And now it's time for the biggy! To be honest I had been looking forward to this segment through the whole trip, so I was excited like a little boy on that very morning!
I had been following the
New First Class retrofit thread here on FT for a while, to see if I could get the new F.
This winter, this segment was operated on an A340-300, which left us little chances to get the new F, even though it was happening from time to time. But I knew that the equipment would eventually change to an A340-600, and then chances would be about 50/50. So when the change of equipment occured, I checked
Flight 24 daily to see what was happening. To my surprise, 95% of the flights had the new F prior to our departure. Chances were high! And then the day before our trip I saw that
D-AIHQ was on its way to PEK. Yesss. New F, here we come.
Flight 8: PEK-MUC - Part 1: LH's new F.
LH723 / A346
Seats 1A&2A / F class
+
Good ground services
Fresh, modern, relaxing cabin
Comfortable seat and bed
Good service
Good lunch
-
Disappointing amenity kit. LX's is far better.
Dinner disappointing
IFE not working that day, too bad, but that happens.
So that morning, after a nice breakfast we took the Hilton shuttle and headed for Terminal 3. We quickly found the First Class check in counter, where I wanted to get rid of the Air China boarding passes and change our seats for our last leg, MUC-OSL. While at it, we checked that our luggage, checked in in HKG, were in the system.
This was done promtly, and by the way the check in agent did not even had to wait for me to ask for new boarding cards when she saw ours. She gave me a smile and said she would fix it. She also put our M&M and Eurobonus number in the system. Always nice to have, just in case. In the end we had the much nicer First Class folder (note the sequence number
):
We then headed for immigration, where there was a bit of a queue and no priority line for F passengers, and then the Air China First Class Lounge.
Needless to say, that this was definitely not great. Especially for a First Class Lounge. Service was limited to a minimum, and choices of food and drinks were equivalent to what you would expect from a normal Business Lounge. In that regard, it was ok, but in that case, don't call it First Class lounge then. There seemed to be a dining area though, but it was empty and no lounge attendant to be seen around it. I did not bother waiting nor taking any pictures. The wait was short anyway and it was soon time to go to our gate.
Before leaving, I felt like I was going home, but that soon changed for a feeling of Wiredness. Wired not to fly SK today, but excited about the nice alternative nonetheless.
At our gate, my wish was confirmed. D-AIHQ was waiting for us (= new F)
Boarding was quick and efficient, through a priority line. The cabin was of course fantastic. Nice design, great colours. It's fresh, modern, functionnal. Good stuff!
The seat is very comfortable and has multiple settings, like you would expect:
Upon boarding we were welcomed by our names. The purser introduced herself, and soon came a glass of Bubbles.
The purser came to us again and informed us of the bad news. The IFE system was down and functionning only on safe mode (4 or 5 movies running on loop, in english only). Never mind, we would then have no excuse to gorge ourselves with a delicious meal, and to sleep it off for a good while!
I took a couple of pictures of the IFE anyway. The screen was very large, not sure about the size; did not felt like 23', but can't say for sure. In anycase it was large enough! We did not get pyjamas that day (my girlfriend did, since they had her size), just a sweater.
No Bose headseth, "just" Sennheiser (they worked very well).
We also got an amenity kit. There is one version for men and one for women. The box is Porsche Design, nice but not that exclusive (Why have they stopped with the Rimowa kit?). The content is of almost no interest, in comparison with LX which provides La Prairie cosmetics. The only thing that is better is the eye shade. Thick and comfortable, very good!
