Review of Lufthansa flight from Raleigh to Frankfurt in Economy

Welcome to my European adventure! This series will start off with a relatively new route, Lufthansa's A330 service from Raleigh-Durham to Frankfurt!

RDU Airport

Welcome to Raleigh-Durham's Terminal 2!

Let's check in for our flight to Frankfurt!

Made it through security fine.

Let's head to the gate!

My ride for today has arrived! This flight will be operated by a 2012-built Airbus A330-300, registered D-AIKR, and named "Oldenburg". It was delivered new to Lufthansa and it has flown with them since. This plane will be transferred to another LH Group airline (either 4Y or SN) in the next few years.

Boarding

Let's board this A330!

Up front, Lufthansa's A330s feature the Collins Diamond seat in a 2-2-2 configuration.

In Premium Economy, the ZIMmagic seats are used, configured in a 2-3-2 configuration.

Finally, the economy seats (I'm unsure of the model) are in a standard A330 2-4-2 layout. I will be seated in 25A tonight.

At the seat are a pillow and a blanket.

Seat pocket contents are the standard safety card, shopping magazine, and air-sickness bag.

This particular A330 (along with a few others) is equipped with the Panasonic eX2 system in Economy Class. Premium Economy and Business seem to use the eX3 system. The rest of the A330s in the Lufthansa fleet use the Safran Rave system instead.

This A330 is also equipped with onboard cameras.

While Flightpath3D is the in-flight map, it's a very stripped down version due to the older eX2 hardware. It isn't interactive, and each frame is static, only being updated when the next frame is generated.

Speaking of the eX2 hardware, legroom and under-seat storage in window seats are reduced due to the two boxes housing entertainment hardware.

The USB port is located under the armrest. Not a good placement.

In-flight

Forgot to include departure pics, but now we're in-flight! The lavatory was good enough.

Now for the drinks. I went with a Coke.

You can barely see the Lufthansa logo on the cup.

Now, I'd usually go to the meal service, but I checked the menu before the flight, and both options had nuts in the main courses. For context, I have a nut allergy, so I ended up bringing a burger from the BurgerFi at the airport, and Lufthansa didn't have a nut allergy-friendly meal. After the meal service wrapped up, I tried to sleep. However, probably due to how uncomfortable the seat was, I couldn't sleep at all. Anyways, 2 hours of WiFi was available for $18, and for the whole flight for $29. I bought the 2-hour pass, and the speeds were fine. It did the trick just fine.

A dark cabin. People are either trying to sleep or staying awake.

A closer look at the IFE's UI: It is pretty cluttered, and combined with the eX2's resistive touchscreen and lack of a proper remote, the IFE is not the best when it comes to user experience. At least the movie selection isn't bad!

After a few hours of trying to sleep (and failing), I gave up and got a coffee. It was good!

Not too long after, the cabin lights came on.

It was breakfast time. It started with a hot towelette.

The breakfast service consisted of a blueberry muffin and fruit. I brought a chocolate muffin to eat instead.

And, one more coffee.

The sun is rising!

Arrival

As the sun rises, the descent to Frankfurt starts.

And, with that, welcome to Frankfurt!

One final view of the premium economy cabin:

One more pic of the business cabin:

To wrap it up, here's one last photo of the A330!