Review of Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Shanghai in Economy

Finally, the day has come to fly on the mighty A340-600. I honestly didn't know how to feel, because I had such a wonderful time roaming around Europe.

I checked in through the app and got my boarding pass. Interesting thing here, I got my boarding pass for my second flight which was OZ364 to ICN, but I later found out that Chinese airports, or at least PVG, doesn't take QR tickets. So, I had to get a reissue for a traditional boarding pass.

My ride for today would be D-AIHW, one of the A340s with the old livery. Personally was a bit gutted it wasn't the new livery just because there wouldn't be the yellow box next to the door, but it was what it was. 

My day started at Frankfurt Main hbf, and as you can see from the clock, it was 8:45 in the morning. I was hoping to get some spotting after I got my bag checked in, so I made my way extra early.

I took the S9 to the airport. It took me about 30 minutes which is very good considering going to ICN from Seoul takes twice as long.

Before doing anything, I went to the Worldshop first to buy some souvenirs and put it in my suitcase before checking them in. 

There were lots of things available for purchase, and I thought the prices were reasonable.

I was torn between these two, as they both were on sale. The A380 was 68 euros while the A350 was 58 euros. In the end, I went for the A350 as it was a 'souvenir' and I wanted to get something I could actually reminisce flying on. Also, I saved 10 euros in the process.

I used the kiosk to check in my bag. This kiosk also allowed me to print as many tickets as I wanted so I printed myself two for good measure.

Now, there was a catch, in that the kiosk only showed my bag's destination as PVG, and not through-checked to ICN. I went to the desk to ask about this "issue", and turns out, you have to collect your bag in PVG and then check it back in again to your next destination. The agent at the desk told me it was a security thing, which is understandable, but after coincidently stumbling upon this topic on a forum later on, I found out this luxury is only provided for passengers whose itinerary has China Eastern flights as both legs.

In the end I got everything sorted and I had about 4 hours and a bit to myself before departing.

I had a look at the famous ticker board at FRA. Of course, my flight is nowhere to be found because it is more than 4 hours before departure.

There was also a pretty big Business class check in area, obviously didn't have anything to do with me.

Well, the weather has gotten worse since we were at the train station. I went through the security checks and went straight upstairs to the non-Schengen zone. I highly advise against this, because although I don't know the exact situation downstairs, the viewing situation upstairs was pretty dire.

A free shuttle bus is provided between the B gates and the Z gates. Say, if you want to check out a duty free shop that's located on the other side, you can just take the bus to get there.
I headed straight to the B gates after going through security because although I tried to get to the Z gates to see the 747s, it was entirely closed off just for US-bound passengers.

Last time I saw Lufthansa's A340-300s was back in 2022 when it was deployed on the LH712/713 run.

The whole layout of FRA definitely seems to be showing its age with just how complex it is due to expansion on top of existing infrastructure and just how cramped everything is. The Z gates section from Z50 to Z69 seems to be more modern and pretty spacious, though.

I managed to get the Star Alliance livery A340, but unfortunately missed out on the retro 747, D-ABYT. It departed for its flight in the morning, just around when I arrived at the airport.
Because of Condor's livery, the change in radome seems seamless.

Our flight would depart from Z50 today.

This A350, D-AIXD, was scheduled to depart to ICN around the same time as our flight to PVG. I would've been on that plane had I paid a bit more money and not been interested in planes. Honestly, don't know if I would've come to Europe in the first place if I wasn't interested in them.

The plastering of Lufthansa's logo continues in FRA. Also, the weather has miraculously brightened up before my flight.

Our ride for today, D-AIHW, was pulled to the gate from the parking bay. Apparently, there was a misunderstanding..? with the scheduling so it arrived at the gate about 40 minutes late. For a second I thought we had gotten a bus gate because the plane just wasn't turning up.

The gate being right at the end of everything made it pretty difficult to get a full shot of the plane from the left side, where the airbridge wasn't covering up the fuselage.

At the gate, we were given this piece of paper signaling we had the necessary visa for our arrival into China. Luckily, Korean passport holders were allowed visa-free entry into China in 2025, so I didn't need any preparation for my transit.

If you didn't notice all the Lufthansa planes out the window and needed more clues that this was a Lufthansa hub.

Boarding started about an 40 minutes late. This shot was taken at 15:14, but we were supposed to depart at 15:05.

