corporate-wage-slave

On 20 December 2014 BA introduced a new service from LGW, and following on from my EDI-IBZ posting, here is my stab at a route review. I’ve got some other new ones coming up, so let me know if this is useful information.



Route history
This route is well known to BA crews due to BA often running services on a charter (hire) basis during the ski season. BA now run it under their own brand, and I believe it is the first time this route has been run directly by BA in recent times (please correct me if this is wrong).

Timetable
BA2756 out on Saturdays and Sundays, departing 0720 and 0825 respectively.
BA2757 return FDH to LGW – 10:50 hrs on Saturday, 11:50 on Sundays.
Journey time on the timetable: 1 hour 40 minutes. My journey was 1 hour 28 minutes.

Service
Started Sunday 20 December 2014, ends Sunday 20 April 2015. It resumes again on 12 December 2015 for the 2015-2016 season.

Aircraft
A319 (Saturdays) and A320 (Sundays) are showing the timetable. Mine was the ex BMI A319 G-DBCA, so similar set up to the main short haul fleet, but not exactly the same seat.

Miles: 499 miles on the Great Circle mapper.
Crew: 2 flight crew, 3 cabin crew, 1 for CE, 2 for ET (in very broad terms).

Fares
At the time of writing this post the cheapest ET Hand Baggage Only (HBO) return is £94.84 and the cheapest CE return is £269 if you stay at least one Saturday night away. For checked luggage it’s £124 return in ET. The cheapest single HBO £47.14, and you save some money by buying singles, it is €50.76 from FDH to LGW, so 47.14+39.75 = £86.89.

POUG and AUP
I wasn’t offered a POUG on this service (which is the norm on new routes I find, it seems like it only gets set up after the service is established) but I was able to get an AUP for £99 one way.

Earning Tier Points and Avios
10 TPs in discount EuroTraveller including HBO, 20 TPs in flexible EuroTraveller, 40 in Club Europe. Avios earning: 510 Avios minimum on a BA code for Blue, 638 Avios for Bronze, 1020 for Silver or higher with restricted ET tickets. Club Europe it is 765 Avios for Blue, 893 Bronze, 1275 if Silver or above.

Reward Flight Saver
Good availability. Return from UK airport, including domestic sector if necessary, is 9,000 Avios and £35 in EuroTraveller. Club Europe is 18,000 Avios + £50. Various other options exist for using more cash and fewer Avios.

Routing
This was my route today:



Catering
Band 2, so hot breakfast in Club Europe going out (frittata and cold cuts alternative); “brunch” (continental breakfast and croissants) coming back to LGW. In EuroTraveller it would be a filled cold croissant out to FDH and the snack basket on the return. Plus tea, coffee, juice and water. See Short Haul Catering guide for more information via the Dashboard.

Lounge
None at FDH! No voucher either, it’s a very small airport. LGW has a Galleries Club and First lounge.

FDH Airport facilities
It is a very small and basic airport. The picture below shows pretty much the entire landside area. Car hire, cafés landside and airside, duty free shop (not big), tobacconist airside, Ibis hotel next door, Dornier museum (past hotel and some offices, 5 minutes walk), train service (about 3 an hour to the town centre, ticket machine on platform just outside the airport), bus service to town (10 minutes past the hour, €2.10, pay driver). Taxi is about €12 to town, which is almost walking distance (2 miles). Best way into town: train if lightly loaded, otherwise a taxi. The airport is good for those with restricted mobility, everything is on one flat level.



Weekend potential:
Good, considering the Saturday out, Sunday back option. See below for some ideas for what to do. Note that towards the end of April, the service is only once a week. However it is relatively easy to combine this with services to/from Stuttgart, Zurich and Munich.

Back to back potential:
Forget about it. The chain of events is: land – park – steps manually wheeled into place – doors open – down to bus – bus to Arrivals – Passports – Baggage Reclaim – landside to main hall – security – gates – bus again. Now FDH is a very small airport, the problem is that when the ski season is on security develops huge queues since of course all the airplanes arrive and depart at similar times. And ski folk don’t travel light! So an hour at security queue is not unusual (and also not unusual at other small airports with ski seasons).

Four things to do in FDH
1) Ski
2) Museums, Friedrichshafen has 3 unique museums, one dedicated to the innovative aircraft and space research company Dornier, which was based in FDH; another to Zeppelins and airships; and a museum dedicated to schools and schooling!



3) Stroll around the town with its pleasant shops, cafés and walkway alongside Lake Constance (Konstanz). It’s almost entirely modern, very few buildings survived WW2.



