Review of Lufthansa flight from Munich to Frankfurt in Economy

Now, this flight really wasn't on my plans, but due to pure convenience and the alignment of the stars, I decided to fly from Munich to Frankfurt. The tickets weren't cheap though, I think just north of 130 euros, but I just bit the bullet because it was a one-way ticket and I only booked it about a month in advance.

The star of the show will be the 787-9 operating on this short one-hour domestic hop. I had to weigh my choices between the train and the plane, and I decided on the 787. Also, I went on a journey from Düsseldorf to Frankfurt using my Deutschlandticket, so only S-bahns and Regional Express trains, and it was enough train experience for me personally.

I also checked in online, but this time only managed to get a floppy thin paper ticket from the kiosk. Turns out, you can print them out unlimited times though.

Weirdly enough, my journey started from Innsbruck. Basically, this was my final destination for my trip across Europe starting from London, and from now you can say everything is just a build-up to get to FRA to get on the A340-600.

My hotel was located more in Tirol and less in Innsbruck because the prices at Innsbruck were insane, more expensive than London I feel, so I had to get a but first to the Flixbus stop.

I got on a Flixbus from Innsbruck to MUC with a few stops along the way. There was a Lufthansa Express Bus service from Innsbruck to the airport, which would've been a good experience, but they were too expensive to make sense from a financial POV.
Funny thing is, as it was the morning, there was quite a bit of a traffic jam on my way to the stop, to the point where the bus was 10 minutes delayed. I was on my nerves trying to find my next plan if I did miss the bus because the implications would domino-effect into my flight as well. But, I arrived just in time, 4 minutes before "planned" departure time. I say "planned", because the drivers would end up coming 10 minutes after that time, when they were supposed to arrive, let's say, 30 minutes before, to check everyone in and get ready for departure at 7:15 sharp. In an ideal situation. Turns out, they overslept. Well, they are human after all. I can't say I never had oversleeping issues.

We arrived at at MUC a few minutes late, but it didn't matter to me as my flight was in 4 hours.

I was aggressively greeted by this Bayern Bus at MUC.

I personally like this angle, it really screams Deutschland.

As you can see, I had plenty of time. I could board an international flight.

As someone who has a soft spot for Lufthansa, I visited the Worldshop to see what they have to offer. Not too bad, but I abstained myself for what I thought would be bigger branches at FRA.

I went through security no problem, and realized my point of view of the tarmac was lower than the last time I was there, when I was waiting to board the flight to LHR. Turns out, there are two security checks, one for the bag searches and stuff for Schengen and non-Schengen passengers, and the other for non-Schengen passengers who would have to go up another floor. As I was travelling through the Schengen zone, I didn't go upstairs, hence the lower point of view. Pretty smart planning, if you ask me.

As always, I roamed the terminal. If I had to nitpick, the gates and the pillars were, on some gates, located awkwardly so I couldn't get such a good view, like the EVA 787-9 or the United 787-8. I personally wanted to snap the United 788 as they're mainly ORD-based and they'll probably never come to ICN, but was let down by the view.

Also, like ICN, MUC has a satellite terminal, the J, K, L gates. But, unlike ICN, you can come back if you decide to roam around to the satellite terminal. Don't know why you'd do that, but it is possible. I took advantage of that freedom and went to the satellite terminal for the A380s, even though my flight was in the G gates.

I don't know if it's just my anecdotal conclusion, but a lot of the long haul seems to be departing from the satellite, and not the main concourse. Outside the photos above, I saw lots of North America-bound A350s.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the air bridge from the left starting to creep into view, connecting with the A380. I'm guessing it replaces the third air bridge that's supposed to connect with the upstairs L1 door.

Our plane for today, D-ABPC, arrived from FRA. Looks like this one is doing FRA-MUC shuttles for the day. These 787s are basically re-skinned Hainan planes, as they were ntu-Hainan planes for a while before Lufthansa picked them up. planespotters.com says they're due for Austrian, guessing they're just fillers for Lufthansa until the Allegris spec 787s get delivered.

Weird seeing an airport be so heavily branded for one airline. Don't think even DXB comes remotely close to being this full of their logos.

Anyway, boarding commenced in orderly fashion with the boarding groups.

Although it was a pretty short turnaround back, the crew have managed to get a nice drawing on the welcome card. Honestly love it so much. Think it's the Römerplatz with the downtown in the background, although I can't decipher exactly which buildings they are.

My seat for today, 24K, which is located at the very last row of the second section right in front of the R3 door.

You get a pretty good view of the flaps.

143 out of the 294 seats were full, so about 50%. Looked like there were a lot of crew commuting to base, or maybe returning from base. Across the aisle from my seat were two cabin crew on each aisle seat. There were even Condor crew, which doesn't have a base in MUC, I believe.

In my seatback pocket were two safety cards.

Very proud of this shot. I had a lot of freedom when it came to taking pictures as the middle seat was empty. Would've been real bad luck if it wasn't, looking at the load factor.

Like LH2482 a few weeks back, we took off from 24R. Even used the same taxiway before getting a rolling takeoff.

The 787 GE engines were so quiet I couldn't hear the spool up. The NEO was definitely louder.

Very cloudy below. I never had an actual sunny day in Munich, sadly.

Did I mention it was my first time on a 787? These windows did a pretty good job, more than expected.

Some nice representation on the airshow.

As it was such a short flight, we were handed out chocolates before we had to descend into FRA.

As we were on a very windy approach into FRA, we had company with this Aerologic 777-F. Probably one of my favorite shots of this entire trip, with the Aerologic parallel approach and the Frankfurt downtown below.

The flaperons were doing quite a lot of work controlling the airplane. It got to a point where there was so much banking I thought we were going to land on 25L.

But, we landed on 25C, with the 77F still on approach for 25R.

I got one last look at the cabin before deplaning.

I don't know if it was just my seat, but the seat itself wasn't exactly super clean. I remember finding a boarding pass from Bogota in the seatback pockets.

Some nice bit of sunlight.

FRA allowed some very close shots of the plane. Also, FRA mixes the inbound and outbound passengers, so I had to follow the baggage claim signs and find my way to the exit. I've only seen this type of design in SFO before. Maybe they also do it that way in MUC, but funnily enough I never had to go to baggage claim when I've been through that airport twice.

I got myself a ticket to Frankfurt Main Hauptbahnhof, which cost a whopping 6.6 euros.