Welcome to Munich Airport, where I've just arrived on a flight from Amsterdam and where I have about three hours to spent before boarding my next flight to Timisoara. This flight also gives me an opportunity to try out Lufthansa's newest airline, which was created simply to circumvent union-restrictions they have with Lufthansa CityLine and hire cheaper staff, although Lufthansa denies this allegation and states that this airline will be used as a feeder airline to enhance and strengthen their hub in Munich.
While this flight was originally scheduled to be in economy, I received a reasonable offer upon online check-in the previous day to upgrade myself to business for an extra pay of 80 euro's. While Euro J service isn't entirely exciting, I decided to take them up on their offer and paid for the upgrade.
Enchainement de vols
- 1
- 2VL1660 - Business - Munich → Timisoara - Airbus A319
The business class flight with Lufthansa City Airlines makes you elligible to use Lufthansa's Senator Business lounge in Munich and you can opt for either the one in the main terminal or the one in the satellite one. Given that I already knew that my flight was going to depart from the satellite terminal, I decided to head over there and give the lounge a try in the satellite terminal as I expected that one to be quieter and it would be more relaxing knowing that I'm not depending on a train.
In order to get to the satellite terminal, one has to go to the center of the terminal where you will have an entrance to head over to the J, K and L gates.
Followed by an escalator that will bring you down to the train and gives you a panoramic view over the apron, however this part of the apron is unfortunately under construction and not a lot to see today.
Unfortunately I just missed our train by mere seconds and it took about five minutes for the next one to appear. The ride itself took about two minutes or so and is self-driven and consists of two carriages. I'd say that the opposite direction tends to be more crowded when an aircraft just arrived.
An Embraer 190 of Air Dolomiti who just arrived from one of the many Italian destinations it has and is probably the only airline of the Lufthansa Group (after this first flight with Lufthansa City Airlines) I still have to try out. They do fly twice a week to Amsterdam too on behalf of Lufthansa, however their timings usually do not match any flight I am taking to connect through.
The satellite terminal is very similar in structure and design to the main terminal and eventually made my way to the Senator business class lounge which is in close proximity of gate K11. It wouldn't be obvious that my flight with the luck I usually have would be departing from one of the gates into the opposite direction to the lounge, which it was.
Upon entering the lounge, I received the same cold treatment from Lufthansa's ground attendant like I received on my flight from Amsterdam to Munich. The chap didn't bother to welcome us, used one single word in the entire conversation and gave me a very uninterested wave to enter the lounge the moment I asked him whether it was ok…. The single word he decided to use was ''Scan''.
Another thing I noticed is that one of the staff members was openly calling with a family member or friend in the lounge itself. I think if the call is required to do so that you should do this behind a closed door where passengers/paying customers are not able to witnes it.
Not entirely sure whether this is an approach Lufthansa is promoting, but it is not very welcoming and you can't have people like those on a spot that requires some sort of hospitality in my opinion.
The lounge itself isn't overly large, but does offer plenty of seating. The first part of the lounge is more focused on business travelers where one is able to do some work at one of the many desks.
The second compartment of the lounge is more focused on being seated and to relax, while the third part of the lounge is definitely the area where the crowd is hanging out in close proximity to the food department. Despite having huge windows next to you, the lounge does not come with an apron view.
In terms of food and beverage, the lounge offers you a variety of hot and cold options, but they aren't really impressive and the choices are limited though, so don't expect wonders.
Photo 1: The fridge offers a choice between chocolate and strawberry ice cream where the chocolate was about to run out. Coffee and Tea were also available.
Photo 2: Next to the coffee (right to left) you could find some snacks and candy. Sparkling and still water and a choice of fizzy drinks and a draught for two different types of beers. Neither are the best German beer options :).
Photo 3: A choice of bottled beer was also available, which was mostly alcohol-free beer, some wine and juices too with a lot of different spirits to choose from, however forgot to take a photo of them.
Photo 4: And as last you could find Germany's famous pretzels and some hot options which consisted of a pasta dish, a potato dish and two asian dishes that were heavily modified to western dishes. Two types of soups were also available.
There was an additional coffee station present in the lounge which I forgot to snap a photo off (even though I thought I did) that had some other deserts like a mango-yoghurt desert and some tiramisu.
Eventually decided to leave the lounge about five minutes prior to our scheduled boarding time when I managed to spot our bird that was going to bring us over to Timisoara.
