N830MH

Hey!! Thats same meal where I ate before. I flown in J class out ATL-ZRH by last year. It was quite enjoyable flying in the BusinessElite Class. I got award travels ticket where I flew to ZRH to see my brother & my new niece. It was so successful for my entire trip. I couldn't sleep on the plane very well. I was too extremely tired that I came to Switzerland and I went to the bed very early. I didn't have a chance go to shower.

golfingboy

Right before I went to sleep - only to be woken up an hour later due to heavy turbulence - I took some pictures of the seat. For informative purposes, I am six foot tall


After several hours, breakfast began promptly 1.5 hours outside of London and the FAs, took our orders... I went with the Omelet.


Everything on the plate was really good, the Omelet is a little better than what we get in CO F [the cheesy one, not the mushroom one]...

Here is some pictures of the super-luxurious J lavatory on DL...


ARRIVAL

After breakfast service, we were about 45 minutes out of LHR, and the FAs continued to walk through the aisle filling drinks and they passed out the Fast Track invitation cards...


Eyesight 20/20 I should have skipped the fast track lane and saved the invitation card for someone who could really use it.. Oh well... We were through in less than 10 minutes, which is not bad. Better than DTW, but more on that later.

golfingboy

THE SEAT!!!

After arrival, I stayed in the J cabin and took some more pictures of the seat, so here goes...


In the last picture, you can see that the seat is not exactly straight, and there has been some complaints about that... Quite frankly, it did not bother me at all and the angle between the seat and the compartment is very marginal. You might have to slant yourself an inch to the right tops. Not a big deal for me.

For the tray table, at first it can be a little confusing, but once the FA shows you how to do it you will be sick to your stomach at how easy it really is. As a matter of fact, it is simpler than the traditional fold and push up and down into the armrest that we are accustomed to when flying in domestic F. Basically, all you have to do is fold, then slide the tray forward and then push it into the compartment [follow the exact direction it came out]. Really simple.

All in all, this seat is awesome and I truly hope Delta uses the Thompson Vantage seats on their 763s and you can't go wrong here.

N830MH

Brilliant trip reports!!! I'm glad you have a pleasant trip to LHR. I'm glad you stay onboard while you taking the pictures inside the J class.

Hope your trip is so successful. When you can returns back home from LHR to USA? Do you enjoyable for your stays. Hope you will have a wonderful time in England.

putongo

Thanks for the TR! And good to know that DL will bring out 6 FAs to help in J!!! Hope I get to see this on my next intl flight outta ATL....

Looking forward to next post.......

p

fly747first

6 FAs on a DL 764 in BE is most usual, and even on premium routes such as JFK-LHR, DL usually only assigns 4 FAs to the BE cabin.

BizJet

Great report! Love the pics and looking forward to more

Wiirachay

Thanks for sharing, esp. with the detailed seat pictures.

golfingboy

I had about 20 hours to kill in London, and with the amount of booze I had on my flight to London, I elected to stay put :0

As a BusinessElite passenger, we can use the Yotel for free for only one hour, it used to be two hours I also rented a room at the Yotel for 15 hours for about $100 and it was worth it... WIFI was good, the bed is comfy albeit a little hard, and the TV is really nice... All in all, it was worth the $$$ and the convenience of not having to leave the airport to reach an off-site hotel for just one night.

LHR Yotel


In the morning, I woke up at 5am, got a shower, cleaned up, and went to the train station. The original Heathrow connect train that was supposed to take us to T1/3 broke down, so we had to wait about 10 more minutes for another train.

Checked in with SAS was a bit confusing and I had some difficulties finding the Star Gold lane, but with only one other passenger checking in I just used the regular line. Security took 20 minutes to get through

With that I headed straight for the SAS Club London lounge.

SAS/AC Club London Lounge @ LHR


The SAS Club London Lounge was decent... The food offerings was good, during the mornings they have the typical pastry offerings with cereals... During lunch there are some lunch meats... I came back to this lounge after visiting the SilverKris lounge and it was packed! You could find seats without issue, but there were just many people... There were shower facilities as well, but did not check them out, maybe next time.

LHR SQ SilverKris Lounge

When I arrived at the lounge, I showed the agent my credentials and she gave the look of "one of those people" who weren't flying on SQ, but entering the lounge because we can... The business class lounge is upstairs on the right, and I was surprised at how small it was considering SQ flies the A380 there and if the J cabin is full the lounge can barely accommodate all passengers. I think there were enough seats for about 80 people and the seats were not spread out, it was cramped. I sat by the window and when it was full I had to walk over other people's stuff constantly...

The food offerings were not bad, and I'll give this lounge a slight edge over the SAS lounge because it had more "meat" offerings and the sandwiches were good. However, the lady who worked there was efficient, but unfriendly... When she came by to pick up some of my dishes she was dry and emotionless even when I smiled at her and said thank you. I thought SQ excels in hospitality... At least a friendly "good morning" with a nice smile would have done the trick for me.


