not2017

seat38a

""Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! ""

Innocent Abroad

Yes, that's the reason this TR got stuck

In fact it was simply "Welcome to the Hotel California". But other than that I had a very good time here and later today the TR continues...

Innocent Abroad

Initially I was planing to fly from TXL to FRA (I had to attend a conference in Mainz) but then I remembered that I really like train travel and that I really dislike TXL and FRA Taking the train was not cheaper than flying but I was able to get a first class tickets for the train for pretty much the same price as second class so was looking forward to this experience even more.

The major advantage of train ride in Europe is the ease of travel. I took the S-Bahn from my hotel and in less than 10 minutes I was at Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof (central train station). As much as I like airports, Berlin Hauptbahnhof is a real jewel both architecturally and functionally; it is an elegant combination of classical European train station and a futuristic travel hub that always reminds me the film Blade Runner :





One of the benefits of a first class train ticket is access to the Deutsche Bahn lounges so I headed there for my first ever train lounge visit. This is the entrance to the lounge:



Inside there is a counter with an agent that checks your ticket. I was welcomed in and saw this rather basic set up:





I sat on one of the armchairs and went to have some coffee; strangely there was no food offering although I remembered that should have been something. While sipping my coffee I noticed at the back of the lounge a glass window with a big number 1 on it. After few minutes of observation I got the point. Much like airport lounges here too there is a section for those who actually travel on first class and other frequent travelers who have access to the lounge but do not travel first class on the day. Since I was traveling in first class I moved to the section and after few minutes was greeted by a waitresses who wanted to see my ticket When everything was settled she offered me some food and I went for the croissant option, which was nice:



Other than that there were newspapers in the lounge and a TV set showing the news; overall a nice place to kill half and hour but definitely not more than that.

20 minutes before “departure” the track was announced so I went there and waited to board the train. The train itself was not of the best long distance trains in Germany, known as the ICE (Intercity Express), but a relatively old IC (Intercity). Most of the train (both first and second class) were comprised of old-fashioned compartments, which in fact felt nice:





The toilets were also fair enough:



The ride to Frankfurt was suppose to take four and a half hours - since this wasn’t the express train - and the major disadvantage was that there was not Bordbistro service on board, which meant that no food or beverages were available The ride went through Wolfsburg, the famous Volkswagen city:



…. and other rather boring German town and cities.

The problem began after two and half hours when the train stopped and the conductor announced there is a technical problem and that further announcements will be given shortly. After 45 minutes off the track we were told that the train will be towed back to the a station we passed some 15 minutes ago. As a seasoned FT I started browsing the DB website to look for alternative trains (it’s a shame ExpertFlyer does not handle trains .) Unfortunately this proved impossible; we were moving so slow that every time that I was about to get information from the website we entered a tunnel and the cellular single died out (on the fancier ICE there is a wireless service….). Never in my life did I curse tunnels so much it took us another 45 minutes to get back to the station… As it was a hot day and there was nowhere to buy something to drink the conductor offered - at least in first class - “boxed” water:



On the next round he handed out the apparently equivalent EC261 paperwork:





The staff also notified us about trains that we can take from the station and provided detailed information concerning their destinations, times of arrival and platforms and I was really impressed by that!

When we finally got to the station I went off the train and hopped on another one that arrived twenty minutes later. There were no issues with ticket inspection on this train and when I got to Frankfurt I took another train to Mainz (since I missed the train I was suppose to take as we were almost two hours late). The ride to Mainz took only 20 minutes but since this time I was on board an ICE train I could sit down and relax in the Bordbistro, which is always nice and bring back fond memories from the film Before Sunrise…..



It was already late when I arrived at the little Hotel Römerstein in Mainz:

Innocent Abroad

Route: FRA-LCY
Airline / Flight number: BA8733 (BA CityFlyer)
Aircraft: Embraer 190 , G-LCYP
Date: July 13, 2016
Miles: 619 km
Flight time: 60 minutes
Scheduled departure: 11:40
Actual departure: 12:51, RWY 18
Scheduled arrival: 12:15
Actual arrival: 12:51, RWY 27
Class: Economy
Seat: 12B (Exit-row)

After an interesting colloquium at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz it was time to move on and go back to the UK for the concluding part of the trip. FRA is located between Frankfurt and Mainz so the trip from the Mainz train station does not take more than twenty minutes:



The long-distance station at FRA is probably my favourite part of this crazy airport



In recent years I only transited through terminal 1 in FRA but I remembered that you can take the SkyLine train. However it turned out that there are constructions on the line and it was not operating so I had to take a shuttle bus instead. The signage was not so clear, I must say, but finally I made my way to the bus:





I was surprised how far was terminal 2 as the ride took about 10 minutes. We arrived then at the non-impressive terminal building. Check in was very crowded but fortunately not the BA priority lane so it did not take more than 5 minutes to tag and send my luggage:



There are endless discussion concerning the two available lounges for BA departures: the CX and JL ones and after reading the dedicated thread it sounded as if the JL option is better, mostly because it is much closer to the departure gates BA uses. Anyway, all seem to agree that both lounges are rather dull and I cannot contradict that The lounge was very crowded when I got in at around 9:45 but was almost empty when I left when boarded started at nearly 10:50. One good thing about the lounge is the fact that they announce boarding; always a good thing ^ Here are some photos I took in the lounge:













I did not mention that security check are done in terminal 2 at the entrance to the departure gates area; there was only one lane and it moved extremely slow:



And not only that, we had to wait on the bus to the remote stand for nearly 20 minutes as there was heavy rain and ground transport was aborted:





On the way to the aircraft I noticed a neat TUI 737-800 with the split scimitar winglets:



The second revelation of the day was the British Airways 3 Volkswagen Golf



It was very crowded downstairs:



And on the aircraft:



But ample legroom at the exit-row:



It took us some time before we were cleared to taxi to the runway, and we had to taxi all across the field the lone RWY 18 at the other side of the park. Then it was closed for nearly half an hour; I do not know why but several fire trucks were on-site and I suspect it had something to do with the heavy rain that was pouring.