4) Take the ferry or catamaran to Switzerland from the pier at Friedrichshafen . Both are hourly, the first to Romanshorn, the second to the town of Konstanz. Plenty of other lake services in summer.

What I did: Dornier Museum (90 minutes), bus to port station (Hafen Bahnoff), Zeppelin Museum (60 minutes), stroll around town (60 minutes), ferry to Romanshorn (45 minutes), train to Zurich (1 hour).

Trivia
FDH actually has a very important place in aviation history. This was the home to both Dornier, which created a range of aircraft, in its long history, notably sea planes; And Zeppelin, which started the regular non-stop trans Atlantic service from FDH and Frankfurt to New York, on a more or less weekly basis, from 1936 until the well known Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst, New Jersey on 6 May 1937. AA had the contract for domestic connections in the USA.




In this photo, the Zeppelin hangar, which is still in operational use by DZR, is on the far left, you can just make out the big Z.




As a result of its aviation importance, the RAF flattened Friedrichshafen during WW2, destroying over 90% of the town.

[Disclaimer: I got this flight as a freebie from BA, but I paid for the upgrade to CE].

layz

Bah BA give me no freebies, although some suspect Heidseick and Co were threatening to send me free samples!

Interesting post, didn't realise this route existed. I know some people who like to ski so will mention this option to them (it's not my thing). If they do go along I may tag along for the aviation related museums.

I would guess another reason BA didn't offer a POUG was because it wasn't a revenue flight. When I use On Business or Avios I never see POUG offers. A shame as I'd often take a POUG with a reward booking even though I'd get no Avios (I always book my RFS flights in CE when available, but sometimes only ET is available).

headingwest

As usual, very informative CWS. If only I were a skier! ;-)

How long did the Zeppelin non-stop trans Atlantic journey take?

Physci

Ah, a new career as Simon Calder's replacement beckons?

madfish

Excellent. Really informative and would like to see more of these, and not just for new routes!

Calum

Great Review CWS. Shame I suck at skiing!

Can we expect the same kind of review when LHR-KUL starts?

exilencfc

Sounds like a really interesting place, thanks for the TR.

corporate-wage-slave

I'm not a ski person either, but I think for a Saturday night away it would be "somewhere different".

The airship schedule was very weather dependent, as you can imagine. Around 60 hours to the USA, 50 hours back. The Zeppelin museum includes a partial mock up of the Hindenburg. There was at least parity between staff and passengers, and sometimes 2 staff per passenger. This included a pastry cook so that biscuits and cake were cooked on board. Typically 50 passengers paid about 6 months salary of a skilled engineer to be on board.

The_Bouncer

Hi there. I'm new to Flyertalk, but if anyone is flying this route and would like any more information on the local area, feel free to ask, as I live a few kilometres from Friedrichshafen for 6-8 months of each year.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk The_Bouncer, welcome to the BA board, and thank you for joining up with us here. Please continue to participate here, I hope the BA service will be useful for you too. Welcome on board.

Any tips for a weekending couple in FDH? Places to drink or eat? I noticed it was standing room only in Brot Kaffee Wein at lunchtime today.

The_Bouncer

Thank-you for the welcome. Friedrichshafen - and the Bodensee (Lake Constance) area is a very pleasant place to spend a weekend à deux. There are many nice restaurants around the lakeside promenade. The Spitalkeller just a bit further along the lake front is worth it if you are looking for local specialities.

If you have the time, I would also look outside of the immediate area.

Meersburg is a very pretty historical town, with a lovely old castle, about 15km away by local bus, and has spectacular views over the lake.

Langenargen is a very pleasant day-trip, or half-day trip (20 minutes by bus, or 10 by train). The lakeside area is much quieter, the promenade is more open and the sunsets can be spectacular.

The island of Lindau (30 minutes away by train) is also well worth a look too. The Bayerisher Hof Hotel is a great place to eat (although not cheap).

The_Bouncer

Another thing I will mention abbout the FDH area is that it is not just about skiing. In fact FDH is some distance away from the major ski areas.

I am quite disappointed that BA has chosen to run this route only from December to April, as it is the summers that I spend in Germany (I spend the winters in the UK).

The Bodensee area is spectacular in the summer and many Germans choose to spend their summer hoildays in the area.

exilencfc

Welcome to FT.

What is Friedrichshafen like in terms of rail connections to elsewhere (mostly Germany but other countries too if such trains are available). It's starting to look like a candidate for the plane out, train home trips which my family specialises in.

chris1979

nice report - thanks for posting! ^

The_Bouncer

Friedrichshafen is pretty well connected by train to any part of Germany, although you will probably need to change at Ulm for the long distance connections north.

What kind of trip were you thinking of doing?