Wish I took more pictures of the food and drinks @ SilverKris Lounge

golfingboy

This report is mainly a mixture of plane pictures and pictures from my flight.

This flight was probably one of the worst short hops I have ever flown. It has nothing to do with the crew or the operation itself, but has to do with the "norm" when flying intra-Europe on Scandinavian.

First of all, the flight was delayed about 45 minutes, which is not too bad considering CPH got a lot of snow that morning and it was still snowing there. When the FIDS said "go to gate" I got up and left the lounge and the walk was about ten minutes. When I got to the gate entrance, the line was long because they had to do a full passport check, which is ridiculous because we would have not gotten through security without our passports.

Then we had to wait in a holding room which was easily 90 degrees. After waiting for about 15 minutes, boarding began and at that point I realized that they were going to utilize come first, board first system. There was no boarding system in place for business class passengers, SK and partner elites, etc. As result, it took me about 20 minutes to get to my seat and I would have been more upset if I were a paid J customer.

When I reached my seat, I realized that the pitch on SK is horrible and I could barely fit into my seat. Good thing, the middle seat was empty so we had some space to spread our legs a little. Once airborne, service began promptly and when I ordered water I realized that you have to pay for water... NOTHING IS FREE

I am going to stop complaining, but for intra-EU flying SK is not a good airline and my experience on LH from CPH-FRA was far better, so if you had a choice, go with LH.

Without further ado, here are the pictures!

Airline: Scandinavian Airlines System
Aircraft: Airbus A321
Class: Economy
Seat: 15F
Date: December 9, 2010


Next up, Lufthansa intra-EU in economy!

golfingboy

Since my flight leaves at an ungodly hour [5:45am], I had to wake up at 2am to grab a shower and get myself ready. The security lady working at the front desk advised me to get a taxi to Kobenhavn H, because the area was not "safe" which was a little surprising. It was only fifteen minutes walk to the train station and taxi costs 50 DKK for a three minute drive, so no thanks.

Arrived at the train station around 330am and the first train to Kastrup was not until 4:09! But once the train arrived everything after that was a breeze.

Airline: Lufthansa
Aircraft: Airbus A319
Class: Economy
Seat: 11F
Date: December 13, 2010

SAS handles LH's operations at CPH, so when I arrived at the airport, the line was about 30 people deep with only a few agents. Of course the Star Gold lane was closed, and SK continues to fail on delivering Star Gold benefits. I went up to a free agent in a closed lane and told her that the Star Gold lane was closed and there are 30 people in line and inquired why the Eurobonus elite/Star Gold lane is not open, and she checked me in without any questions.

Bottom line, SK is horrible with Star Golds and the only benefit I was able to utilize with them was lounge access in LHR.

CPH is a really nice airport and wouldn't mind connecting in CPH in the future.

The LH flight was miles better than my SK flight and I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


All in all, it was a pleasant short flight with Lufthansa and I would definitely fly them when possible on intra-EU flights.

golfingboy

As a Business Elite customer, I was invited to use the JAL Sakura Lounge, which is across from the Delta gates. The lounge had a modern and contemporary look, and the agents at the front desk were VERY friendly. The lounge was decent with comfortable chairs, spacious, decent drink selections, and the food was okay.

The only downside I have about this lounge is that you have to use an ethernet cable to connect to the internet, but you can borrow one at the front desk, so no big deal.

Here are the pictures!


After spending a pleasant 1.5 hours in the Sakura Lounge, it was time to head out to the security checkpoint.

golfingboy

Airline: Delta
Aircraft: Boeing 767-300ER [76T version]
Class: Business
Seat: 2G
Date: December 14, 2010

Upon exiting the Sakura lounge, the security checkpoint was only about 100 feet to the right... That day we used Gate D08 and I was really glad that we did not have to take the shuttle to a remote parking spot to board our plane. However, the machines in front of the priority lane [rightmost machine] was closed, which meant we had to "cut" over the economy security lines and that made me a little uncomfortable. This is out of Delta's control anyway.

Boarding did not begin on-time and we had to wait about thirty minutes in the "sterile" gate area. In no time, boarding began and after 20 or so people pre-boarded, they began boarding the J cabin immediately.

Once I reached my seat, there was a duvet and a pillow in my seat with the amenity kit and head phones in the seat pockets.

I was nervous that the service would not be as good as my ATL-LHR flight, because the J cabin only had about ten or so paid/award passengers and about the same # of NRSAs... Good enough the service was not as good or attentive, or maybe I just had a superb crew on my previous flight.