Once the runway was operating again we had to give way to many other aircrafts to take off but luckily I saw my first ever A350 in the flesh and I do hope to find myself in one of these ASAP….



This was my first ever BA CityFlyer flight, which explains - I assume - the absence of my beloved British Airways highlife magazine and the existence of this:



Yeh, they do real business on this subsidiary….. This might explain the somewhat ascetic snack:



After exactly 60 minutes we landed in LCY, a very cute airport indeed. I especially like small airport with small commercial jets….



Then the luggage hall:



And then the DLR, Tube, Great Northern and here I am at the entrance to a friend’s flat in Cambridge for two days of recuperation before I head back to the Middle East:

Innocent Abroad

While in Berlin I visited the magnificent Hamburger Bahnhof, the museum for contemporary art and noticed a great photo of the airport in Tokyo:



This is a description of the photo in its larger context; I liked very much the poetic description of airports and flying so thought it should also be part of my TR.

Innocent Abroad

Route: LHR-TLV
Airline / Flight number: BA163
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200, G-VIIH
Date: July 14, 2016
Miles: 3593 km
Flight time: 4:28 hours
Scheduled departure: 22:40
Actual departure: 23:36, RWY 27L
Scheduled arrival: 05:30
Actual arrival: 06:05, RWY 30
Class: World Traveller Plus
Seat: 24B


Those of followed this TR so far know already that it is about first time experiences so I guess it was meant to be that I will get my first ever OpUp on the concluding flight of the trip Originally I was booked in World Traveller and had an exit-row seat at the very front of the economy cabin and during OLCI everything was as planned. Couple of hours later I checked something concerning a future trip on BA.com and noticed that the seat assignment had changed but my mobile BP did not show any change even after refreshing it. I was at that time on the train towards London so spent most of the trip trying to figure out what was going on. ExpertFlyer alerted me by that time that it detected an aircraft change (from a 777 to a 777 ) which on BA can mean various things as there are several variations of aircrafts on the 777 fleet (772, 772ER, 77W) and classes (three-class and four-class types). After visits to the most authoritative data on BA fleet (The BA Source), the BA Fleet Guide on the BA Dashboard on FT, Flightradar24 and Manage My Booking on BA.com I concluded happily that I was moved to World Traveller Plus

The only way to force a refresh of my mobile BP was to deleted and reissue it and indeed the new one did have the new seat number although it was still showing World Traveller:



Although I suspected it must be an IT glitch I wasn’t fully relaxed that this is really happening. The check in agent in Heathrow T5 also was not sure at the beginning because he also saw that I’m in World Traveller but the seat map showed the 2-4-2 configuration of World Traveller Plus but the conclusion was that everything is in the right place

I did not take picture of LHR T5 facilities as they are well covered in numerous TRs and will only mention I did my customary procedure of dinner at the GF (with a very nice vegetarian Risotto and a fancy cauliflower salad) alongside a tasty Californian Pinot Noir, a walk in the passageway to T5B (the agent at the lounge entrance notified me that the flight will leave from B) and a shot of Whiskey just before boarding started

You might think that my joy of the OpUP was a bit over exaggerated but it’s not - on aircrafts with the 2010 WTP there is a very big difference between this cabin and the WT one in both hard and soft products. Dinner was tasty as you can read and see:





And I was able to get a nice sleep on this red-eye flight. BTW BA are going to change it to an afternoon departure starting in the winter, which does make a lot of sense especially when connecting from the West Coast of the US.


that BA are going to drop from the winter of 2016.

I did take some pictures from TLV arrivals including a new shiny advertisement for Goldstar, an Israeli beer:



New e-Passport machines at the end of each concourse:



And the beautiful Byzantine mosaics hanging above the entrance to passports control:



Finally, here’s a picture of TLV arrival hall with all the lonely balloons on the ceiling. For some reason the arrivals hall in this airport is always very emotional and the balloons vendors must be doing good money here……



That’s all folks, my first TR comes to an end and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did

KARFA

Thanks for writing the TR Innocent Abroad, I enjoyed reading it.

benberg2013

Thank for this Great Trip Report! Nice to see pictures and details of a route I do very often!

I didn't know about the old/new control tower at TLV, that tall CT only opened 3 months ago?

Innocent Abroad

My pleasure

The construction of the new, tall one, was completed in June 15 but it became operational only couple of months later due to disagreements between the ATC union and the Israeli Civil Flight Authority. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the report.

nequine

Thanks for sharing your great trip reports, it was a very enjoyable read.

Innocent Abroad

I appreciate the kind words; it makes me feel it was worthwhile

In three weeks I'll be on LAN's fifth-freedom MAD-FRA on their new 787-9 in J so stay tuned

makin'miles

I really enjoyed reading through this - thanks!

Innocent Abroad

I'm glad you liked it makin'miles ^