The windows at FRA have this weird feature of looking like it's tinted when you're looking at it from an angle.

It's rare you get to see two engines from this angle nowadays.

Looks like these bulkhead seats are wider as well. Never seen that before. They definitely aren't Premium Economy seats, either.

These are the regular Economy class seats, and you can see the infamous stairway to the basement located behind the seats.

This was my seat for today, 47A. 

A pillow and a blanket was provided on the seats before we boarded.

I paid extra to reserve this seat, because I wanted to get a view with the outer engine visible. Had I gotten a seat further up on the fuselage, I probably would've gotten a wing view you'd also get on an A330, which wouldn't have satisfied me. Also, as I was nearly put in a situation where there was no window seat available on my previous long haul flight on LH719, I made sure that wouldn't happen on this flight.

The safety card for the A340-600. Also, I don't recall there being a menu card for today's flight.

Flight controls check before departing.

We took off from runway 18 at 16:00.

Amazing weather, totally different from the morning.

Schwimmweste unter Ilhrem Sitz!

Like my previous flight on the A350, the A340 also had wifi available, with free messaging.

These crackers were served about an hour into the flight.

This was the meal we were served two hours into the flight. The crew described it as 'Japanese Curry'. Honestly couldn't figure out what's "Japanese" about them. It was just okay.

The sun began setting about four hours after takeoff.

As the sky fully darkened, the crew turned down the lights.

They also handed out these arrival cards for China. I still wasn't sure if I had to declare immigration into China, but still filled it out just in case.

I headed to the infamous downstairs bathroom on the A340-600. Honestly, didn't expect these to be only ones for the whole Economy and probably the whole Premium Economy passengers. I'm guessing they wouldn't let the Premium Economy passengers use the Business class bathrooms. So, this part of the cabin was always crowded and the lines after the meal service extended into the cabins from the galley. The bulkhead seat passengers on row 43 seemed to be quite distracted by all the movement, and it was all very understandable.

It was all just regular bathrooms downstairs.

This was the view form the very back of the plane. The crew at the galley were all very friendly to help me out. Out of the two times I've flown long haul on Lufthansa, the crew were both very excellent. I had some doubts as Korean people prefer Korean carriers far more than western ones, and they are pretty notorious for being very straightforward about their services. But, I actually felt like the Lufthansa crews were more human about their services, whereas the Korean crews seem kind in a follow-the-manual kind of way. I think the Korean people fail to give the western airline crews their flowers because of the language barrier that makes it hard to deliver their actual thoughts to each other.

And this was the view from my seat.

About 7 hours into the flight.

Yeah…. this is the map about 9 hours into the flight, after I had taken a two hour nap. As you can see, the map is frozen. A bit of a bummer, but it didn't matter too much because with the free messaging plan, I was actually able to look at the FR2 app, albeit at a very slow pace.

A Lufthansa logo and some ad was shown every time I opened some new program to watch. With something on the screen, I had another 3 hour sleep.

The sunrise was even better than the sunset. This was somewhere over Kazakhstan.

The sun has fully risen, with about 3 hours left. The crew were also starting to get ready for the breakfast service.

I checked my progress from the app, as the airshow had frozen.

This was the breakfast, some scrambled eggs. Not too bad, and it certainly was better than the first meal. For the drinks, I was given a choice of soft drink and another choice of tea or coffee. And due to the influx of drinks I knew my bladder couldn't hold it in to Shanghai.

Overnight, the popularity for the bathrooms definitely slowed down. There wasn't that long of a queue.

The cabin with the giant housing for the stairs to the downstairs bathrooms make it a strange sight.

Taken through the small window at the L4 door.

The crew also handed out chocolates before we started our descent into PVG.

Those speedbrakes were deployed for a pretty long time as we continued our descent.

We landed on runway 17R on time. 

This United 77W was waiting to go to the gate for its flight back to SFO.

Welcome to Shanghai!

A look at all 4 classes before I went to the cockpit. That bulkhead seat I was talking about when I boarded the plane definitely wasn't Premium Economy.

There were actually quite a few people who wanted to check out the cockpit, so I had to wait. I think there were about 4 people including myself who visited the cockpit. You can see the four thrust levers and also, it seems like the A340 also has the tail cam.

In the end, I had to go through customs and check in my bag again.

I was able to get these pictures after going through customs and check in again for my next flight to ICN.