Avis du vol entre Hong Kong et Frankfurt en classe Affaires avec Lufthansa

Hello and welcome to this review of the flight from Hong Kong-Chek Lap Kok Airport (HKG) to Frankfurt-Main Airport (FRA), which I took on 18/19 October 2024 coming back from a family trip in China.

Unfortunately, since this trip was with my family, I did not take many pictures of the flight.

BACKGROUND

During much of October 2024, me and my family (my parents, my siblings, and myself) went on a three week trip to China, visiting Hong Kong (2-7.10.2024), Beijing (7-13.10.2024), Xi'an (13-14.10.2024), and the Guilin area (14-18.10.2024) (the Guilin portion of the trip included an night in Guilin city proper (14-15.10.2024), and visits to Ping'an Village (15-16.10.2024) and Yangshuo (16-18.10.2024)). Although we originally planned to fly from Israel immediately to China (TLV-ZRH-HKG), and back from China immediately to Israel (HKG-MUC-TLV), we had to change our flight plans due to the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East which happened around the same time, resulting in us extending our trip to include stops in Athens (30.9-1.10.2024) and Larnaca (19.10.2024).

This was not only my first time ever in Hong Kong and China, but my first time anywhere east of Tbilisi. The trip was overall very enjoyable, though I did find the increased surveillance and police presence in Mainland China bothersome: I had to carry my passport with me, instead of leaving it at a safe in my hotel room like I'm used to do in the west (and like I indeed did in Hong Kong).

Internet censorship in Mainland China was less of a problem than I feared: my mobile data package gave me uncensored internet access, while as for Wi-Fi networks, I installed a VPN on my devices in advance. The VPN worked well overall, only having some hiccups in the afternoon.

The final flight itinerary for the trip was:

The itinerary also included high-speed trains G307 (Beijing → Xi'an) and G319 (Guilin → Hong Kong).

HIGH SPEED TRAIN G319

The journey from our hotel in Yangshuo back to our home in Tel Aviv was quite the odyssey, taking slightly less than 48 hours when measured door-to-door.

I woke up at about 7:30, packed all my things, checked out of the hotel at 8:30, and had breakfast at the nearby Starbucks at 9. At 9:30, me and my family said goodbye to our local guide, and embarked on a two-hour van drive from Yangshuo to the Guilin North high-speed train station.

The family trip to China included two journeys on the country's extensive high-speed railway network, though they left me with a rather dim impression. Compared to the Eurostar (UK/France) and the ICE (Germany), the Chinese High-speed rail seemed excessively planelike: the stations were enormous complexes far from the city center, passengers cannot go to the platforms directly but have to wait in a terminal-like waiting hall, and even the trains themselves only have seats which face the direction of travel. The dining car's options were also disappointing, with the meals served in plastic boxes with single-used plastic cutlery (as opposed to the porcelain plates and metal currency used by Deutsche Bahn). However, the Chinese trains are wider than their European counterparts and have level boarding, and the Chinese trains, much like the Eurostar, are punctual (in both China and the UK/France, this is thanks to the high-speed network having its own dedicated tracks).

The train departed Guilin at 12:42, arriving in Hong Kong about-three-and-a-quarter hours later.

THE SHORTEST HOTEL STAY OF MY LIFE

When we arrived in Hong Kong, we went to the Kowloon Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui (a favorite of my dad, who frequently goes on business trips to Hong Kong and Shenzhen), the same hotel we stayed in during the Hong Kong portion of the trip; this time, however, we did not stay overnight, but only used the hotel rooms as a storage-place for our bags. First, me and my brother went to pick up tailored suits from the same talior who made my dad's; after that, we went to have dinner. I had my dinner separately from the rest of my family, since they initially planned to go to one last Chinese restaurant; I myself went to the Shake Shack at Pacific Place, to easen my reacclimatization back to a Western diet. When I returned, I learned that the rest of my family eventually went to a steakhouse (and caught a stomach bug eating there), for much the same reason.

HONG KONG-CHEK LAP KOK AIRPORT

At around 20, we left the Kowloon Hotel and made our way by a shuttle van to Chek Lap Kok airport, arriving two and a half hours before our flight. Though the check-in and security process were very quick, the airport's large size meant that it took us 30 whole minutes to pass them, and 30 minutes more to reach the lounge.

