenery. Again, I picked the wrong side and the reflection of the sun made it very hard to take photos…

At 15:37pm, while we were still enjoying the view, the captain announced that we had started the descend into Munich airport and landing would be in 30 minutes. 

Munich was cloudy and with 1 degree Celsius.

At 15:58pm, we landed on RWY08R. Total flight time was 2 hours and 17 minutes. The flight route was slightly different from the outbound flight as we did not pass through Slovenia.

With a short taxing, we parted at gate K09 in the satellite terminal.

Thanks for reading.