djohannw
Nov 26, 03, 7:08 am
Last year in late fall when speaking with my friend living near D.C. we noticed we had not seen us at his place for a while and that a visit was in order. We usually do our Christmas shopping in the US, so we thought about visiting him over Thanksgiving this November. When we planned the trip I started monitoring fares on *-airlines in the early summer this year, and when a 130GBP fare of UA became available out of LHR to IAD, I decided to grab that in June. As I live in Germany however, we had to get to LHR first, and our choice fell on a LH flight from Cologne. At booking-time this was intended to be our first revenue-flight after three years of cashing in miles and also the first Economy-flight after splurging for Business-Class tickets using our miles in the last two years. It turned out that due to some Mileage-runs we were back on the Economy-grounds before that, so we were ready for this trip. So lets start the show:
BD3546 (aka as LH5936) CGN-LHR CR7
Seat 14CD (exit-row), sched: 14:05-14:35, actual: 14:05-14:30
We started our trip again as usual from our lovely local airport in Cologne. Much LH service has been discontinued since the LCC operations of Germanwings and HLX started up, and apart from a few domestic runs to LH’s hubs in FRA and MUC, not much service remained. In terms of international flights, LH only operates flights to CDG and LHR from there (plus codesharing on some partners to GVA and VIE). Everything else is gone and now operated by either one of the two LCCs.
When we booked our United tickets in June, we had to decide between taking the LCC Germanwings to STN (and taking up the ordeal to get from there to LHR) for about 40€ or take LH to LHR and get a seamless connection with minimal layover for about 100€. At the end of the day we went for that second alternative as it wouldn’t have saved us too much money going through STN but added at least half a day in travel time each way (plus hauling around our bags on the Stansted Express and the Tube). So much for LCCs being always cheaper than full-service carriers.
Arrived at the airport pretty early this time around noon as the person giving us a lift had to work later in the afternoon. We checked in at the Business-Class counter which was completely idle when we arrived and had our bags tagged for our final destination, Washington Dulles, but as we were on separate reservations LH could not issue us our boarding-passes for the transatlantic flight. We went over to the SEN-lounge afterwards and spent the next 90 minutes there. Around 13:30 local time we proceeded through security (no lines, really a breeze) and headed for Gate A1 which is a bus-gate to be bussed to our waiting Canadair Jet. The bus waited until everyone for this flight was on and brought us to our plane which was parked quite some hike from the terminal near the General Aviation and the Military area of the airport. As usual the ground-staff encouraged people with items bigger than a purse to check their bags planeside and promised that these would be returned at the aircraft in LHR. Quite a few people including myself followed although the overhead used in LH’s Canadair Jet easily swallows everything of legal carry-on size. So due to that, overhead-space was abundant.
We proceeded to our seats which were in the Emergency Exit row and were just nice. Lots of legroom, and while a little narrow still enough space to sit in. After the doors closed it turned out that the window next to my wife was unoccupied, but I decided to let her keep the extra room and stay in my seat across the aisle. Pushback was on time, and although Cologne usually is an airport of short distances, taxiing took quite some time, but then we were off using the usual departure out of 14L towards the south. The CR7 is really a nice plane, quiet inside and very powerful. Although it had a decent load (about 70% in C and slightly less in Y) the plane ascended quickly and got us on a smooth ride towards London. Flight time was announced at 60 minutes, but shortly before London we were directed into some holding-pattern that took some extra 15 minutes. Service on board was a single drink service and the choice of either chicken-pastrami or cheese-sandwich. I had the chicken-pastrami variety, and it was decent and matched perfectly with my diet coke (sadly as this flight was operated by Cityline they did not yet have the Lemon Diet Coke that LH serves exclusively on their flights now). Arrived at the gate around 14:30 local time but had to wait before getting off for our bags being offloaded so everyone could get his planeside-checked bag immediately after climbing down the tiny stairs onto the tarmac.
The London Zoo, aka as London-Heathrow International airport
It’s been some time I have been to LHR, and that was the only time so far. Also I had been only departing from there and only used LH, so that may have been the reason for my rather good memories of this place. However today I thought that this must be part of a zoo. Long narrow halls and walkways, with the separation of incoming and outgoing traffic finally took us to the flight connection centre where we were met by a large bunch of people carrying bags from “Japan Duty Free” all in line for security. And even there were only two lanes in operation, checking was reasonably fast (maybe stood 10 minutes in line). After passing through there I discovered that one of UAs cost cutting measures was to close their desk in terminal two, so we had to continue to Terminal 3 to get our boarding-pass. Busses run frequently between the terminals, but I still thought this was a little to long of a wait before the bus finally showed up, but maybe I was just impatient as it took maybe something like 10 minutes. When we got off the bus at terminal three we found the United desk staffed and got our boarding-passes. Even our bags were already in United’s computer, so no need to fiddle out the bag-claims. Went off to the SQ lounge, breezing quickly through the duty-free shop to find cigarettes to be outrageously expensive, and spent the next half hour there before heading to Gate 19 where today’s flight to IAD was departing.
