FRA-PHL US Envoy
With US being my airline of choice, I spend many, many hours per year in their seats, though mostly in a narrowbody aircraft. Still, boarding a US flight felt a bit like the beginning of my homecoming, and I felt quite comfortable among the familiar colors and features of the jet.
The new Envoy seat is among the best business class seats in the sky, with the full lie-flat position being even more comfortable than the QS on Asiana we flew two weeks prior.
My only complaint is that I wish the seat controls gave you more options; it's impossible, for example, to simply slide the seat forward for a meal without leaning back.
After two weeks of flying Asian and European carriers with overheated cabins, I've never been more grateful to see an air vent above my head!
Service was excellent, and our FA wasn't shy about his pours.
Lunch service started shortly after takeoff, and I had the signature Envoy meal: the beef tenderloin with Au Gratin potatoes and creamed spinach.
Very, very good, and a nice medium rare.
I'd complain about the portion being too big, but that's my own fault, as the fiancee only finished 1/4 of her steak, and, well, I wasn't about to let that perfectly good piece of beef go to waste
For dessert, nothing says "welcome back to America" like a Ben & Jerry's ice cream sundae: unnecessarily sweet, undeniably gluttonous and very, very good.
After our last two long-hauls, this eight-hour "hop" seemed to fly by (no pun intended, really), and after a bit of reading, working and playing with AVOD, it was time for our pre-landing meal.
Tuna Nicoise Salad: salty, but satisfying.
We landed smoothly at PHL. Our final segment was scheduled to depart in three hours, but we knew that there was an earlier option to BWI at 3:21PM, in roughly 70 minutes. Cautiously hopeful, we breezed through a short customs and immigration line and sprinted to the F terminal shuttle...