Review of Lufthansa flight from Nice to Frankfurt in Business

spontaneous trip to europe

I had a number of options for my return trip home, but United offered the most convenient schedule.  There was Lufthansa First availability via Frankfurt if I waited for Monday, but after thinking about it, I needed to detox a bit and wouldn't have enjoyed the flight and FCT as much.

I instead opted for the United metal.  In hindsight, with the weather situation that developed in Frankfurt, I wish I used Flying Blue miles and flew Air France or KLM.

Nice Côte d'Azur Airport

I got to NCE Airport around Noon for the scheduled 2:20 flight.  It was easy enough to find the premium Lufthansa Group check-in.  I was warned there was going to be delay due to poor weather in Frankfurt, but they couldn't predict how long it was going to be.  The check-in supervisor recommended I stick with my existing itinerary instead of switching to connecting home via Zurich.  In hindsight, I should have pushed for the Zurich connection.

the library lounge

Security was quick enough given that I had fast track and overall there weren't very many passengers going through when I did.

It was a short walk to airside.  It's a rather small terminal, so the Library Lounge was easy to find.

The lounge is split up into two main areas.  There is a main lounging area immediately to your left after you exit the elevator.  At the end of it is a small library that the lounge takes its name from.

To the right after stepping out of the elevator is a similar, but smaller set of chairs (I didn't take many pictures because this area was much more crowded).

The buffet was also found to the right.  There wasn't much in terms of hot options.

The drink options were fairly sparse as well.  A few wines were available for self serve.  In a nearby cooler there were  juices, soft drinks, and beer.  Some cold food options could be found here as well: yogurt, deli meats, and cheese.

Lufthansa did a terrible job communicating about this delay as it kept dragging on and on.  It was slow to update its schedule online and at the gate even though it was obvious from FlightRadar that the incoming flight had not taken off yet.  Eventually, they sent an email with a pathetic €4 "meal" voucher.  No clue what that could even get you at NCE.  In any case, it became obvious after a while that I was going to be spending the night in Frankfurt.

lh1061

When it was finally time it board, it was already 4:35pm.  There was no way to catch my flight now.  Moreover, when it came time to board, it was just a disorganized mess at the gate.  After scanning my boarding pass and walking down the jet bridge I quickly realized that we were just all standing in the jet bridge–no one was actually getting on board yet.  It would be another while before finally we were able to get on the plane.

Our flight to Frankfurt was on D-AIRT, a 25-years old A321-100.  Lufthansa has the standard set up in intra-European J and this time I was lucky enough to get a row to myself.

Boarding finally finished after 5pm and doors closed at 5:08pm.

We pushed back at 5:11pm–the sun was setting on the French Rivieria and on my connecting flight in Frankfurt.

There was some interesting spotting before we took off:  an Air Algerie 737-700!  This is certainly not an airline I see often.

Plenty of private jets at NCE as well:

One last view before takeoff–we took off at 5:23pm.

Meal service began shortly after takeoff.  Always nice to have two cup indentations on the tray table.  I declined any drinks and just had water.

Here's the meal.  It was . . . okay?  Dessert and bread were fine, but the main, much like on the flight from MUC to BCN, left much to be desired.

At least it wasn't a particularly long flight.  For anyone interested, Wifi was available at €10 for "streaming" (15 mb/s), €5 for surfing (600 kb/s), and €3 for texting and chatting.  The prices seemed reasonable for me but I had no interest in testing it out on such a short flight.

Soon enough we were close to FRA.  Here's the view of Theodor-Heuss Brucke: 

We landed at 6:36pm CET and reached our gate 6 minutes later.

After deplaning, as with anything at FRA, it was an incredibly long walk to find any service agents that could help with rebooking and hotels.  Here is what the line for the closest service station looked like.  Luckily, status and ticket class meant I could pop into the nearby business class lounge and get the front desk agents to help me with rebooking.

I was rebooked on the next available United flight and given a voucher for the Steigenberger Airport Hotel Frankfurt as well as an €18 voucher for dinner.  It took me a while to find where the hotel shuttles are at Frankfurt (my first time exiting the airport unless you count the walk to the FCT).