UA925 LHR-IAD 772
Seat: 17AB (Bulkhead), sched: 16:25-19:45, actual 16:25-
Boarding had already begun when we made it to the gate, and they were calling rows 20 and higher in the moment we got to the gate-area. We went on as our section had been called before and settled in our cosy seat. I wish any seat on any plane would be like this…row 17 is simply amazing and has about the same legroom as Business, and no IFE box in your feet’s way to boot. Soon it turned out that the flight was pretty empty and had a Eco-load of no more than 50%, Business was decently full with about 80% occupation, no idea about First. Flight time was 7:35 minutes, and after a decently long taxi we were in the air rather quick. The 777 is a very roomy aircraft with the high ceilings, but it is extremely loud if you ask me. Having been on the A340 almost exclusively in the last years when flying transatlantic, I must say the Airbus is much quieter. Our aircraft today was not equipped with Economy plus as expected (judging from the seatmap) and arrived from Chicago as the late-evening departure from there. I found the interior a little tired (just like the 763 I had experienced this summer) and not up to the freshness of the 777 with E+ I flew from IAD to DEN back then.
Service started reasonably quick (even before the seatbelt sign was off) with drinks followed by dinner. Dinner choices were Chicken or pasta, and with the pasta-fiasco on my last UA-flight I went for the Chicken which was astoundingly good. It came with rice and carrots, a roll, a small side-salad, cheese with crackers and grapes and, most importantly, ICE CREAM. Yes, frozen and well edible ICE CREAM, just in the right temperature. I traded my salad against my wife’s helping of that, but had to throw in the cheese also to close the deal.
After dinner I decided to take a nap, and the seat was really good supporting this. I slept about as good as in any business-class seat I have been in, and woke up again about two and a half hours out of Dulles. Checked the Airshow (thanks god United has this…my most-missed feature on US when we took them two weeks ago). And saw that we crossed the Atlantic on a nearly straight line from Limmerick and were on our way towards Boston where we first hit the American continent. A very southerly crossing, performed at an altitude of 39000 feet. We had to cope with very high headwinds, ranging anywhere between 70 and 120 miles per hour. About an hour before landing, just as we came in over land, the snack-service began. Snack came in a box consisting of a roll with cheese and ham, a bag of chips and a chocolate bar. Comparing this to other snacks I think it was a little bigger and more filling than what you receive on US and LH (the ones I can compare Y-service to in recent times). After they cleaned up the service-items cockpit came on and announced we would be getting into Dulles straight without any delay and would be landing on 19R (something I have also not done before, usually came in on the other parallel runway from the south). Landing was quick and eventless, and we taxied quickly to our gate C4. Our flight was the first of the bank of late arrivals, so we headed for the Moon-Buggy to take us to the main Immigration Facility. As noted by others we made sure to hang out right close to the door to get off as one of the first there, and after all passengers from our plane made it there (I’d guess it was a 1:2 split for local vs. connecting traffic) and the cabin-crew was on the bus, we headed off to the main terminal. We exited the bus, and were the second non-residents to make it to immigration. No line at all, and we were admitted in about two minutes. When we arrived in baggage-claim our bags were already circulating on the belt, so we grabbed them, headed for customs where a very cheerful woman wished us a nice holiday and let us pass through.
All in all this was a very pleasant experience. LHR is certainly not a place I miss and it makes FRA really look like a well-organized and convenient airport. Surely with AiRail to FRA from my hometown and hourly service to connect there I will not revert to use LHR for connections in the near future. UA has a very solid Economy-product in the transatlantic market, certainly better than LH in terms of comfort and worlds apart from US in terms of quality of aircraft and comfort of seats. The seats on the 777 are comfortable and wide enough you do not feel like shoehorned into one, and with Economy Plus coming to all 777 soon this is really the reason to move all our families’ transatlantic dollars to UA.