THE SINGAPORE AIRLINES SILVERKRIS LOUNGE

Since Lufthansa does not have its own lounge in Chek Lap Kok Airport, its business-class passengers are served by the lounge of fellow Star Alliance member Singapore Airlines. The lounge itself is a comfortable one, albeit small and windowless. The lounge's buffet was small and did not offer much western food options, which was immensely disappointing (and a baffling choice for a lounge that services several European airlines!). Apple juice was available, however.

THE FLIGHT ITSELF

Aircraft information:
D-AIHZ "Leipzig"
Airbus A340-642 (construction number 1005)
Delivered new to Lufthansa 7 May 2009; 15 years and 5 months old at the time of the flight.

This was my first (and as of the initial writing of this report, the only) time flying on that plane, and also my first time flying on the Airbus A340.

After forty minutes or so in the lounge, it was time for us to head to the gate. While we were doing so, my dad stopped at a bakery booth on the way to buy a cake for my mom (whose birthday was the day after); the cake survived the 13-hour trip to Frankfurt intact, and was quite delicious as well.

The seats used were Lufthansa's 2013-15 business class seats. The seats were outdated even for their time, as the 2010s marked the rise of staggered business class layouts (for example, the Thompson Vantage was announced in 2014, and Asiana introduced the QZ Quadra Smartium as early as 2011) while these seats still had a non-staggered 2-2-2 layout. In fact, apart from the location of the IFE screen (on the seatback in front as opposed to hinged inside the armrest, I found them remarkably similar to El Al's old business class product on the 777, which was notoriously behind-the-times.

Each seat is equipped with an IFE screen, an AC plug, and a personal reading light on a stalk (attached to the headrest).

While I didn't take any good-quality picture of the seats myself, nadavkr3's report on his flight from Frankfurt to Chicago, which was done by the same plane, does (link here).

Once I reached my seat, I found a menu and was given a choice of pre-departure drink - I opted for the orange juice.

Dinner was served around an hour after takeoff.

Lufthansa's Business Class menu for flights departing from Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong was developed in cooperation with Shanghai's Jing An Shangri-La hotel; this means that there were generally two options for dishes, one western and one asian. I opted for the western options in both cases.

In both cases, I opted for the western options: the Parma Ham with Truffle Panna Cotta, Truffle Mayonnaise and Asparagus first course, and the Roast Chicken Breast Confit and truffled Potato Puree, Pine Nut. The food was decent, though not as good as that on the onward flight from Zürich to Hong Kong.

After the meal, I went to sleep. Despite the seat's design making sleeping a rather uncomfortable affair, I slept for around six to seven hours - by far the longest I have ever slept on a flight - and woke up with around four and a half hours of flight time remaining.

The in-flight entertainment system was a bit clunky to operate; rather than having arrow buttons that move between interface elements, the remote has a trackpoint which navigates a cursor around the screen, a user interface which was awkward to adjust to. The IFE software was also showing its age.

The selection of movies is rather limited (as it is in every airline I flew with, with the only exception being Cathay Pacific). For me, this was disappointing, since I was flying in a prestige class. Despite the limited seleciton, I did find two movies to watch during the final part of the flight; We're the Millers, followed by Crazy Rich Asians. Both of them even had Hebrew subtitles, which was surprising for a non-Israeli airline.

Fittingly for such an obsolete product, the flight map was a non-interactive video which looped between different views every dozen seconds or so.

A pre-landing breakfast - Scrambled Egg with Chicken Sausage, roasted Potato and Baby Carrot (though it also included cherry tomatoes, which were not disclosed in the menu) - was served around two hours before landing. It was, surprisingly, much better than the dinner before takeoff.

After landing, the crew gave each of us a pack of chocolates as a gift, though I didn't eat mine (as they had a nut cream filling, which I do not like). Instead, I gave my box to the rest of my family.

FRANKFURT AIRPORT

The plane landed very early in the morning, and was taxied to a jetbridge in the A/Z section at the far west of the Airport.

From there, we went deeper into Frankfurt Airport, looking for a business class lounge and getting lost on the way - but that's a matter for the review of the flight from Frankfurt to Larnaca.