DCA to FRA on CO. The Express Jet flight was uneventful – though the FA used the oft expressed excuse of “the flight is too short” to perform the service, even in a half full plane.

EWR to FRA in BF. As noted in a follow up post, the concierge was nowhere to be found. The service started out nice, but when the flight attendants learned that the BF cabin would be full, they freaked and went into panic mode. From then on it felt like the FAs were serving you just to be done with it. My request for a cognac was met with a sigh because the cognac tray had not been loaded on the dessert cart. I liked the fact that when I napped, my window shades were closed without disturbing me. I skipped breakfast, and we arrived early, again without the concierge gracing the plane.

Showered at the Delta Sky (Crown) Club. The shower was hot, but leaked under the door into the hall. The club is nice and had a pretty full breakfast. Once people left for their am flights, it was empty.

Not looking forward to changing planes at FRA once Star goes into full swing. Say what you want about EWR, FRA is worse by many multiples: hallways that seem to stretch on forever, transfer paths that require trudging up and down staircases, low ceilings and really, really awful food offerings. Plus the smoking gulags don’t seem to be very well ventilated so the entire place has a vague cigarette odor.

LH flight to ATH left late, with no explanation as why. Boarding was basically an elbow jabbing scrum. The plane itself was spotless and the full meal pretty good. However after the meal service the FA’s closed the back curtain and didn’t come out until it was time to land. No CO style walk throughs.

ATH is about 45 minutes from the city center and the metro is right at the airport. Stayed at the Sofitel at the airport, and liked it. However since it’s so far from Athens, it’s not for sightseers.

My hour Aegean flight was on an old BAE RJ, but was pretty pleasant. The FA’s were exceptionally happy for a 7 am flight, and the breakfast looked good. I was amazed that a full breakfast was served on an hour flight, particularly given the FA’s claim on my DCA – EWR sector. The FA’s had time to do an additional coffee service before we landed. Pretty impressive.

Sofia Terminal 2 is pretty nice. People getting to the airport early should note that it doesn’t have Wi-Fi, but more importantly, there are no electric sockets to be found in the entire terminal. So my laptop ran out of juice.

My flight to Athens, as well as my flight from Athens to LHR was on the “new” Olympic. My flight from SOF to ATH was as nice, if not nicer, than my Aegean flight. Hot dinner, water and coffee service before and after dinner and a fully metal “Olympic” pin, since, coincidentally it was the first day for the new Olympic.

Given my great experience on my first Olympic flight, I was excited about my second. While it wasn’t awful, it was more typical of what I heard about the old Olympic: the flight left almost an hour late, with no explanation, the restrooms had no toilet paper or paper towels, and the FA’s were a bit surly (though some of the passengers were being PITA’s). The hot dinner service was pretty good, particularly the Greek salad. The flight was on one of their fresh from the factory A320’s. While it was clean, there is no IFE. For a 4 hour flight to LHR, I expected IFE. I do have to say that the new FA uniforms are very pretty. I can’t see anyone other than a size zero looking good in them. Yikes.

Watching the ground crew at ATH I can see how Olympic got its reputation: it was an amazing display of disorganization as baggage carts blocked cabin service vehicles; drivers got out of their vans and cars and argued about who was screwing things up while the person who was supervising them leaned against a light pole watching. It was quite entertaining.

VS LHR to IAD. Just AWFUL check-in. The line moved at a snail’s pace. It seemed that everyone had some sort of baggage issue. The check-in agents could not have been ruder: when people went to inquire if they could check in others, the agents barked: “please move back to your place in the queue.” Flight was nice. Economy seats seemed typical: not much room. The meal was pretty good. As I noted in a trip report a year ago, I don’t see what all the fuss is about the VS IFE: it was *worse* than what we get on a CO 767: really old movies, screen flicker etc. Initially I liked the fact that we got an ice cream sandwich and a brownie, until I realized that there wasn’t a second in flight meal. The LHR to IAD flight is simply too long to only have one meal service.

Baggage claim at IAD was a mess: the flight was never posted on the baggage claim screen, so all we had to go by to figure out which baggage claim was a faint announcement on the PA. Probably not VS’ fault.