The service on board from the London-based crew (very young and attractive FAs for a US-carrier) was also very nice and provided everything one can think of in terms of Economy class (did I tell you about the ICE CREAM…;-)))?. Food was decent and in comparison to my recent transatlantic flight on par with LH quality- and size-wise and blowing away US’ offerings on the nine-hour MUC-PHL run. One thing that struck me, though, was the inconsistent stocks of soft-drinks on board this plane. Half of my cans of Diet Pepsi were just that, US-made Diet Pepsi, while the other half was Netherland-made “Pepsi light”. Both are certainly drinkable, but they came in random order, so getting adjusted to the different taste makes enjoying it a little different (hey, come on, let me have at least one rant, OK…;-)))?).
Now off to hunt that turkey!
BD3546 (aka as LH5936) CGN-LHR CR7
Seat 14CD (exit-row), sched: 14:05-14:35, actual: 14:05-14:30
We started our trip again as usual from our lovely local airport in Cologne. Much LH service has been discontinued since the LCC operations of Germanwings and HLX started up, and apart from a few domestic runs to LH’s hubs in FRA and MUC, not much service remained. In terms of international flights, LH only operates flights to CDG and LHR from there (plus codesharing on some partners to GVA and VIE). Everything else is gone and now operated by either one of the two LCCs.
When we booked our United tickets in June, we had to decide between taking the LCC Germanwings to STN (and taking up the ordeal to get from there to LHR) for about 40€ or take LH to LHR and get a seamless connection with minimal layover for about 100€. At the end of the day we went for that second alternative as it wouldn’t have saved us too much money going through STN but added at least half a day in travel time each way (plus hauling around our bags on the Stansted Express and the Tube). So much for LCCs being always cheaper than full-service carriers.
Arrived at the airport pretty early this time around noon as the person giving us a lift had to work later in the afternoon. We checked in at the Business-Class counter which was completely idle when we arrived and had our bags tagged for our final destination, Washington Dulles, but as we were on separate reservations LH could not issue us our boarding-passes for the transatlantic flight. We went over to the SEN-lounge afterwards and spent the next 90 minutes there. Around 13:30 local time we proceeded through security (no lines, really a breeze) and headed for Gate A1 which is a bus-gate to be bussed to our waiting Canadair Jet. The bus waited until everyone for this flight was on and brought us to our plane which was parked quite some hike from the terminal near the General Aviation and the Military area of the airport. As usual the ground-staff encouraged people with items bigger than a purse to check their bags planeside and promised that these would be returned at the aircraft in LHR. Quite a few people including myself followed although the overhead used in LH’s Canadair Jet easily swallows everything of legal carry-on size. So due to that, overhead-space was abundant.
We proceeded to our seats which were in the Emergency Exit row and were just nice. Lots of legroom, and while a little narrow still enough space to sit in. After the doors closed it turned out that the window next to my wife was unoccupied, but I decided to let her keep the extra room and stay in my seat across the aisle. Pushback was on time, and although Cologne usually is an airport of short distances, taxiing took quite some time, but then we were off using the usual departure out of 14L towards the south. The CR7 is really a nice plane, quiet inside and very powerful. Although it had a decent load (about 70% in C and slightly less in Y) the plane ascended quickly and got us on a smooth ride towards London. Flight time was announced at 60 minutes, but shortly before London we were directed into some holding-pattern that took some extra 15 minutes. Service on board was a single drink service and the choice of either chicken-pastrami or cheese-sandwich. I had the chicken-pastrami variety, and it was decent and matched perfectly with my diet coke (sadly as this flight was operated by Cityline they did not yet have the Lemon Diet Coke that LH serves exclusively on their flights now). Arrived at the gate around 14:30 local time but had to wait before getting off for our bags being offloaded so everyone could get his planeside-checked bag immediately after climbing down the tiny stairs onto the tarmac.
The London Zoo, aka as London-Heathrow International airport
It’s been some time I have been to LHR, and that was the only time so far. Also I had been only departing from there and only used LH, so that may have been the reason for my rather good memories of this place. However today I thought that this must be part of a zoo. Long narrow halls and walkways, with the separation of incoming and outgoing traffic finally took us to the flight connection centre where we were met by a large bunch of people carrying bags from “Japan Duty Free” all in line for security. And even there were only two lanes in operation, checking was reasonably fast (maybe stood 10 minutes in line). After passing through there I discovered that one of UAs cost cutting measures was to close their desk in terminal two, so we had to continue to Terminal 3 to get our boarding-pass. Busses run frequently between the terminals, but I still thought this was a little to long of a wait before the bus finally showed up, but maybe I was just impatient as it took maybe something like 10 minutes. When we got off the bus at terminal three we found the United desk staffed and got our boarding-passes. Even our bags were already in United’s computer, so no need to fiddle out the bag-claims. Went off to the SQ lounge, breezing quickly through the duty-free shop to find cigarettes to be outrageously expensive, and spent the next half hour there before heading to Gate 19 where today’s flight to IAD was departing.
