Review of Lufthansa flight from Vancouver to Frankfurt in Business

Project 61: Quadjets + RTW! Part II (Getting to FRA)

Preflight

In Part I, I mentioned that the flight to YVR took an hour longer, making it the longest flight in the recent three-month history. Coincidentally, the inbound 747 that will return to FRA was arriving late and will thus depart an hour later, ‘returning’ the hour I have lost. This was communicated over email and the nifty Lufthansa app while I was still over the Pacific, approximately seven hours before the original departure.

Maple Leaf Lounge

Bidding for business class upgrade was a first-time experience for me, and I naively thought the process was for them to inform me whether I want to proceed with the upgrade at my bid price, should it be available. Instead, the bid happily (accidentally?) got through automatically, which allowed me access to the Maple Leaf Lounge.

This lounge is on the smaller side and was crowded when I was there. I headed to the shower room first (by leaving your ticket at the reception) and given how busy the lounge was, it’s not too bad an idea to squirrel away here to freshen up and have a bit of private space… There’s a small buffet selection area and the warm food options that day was piri-piri chicken or garlic pasta. I managed to get a countertop corner seat with convenient pop-up USB-A and AC outlets, and bag hooks on the underside of the countertop.

Plaza Premium Lounge

I dropped by here quickly on Priority Pass, just to see if I managed to get a better vantage of the 747 as the gate is right beside the lounge. Good views but just as busy, a literal buffet line. I suppose this would have been the lounge to go for if I did not get my business class upgrade.

Aircraft

I flew on the D-ABVM, the oldest plane on the trip at 27 years 6 months. I must have last flown on a 747 with Singapore Airlines’ 747 retirement flight (SQ748 from Hong Kong) all the way back in 2012… Brings back fond memories, such irrational feelings for a gracefully aging metal chunk of a plane.

Fun fact: this plane flew to Singapore on the 10th night, right after coming in from Vancouver.

Route

FlightAware puts this as the shortest flight in the recent three-month history, I guess they really wanted to make up for the lost time and the winds really helped!

Other than a slightly elevated turbulence about an hour in (around the time dinner was served), I managed to sleep peacefully for 5.5 hours, waking up to Europe.

Seating, IFE

Seat 4A was the last available window seat given my last-minute upgrade success, and it was very interesting to be seated right in front of the door. The crew were very cheerful greeting passengers, and I managed to see up-close the aerobridge deployments.

There is a dedicated AC outlet for each passenger. Not plenty of storage space but I suppose there’s less likelihood of passengers losing their stuff. Unexpectedly, there were headphone covers provided inside the amenity kit, I only discovered this after I browsed through mine, post-flight.

I am also very impressed with Lufthansa’s implementation of the in-flight route map. What it lacks in interactivity (as far as I could tell the viewing modes loop continuously, and you can only choose to reveal a pop-up of basic flight telemetry), it makes for with high-resolution imagery of both the region and the plane itself. There is even a very convincing 3D model cockpit view that seamlessly transitions to the outside view! Now I wish more airlines have this.

Lufthansa offers “up to 150 kbps” free in-flight Wi-Fi that they branded as messaging-only, but there’s effectively no block for general web browsing so long as you are patient. Helpfully this free option is also offered without having to use their frequent flyer programme on the PNR, which was the problem I had on the earlier Air Canda flight.

Food

We start off with their specialty AVIONIC aperitif, which is extremely good and fruity.

I chose the lemon-grilled prawns for appetizer, and the braised beef brisket for the main course. The warm breakfast selection was potato cheddar frittata. Service is well within expectations.

Lufthansa App

Special mention goes towards their app, which did a fantastic job rendering the progress. As mentioned earlier, the delay notifications were very timely and informative. 

Postflight

Frankfurt airport is the airport to do plane-spotting, given the variety Lufthansa flies. I immediately spotted a A340-300 in front of us while taxiing to the terminal. This was followed by two, five, eight… and then some 747s (mix of 400s and 8s) – I almost lost count.