D-ABGK is a 17.4 year old (at time of flying) Airbus A319 that was newly delivered to Air Berlin in April 2008. In those times this specific aircraft has been leased out to NIKI a few times (OE-LOB & OE-LNB). In February 2017 about 8 months ahead of the collapse of Air Berlin, Eurowings decided to take over this specific bird where it has been flying for over five years before being transfered to Lufthansa City Airlines in december 2023 as one of the first aircraft of Lufthansa City Airlines. The airline also decided to provide it with the name ''Starnberg'' which is a tiny city in the south of Munich that has about 23.500 inhabitants or so.
Plenty of seating was available near the gate, but that was mainly due to the fact that the majority of passengers were already queuing while boarding wasn't even called. Though by the moment I sat down, the ground attendant announced that boarding has began and called out for those in zone 1 and 2 to come forward (which I was included in).
I decided to stand up immediately and head over to the boarding gates where people were actually paying attention to their boarding zone and didn't crowd the gates. I'm surprised :)
The confirmation of the aircraft registration.
Upon embarking we were greeted by two flight attendants who seemed to be very jollyful and were very attentive. A much better experience than my previous flight where I had two grumpy and older flight attendants where one can expect a better service from due to their experience….
Eventually found my seat 03A which is a similar seat to any other Airbus A320 family aircraft in Lufthansa's fleet. As this seat is more often used as a business class seat in a euro J styled cabin, the legroom was more generous and one will have a blocked middle seat, though it remains a very uncomfortable seat in terms of padding.
The view is definitely one of the better things from row 3 with an A320 of Aegean parked next to us.
Unlike my previous flight, this specific aircraft is not equiped with wifi, though has the same literature available as you can find in their economy consisting of a sickbag, safety card and a buy-on-board menu. The buy-on-board menu you will find in any other seat pocket obviously as the Euro J cabin is adjustable to demand.
One of the flight attendants provided me with a bottle of water and a cold refreshing towel during boarding.
About seventeen minutes past our scheduled departure time we were pushing back for this aircraft's final flight of the day to Timisoara where it will overnight to depart the following morning back to Munich.
While the taxi ride to our active runway wasn't overly long, it took us quite a while to get airborne as it took quite a while for the controller to find an opening for us to depart as it seemed to be somewhat of an rush hour for arriving aircraft. You already can see two aircraft in approach to our runway on the first photo.
Upon reaching a safe altitude, one of the cheerful flight attendants came by and opened to table of the middle seat to place a table cloth on it before returning to the galley to grab her trolley to start her service.
The flight attendant came by to serve us a our meal for tonight's flight which consisted of Vulcano Ham (which is the Austrian version of prosciutto) served with dried fruits, green asparagus, black olives and a lentil salad. It was served with a hot bun (of your choice) and a pastel de nata with a cherry topping (at the bottom) as desert.
While the food was tasty and simple in general, it was a bit on the basic side and I expected more of it. Also the desert was tasty and was more like a crumble cake with some cherry topping as it was nothing close to a pastel de nata like they suggested it was.
Also surprised to see real cutlery being used and definitely a bonus :).
As a drink I chose for the Ziegler Avionic which is a Campari-bitter drink specially made for Lufthansa. The flight attendant asked whether I wanted to have it with a tonic or a bitter lemon. I chose the latter option and quite enjoyed the drink.
The menu in German and English for those who want to have more detailed information.
After finishing my meal, the flight attendants were very attentive and cleaned up immediately, while asking whether I wanted something else. I kindly requested her for a cup of coffee which was served lukewarm to cold. I understand that they don't want to impose any risk with the heat of the coffee, but the coffee was way too cold to be enjoyed properly.
A Rizzati chocolate was handed out to us shortly before landing.
The aircraft was also equiped with individual air vents before I forget to mention it.
And not much later in the middle of the dark we were touching down about 15 minutes behind schedule followed by the strongest braking action I have experienced on an aircraft in order to be able on the last taxiway right away rather than backtracking the entire runway to exit via the same taxiway later on.
A view of the terminal.
Disembarkation followed soon and were kindly waved goodbye. Eventually managed to take a last photo of the bird that brought us over to Timisoara. It's been a pleasure!
A short walk is required to the arrival hall.
Despite my first flight being in Economy, ground attendants did label my bag with priority, yet this priority was not enforced in Timisoara and my luggage appeared as one of the last on belt about 20 minutes past our disembarkation.
Once collected and I was off to my hotel where I would be staying for the next two weeks for my final rotation with my employer.