Anyhow, this flight had its up and downs and I will point those +/- in my pictures. I try to be as neutral as possible giving credit where it is due and pointing out reasonable service lapses. In some pictures, I pictured the FA for a reason and if you feel that it is not appropriate and then please let me know...

In this set of pictures, you can see that this DL 764 is only using one jetway when there are two jetways available. Same issue we had at LAX, and I am not sure why DL is avoiding using two jetways. After the ATL flight left a BA 763 arrived and they used both jetways...


When serving the PDB, the FA was unfriendly and just showed the tray without greeting us, giving a warm smile, or anything that you would expect in a premium cabin. Totally opposite experience from the LHR flight.


Continued in next post...

golfingboy

FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD This post will pretty much focus on the dinner/pre-arrival service and food. The next post will focus on not meal time service and the seats.

The menu was distributed during the Champagne service as well, so here is a text version of the menu. The Dessert was the same except for the lemon tart and the wine selection is the same as well... I did not mind having the same wine selections, since I only had three different wines on my last flight, so there were plenty of other options to try out.

On this flight there were only 4 FAs serving the front cabin not 6... Maybe it has something to do with my ATL-LHR flight being booked almost full of paid customers. Only 2 or 3 seats open at 24 hours out on that flight. I know someone mentioned that 4 FAs is the norm...

FIRST COURSE

A TASTING OF TWO APPETIZERS
Smoked salmon with caper onion relish
and fresh mozzarella with tomato

CREAM OF ONION SOUP

FRESH MESCLUN SALAD
with sweet peppers, radish, and walnuts

MAIN COURSE

Select one of the following

PARMESAN-CRUSTED CHICKEN BREAST
with marinara sauce, gnocchi, and broccoli

TENDER FILET OF BEEF
with peppercorn sauce, chive mashed potatoes, sauteed spinach and carrots

RICOTTA AND BASIL FETTUCCINE
with sauteed vegatables

ROASTED BEEF AND GRILLED SHRIMP
with a deviled egg, grilled zucchini and peppers
served chilled

DESSERT

SELECTION OF FINE CHEESES
offered with fresh fruit

VANILLA ICE CREAM SUNDAE
with your choice of sauces, whipped cream and chopped nuts

LEMON TART

PRE-ARRIVAL MEAL

Select one of the following

HOT TURKEY AND CHEDDAR CHEESE SANDWICH
with caramelized onions and peppers and a carrot and raisin salad

SHRIMP NICOISE SALAD
tomato, egg, green beans, olives, and potatoes
with breadsticks and fresh fruit

CHOCOLATE

WINES

WHITES

Albert Bichot Montagny
Burgundy, France, 2008

Zalze Bush Vine Chenin Blanc
South Africa, 2008

REDS

Casillero Del Diablo Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon
Puente Alto Vineyard, Chile, 2008

Patz & Hall Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir
California, 2007

DESSERT WINES

Jurancon Prestige
Cave de Gan Jurancon, France, NV

Ferreira Dona Antonia Reserve Port
Tras-os-Montes Portugal, NV

Chambers Rosewood Muscat
Rutherglen, Australia, NV

CHAMPAGNE
Champagne Piper-Heidsieck Brut
France, NV


Meal service began promptly around thirty minutes after departure, however, it was considerably slower than my previous flight... The entire service lasted a little over two hours.


After a decent appetizer, I was ready for the entree... I originally ordered the Roast Beef option without realizing that it was served chilled. Oops, but the FA came to me and informed me that it is a cold dish, are you sure you want that? I thanked her profusely for warning me and changed my choice to the beef... I wanted to try something different for this report, but the pasta option was not an option for me since I love my proteins and the chicken option did not really strike me as something delicious, so I went with the beef assuming it will be similar to the one I had on my previous flight.

To my disappointment the beef was not even that close... I am sorry, but it tasted like plain shredded beef at best and the spinach was slimy/rubbery... The only good thing on this plate was the mashed potatoes, which was absolutely delicious. The carrots were okay and I ate most of them as well.

When they served dessert, they brought a cart and served dessert out of the cart, which does not bother me much. However, sometimes it gives me the impression that the FA just want the service to be done with and whatever helps expedite the service will do the job regardless of customer perception.


With that dinner service concluded and we were already past Ireland. The FA went through the J cabin asking people to close their window shades and then they dimmed the J cabin lights.

Throughout the flight they had a cart full of snacks and I had some banana... About 3.5 hours from DTW the FA served warm cookies which was quite tasty.


Approximately 1.5 hours out the cabin lights turned on and the FAs started taking pre-arrival meal orders. I went with the Turkey sandwich and it was decent albeit a little dry. The salad was interesting, not something we would normally eat, but it tasted fine.

`X'

From what i can see the reason they are only boarding with One Air Bridge is because the 763's only have one door up front.

Some 763's have 2, some don't.