Hello and welcome back to Timisoara where I ended up about two weeks ago to finish my remaining days with my employer (now ex-employer) and the final day with them was me positioning back to home from Timisoara with Lufthansa City Airlines where I'll be connecting with Lufthansa CityLine to Amsterdam on their Mitsubishi CRJ-900. The ticket was bought about three weeks ago (return AMS-TSR-AMS) for a total of 656 EUR in Economy with an additional 80 euros as I decided to upgrade my MUC-TSR leg to Business.
I must admit that the price of the tickets are quite steep, but Lufthansa has somewhat of a monopoly to secondary cities in Romania if travelling from Northwestern Europe. There are other and cheaper options, but they tend to be very time consuming and would take almost the entire day. (Think of taking a Vueling flight from Amsterdam to Barcelona, connect between the terminals and fly with WIZZ to Timisoara.
On the day of the flight I arrived at Timisoara's airport about 90 minutes prior to my scheduled departure time via a pre-booked hotel shuttle and decided to head over to the check-in counters to drop off my luggage. The terminal in Timisoara that is used for Schengen departures is quite new, however has a very pungent odour, which indicates to me that the terminal is constructed with bad piping.
With about four scheduled departure in the next two hours, the check-in hall was rather quiet with only a line waiting for the Lufthansa City flights. There were no queue for the counter of TAROM and for the two flights of WIZZ.
Given that today's flight would be in Economy, I decided to queu behind a large delegation of Indian workers who seemed to be cheerful about them returning to home after finishing their contract in Romania. There cheery attitude was a blessing to witness, however it also slowed down the check-in experience by a lot as they were quite chatty, did carry large pieces of luggage and neither of them did check in online, so ground attendants were actually quite busy checking their papers, checking them in and to drop their luggage. In the end it took about fourty-five minutes or so to be helped by one of the ground attendant.
Once my luggage was dropped off, I decided to head straight to security in order to have somewhat of a tiny and crappy breakfast in the Horizons lounge, however security took another 10 or 15 minutes to clear as some passengers were trying to head through the barriers with faulty boarding passes forcing passengers to back up. Security was a breeze though.
With about ten minutes to spare before our scheduled boarding time was suppose to start, I decided to enter the Horizons Lounge through my Priority Pass to grab a cup of coffee, however the lounge is rather small, does not offer anything other than a few snacks, fizzy drinks, beers/wines and coffee/tea.
The complimentary food on offer consisted of a few cookies, candies and crisps and are of bad quality. Think of those stale prepacked croissants with chocolate filling, stale cookies and waffles and other pastries that felt like they were prepared about three days ago or so.
A few minutes past our scheduled boarding time, I decided to head downstairs to the gate section where boarding was already in process. I decided to sit down waiting for the majority of passengers to already board before I decided to board. No point of being the first in the aircraft when we are all getting there the same time.
The biggest issue of the terminal is clearly visible in the photo below and that is the serious lack of seating availabiility in the terminal. Once the terminal has about four scheduled schengen departures, the terminal becomes very crowded and is prown to block the flow of passengers as people want to stay near their own gate. The first floor does offer seating, yet this is not clearly indicated nor do most people want to go there in fear of missing their flight.
Once the line was almost clear, I decided to queu behind the last few passengers to board our aircraft when my boarding pass was rejected. The ground attendant informed me that there was a change of seating for me that would not be disappointing me. A bit confused by her response, she quicky smiled and told me that I was upgraded free of charge to Business as economy was overbooked and that due to my status with THAI, I was selected to be upgraded. I kindly thanked her and went on my path to the aircraft.
Hello D-ABGP, this 16.7 year old (at time of flying) Airbus A319 is going to bring us over to Munich and is named after the city of Deggendorf. This specific bird was newly delivered to Air Berlin in December 2008 where it remained till February 2017 (with a few intervals where Air Berlin leased it out to their subsidiary Niki) when this aircraft was taken over by Eurowings in the same month of the same year. After ten months or so, Eurowings decided to lease this bird to LGW Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter for about eight months. In January 2024 it was phased out with Eurowings and picked up by Lufthansa City about three months after.
Upon embarking the aircraft, we were greeted by two flight attendants and eventually made it to my seat 03F where legroom is a bit more generous compared to your standard economy seat, yet it is still limited. The only benefit is the blocked middle seat.
A view of the cabin when boarding is nearly completed with nearly a full load for today's flight. Economy (100%), Business (83%)
The view from the seat with the cargo door still open.
Pushback was eventually engaged about 14 minutes past our scheduled departure time despite us being fully ready well before our scheduled departure time, though we were given a slot by Munich due to bad weather and thunderstorms.
Once pushed back, I got one last view of the aircraft I have been flying in the past two weeks (Fairchild Metroliner) and it has been a pleasure to have been with them for the past 2.5 years.
20 minutes past our scheduled departure time we were rolling down runway 11 in an easterly direction to make a left hand turn after departure to head over Munich when the sun was rising.
The aircraft was also equipped with individual air vents, reading lights, but unlike Lufthansa, Lufthansa City did not install any WiFi on board.
About 15 minutes in flight, the flight attendants came by to provide us a table cloth. Table cleanliness is checked!
The table cloth is way too large and could be very annoying, though it fits perfectly if you fold it in half.
A check on the literature in the seat pocket which contained a sick bag, safety card of the A319, a Buy on Board Magazine and a duty free magazine.
A few more minutes went by when the flight attendants asked me what I would like to have for drink. Despite it looking like some alcoholic beverage, it was just an Apfelschorle, which is basically an Apple spritzer. Unfortunately VL didn't hit it as the carbornated water was already dead by the time it was poured as if it was a bottle that had been opened the previous day….
By now the sun was rising strong.
Breakfast was served about 25 minutes into the flight and I wasn't really impressed with what they offered to be fair. The food on offer was rather plain and stale with a factory-made emmentaler, cottage cheese with a generous spread of one single walnut and four slices of meats (2 slices of Turkey & Ham) served with a bowl of yoghurt with some canned fruit and a warm croissant with butter and jam.
It took the flight attendants about 20 minutes more to come around with a basket of warm bread (including pretzels), but most people already had consumed their food by this point and I also rejected the offer as I didn't want to eat any bread without any spread.
I kindly requested to them whether I could have a cup of coffee, which again was served lukewarm to the point that you could just pour it down like a shot of tequila. I really like my coffee to be hotter and to enjoy sipping it rather than rushing the drinking process.
About 20 minutes to landing, the flight attendant came back again to serve us a Rizzati chocolate.
By now we were into approach to Runway 26L with heavy rain and thunder in the vicinity of the airport, yet the airport itself was clear of any weather by the time we touched down about seven minutes ahead of our schedule.
A very wet apron
Docking at our parking stand about two minutes past our scheduled arrival time.
Disembarkation followed soon after when I spotted this beautiful Airbus A350-900 of Singapore Airlines parked next to us preparing for it's departure back to Singapore.
And now it was time to spend about two hours in Munich before we connect on a CRJ-900 to Amsterdam, however no gate was announced as of yet on the tv screens. Luckily enough Lufthansa's app will already provide you with a gate well before the tv screens are announcing them.
See you on the next report for the final stretch back home!