UA925 LHR-IAD 772
Seat: 17AB (Bulkhead), sched: 16:25-19:45, actual 16:25-
Boarding had already begun when we made it to the gate, and they were calling rows 20 and higher in the moment we got to the gate-area. We went on as our section had been called before and settled in our cosy seat. I wish any seat on any plane would be like this…row 17 is simply amazing and has about the same legroom as Business, and no IFE box in your feet’s way to boot. Soon it turned out that the flight was pretty empty and had a Eco-load of no more than 50%, Business was decently full with about 80% occupation, no idea about First. Flight time was 7:35 minutes, and after a decently long taxi we were in the air rather quick. The 777 is a very roomy aircraft with the high ceilings, but it is extremely loud if you ask me. Having been on the A340 almost exclusively in the last years when flying transatlantic, I must say the Airbus is much quieter. Our aircraft today was not equipped with Economy plus as expected (judging from the seatmap) and arrived from Chicago as the late-evening departure from there. I found the interior a little tired (just like the 763 I had experienced this summer) and not up to the freshness of the 777 with E+ I flew from IAD to DEN back then.
Service started reasonably quick (even before the seatbelt sign was off) with drinks followed by dinner. Dinner choices were Chicken or pasta, and with the pasta-fiasco on my last UA-flight I went for the Chicken which was astoundingly good. It came with rice and carrots, a roll, a small side-salad, cheese with crackers and grapes and, most importantly, ICE CREAM. Yes, frozen and well edible ICE CREAM, just in the right temperature. I traded my salad against my wife’s helping of that, but had to throw in the cheese also to close the deal.
After dinner I decided to take a nap, and the seat was really good supporting this. I slept about as good as in any business-class seat I have been in, and woke up again about two and a half hours out of Dulles. Checked the Airshow (thanks god United has this…my most-missed feature on US when we took them two weeks ago). And saw that we crossed the Atlantic on a nearly straight line from Limmerick and were on our way towards Boston where we first hit the American continent. A very southerly crossing, performed at an altitude of 39000 feet. We had to cope with very high headwinds, ranging anywhere between 70 and 120 miles per hour. About an hour before landing, just as we came in over land, the snack-service began. Snack came in a box consisting of a roll with cheese and ham, a bag of chips and a chocolate bar. Comparing this to other snacks I think it was a little bigger and more filling than what you receive on US and LH (the ones I can compare Y-service to in recent times). After they cleaned up the service-items cockpit came on and announced we would be getting into Dulles straight without any delay and would be landing on 19R (something I have also not done before, usually came in on the other parallel runway from the south). Landing was quick and eventless, and we taxied quickly to our gate C4. Our flight was the first of the bank of late arrivals, so we headed for the Moon-Buggy to take us to the main Immigration Facility. As noted by others we made sure to hang out right close to the door to get off as one of the first there, and after all passengers from our plane made it there (I’d guess it was a 1:2 split for local vs. connecting traffic) and the cabin-crew was on the bus, we headed off to the main terminal. We exited the bus, and were the second non-residents to make it to immigration. No line at all, and we were admitted in about two minutes. When we arrived in baggage-claim our bags were already circulating on the belt, so we grabbed them, headed for customs where a very cheerful woman wished us a nice holiday and let us pass through.
All in all this was a very pleasant experience. LHR is certainly not a place I miss and it makes FRA really look like a well-organized and convenient airport. Surely with AiRail to FRA from my hometown and hourly service to connect there I will not revert to use LHR for connections in the near future. UA has a very solid Economy-product in the transatlantic market, certainly better than LH in terms of comfort and worlds apart from US in terms of quality of aircraft and comfort of seats. The seats on the 777 are comfortable and wide enough you do not feel like shoehorned into one, and with Economy Plus coming to all 777 soon this is really the reason to move all our families’ transatlantic dollars to UA.
The service on board from the London-based crew (very young and attractive FAs for a US-carrier) was also very nice and provided everything one can think of in terms of Economy class (did I tell you about the ICE CREAM…;-)))?. Food was decent and in comparison to my recent transatlantic flight on par with LH quality- and size-wise and blowing away US’ offerings on the nine-hour MUC-PHL run. One thing that struck me, though, was the inconsistent stocks of soft-drinks on board this plane. Half of my cans of Diet Pepsi were just that, US-made Diet Pepsi, while the other half was Netherland-made “Pepsi light”. Both are certainly drinkable, but they came in random order, so getting adjusted to the different taste makes enjoying it a little different (hey, come on, let me have at least one rant, OK…;-)))?).
Now off to hunt that turkey!