Yesterday I had a pleasure to fly with a Condor 753 from Frankfurt to Ibiza.

This was my second time on a Condor 753. Three years ago I flew on a special solar eclipse charter, but that time, there was special catering, plus I had the best seat on the plane. So I was curious how the regular Condor experience would look like.

Ibiza is the only destination I book package tours to because of low hotel prices. Hotels as part of a package deal cost about 50% of the best deal when booking the accomodation separately - even when booking through the same company as the package tour. Ibiza doesn't have a good reputation here on FT, but in reality it is an amazing place, especially for electronic music lovers like me. And if anyone is scared of puking and fighting drunk Brits, they can be easily avoided by staying away from two(2) streets in San Antoni.

For my 6:40am departure, I arrived at the pretty empty airport at 5:00am. There were very few travelers checking in, but I saw a moderate crowd in front of the Condor check in counter. The crowd appeared bigger and bigger as I came closer, and turned into a long queue circling a whole block of counters. Fortunately, the queue moved quite quickly, and after 20 minutes waiting time I was able to check in. I had pre-reserved the seat 5F and also booked a premium meal in advance.


At the check in (most of the queue already behind me)

There were no queues for security, so I was at the gate in no time. The boarding started on time and as sadly usual in FRA, we were riding a bus. Seriously, how can Fraport expect the population to support its expansion plans, if already nearly half of all plane movements use apron parking positions and subject their passengers to lengthy and unpleasant bus rides??? No other airport in Germany shows such a disdain for travelers as the arrogant greedy hit-and-run managers running FRA.


At the gate


These days in FRA, you will rarely find an Airbus or a Boeing at the gate

I was secretly hoping to fly on the would-be official Star Alliance Mega DO airplane (or at least one with the official DO paint scheme ), but the bus arrived at a Boeing 757-300 in standard Condor colors. I climbed the front stairs and turned left




The (still empty) main cabin. Don't let yellow headrests fool you, there is no seat blocking and all seats will be occupied


The front section


Guessing the seat pitch

I snapped a few photos of the cabin with blue fabric seats. While other travelers were making pictures of themselves going on vacation, I tried to capture the seat pitch and probably looked like an idiot to most of them

Finally I took my assigned seat 5F. The seat pitch felt much like the new Lufthansa shorthaul seats. On LH, when stretching my legs while keeping the feet on the ground, I can barely touch the seat in front of me with my lower legs, and exactly the same was the case here. The recline was similar to Lufthansa too. There were a few overhead monitors in the cabin, but no individual backrest monitors.


Me in my seat


Making precise measurements


Other pax looking forward to their (I hope) vacations in Ibiza

There are 3 disadvantages compared to Lufthansa seats. First, the seat lacks a hard solid plate in the backrest, so if someone from behind shoves stuff around in the seatback pocket or (God forbid!) kicks the seat, you would feel it quite directly! Second, there is a metal rod in the seat pocket, which reduces the knee room when you put a water bottle there. Third, the seats feel slightly outdated and look by far not as cool as on Lufthansa. Not sure if the entire Condor fleet is like this; last year I flew on their 767 and the seats felt more modern. But the seats are comfortable to sit on and quite OK for shorthaul journeys.


Knee room taken away by the water bottle


"A usual morning in Frankfurt, nothing works", as once announced by a Lufthansa captain. Still waiting for the baggage to be loaded.


A Condor FA busy with passenger service


Finally!

After a short wait on the ground for the baggage to be loaded we thrusted off into the clear morning sky covered with a very light haze. We took off from the runway 18 and the flight went to the Southern direction without much maneuvering around. A nice feature of the Condor 753 is a nosewheel camera, so you could see the taxi and takeoff from the pilot's (or stowaway's?) perspective on cabin monitors.



Soon after the takeoff, the airshow was on for a few minutes. After that, the entertainment program started with some movie being shown. FA's offered headsets for purchase for 3EUR.