Leg 1: PDX to AMS- a return to LH F and making the most of an 18-hour layover
United 5397 PDX-SEA Emb-120, Economy Class, Seat 1C
Lufthansa 491 SEA-FRA A330-300, (New) First Class, Seat 2K
Lufthansa 992 FRA-AMS A319, Business Class, Seat 2F
My record fastest travel time from my house in NE Portland to gate E1 at PDX, including parking and going through pre-check security, is 17 minutes. Luckily I didn’t need to push it so hard today, and my wife dropped me off a leisurely 90 minutes before the quick hop up to Seattle.
I generally try to avoid checking bags whenever possible, but given the gear that I needed to bring to Nepal for a trek, and the various climates I’d be visiting, it was unavoidable this time around. I swung by the check-in counters where there was no line and within about 5 minutes I had my backpack wrapped in a plastic bag, tagged to AMS, and boarding passes for all 3 segments in hand. For reasons that will remain unknown, I was not selected for TSA Pre-check on this trip – which has only happened twice in the past year+ of travel – but it didn’t matter since there was no real line at security and most of my stuff was going under the plane.
While waiting for departure, I visited the United Club. I’ve had Club memberships on and off over the past decade, so as a PDX-based flyer have spent a fair amount of time in this little club above the E-gates United uses at PDX. The main agent, Margi, is extremely helpful and despite their lack of any adult beverages beyond beer and wine (Oregon liquor laws are bizarre) I think its one of the better clubs in the system. On this occasion it provided me with an Oregonian newspaper to pass the time, some yogurt and cereal to tide me over until dinner on my international flight.
After about 40 minutes I walked to the United Express gates in the basement of the E concourse.
Boarding started about 20 minutes before the scheduled 11am departure, and we were loaded with the door closed a few minutes before 11. Due to a service dog-in training riding along with another traveler, I was asked to move up to the bulkhead from my seat (2C), which I was happy to do. The sun was breaking through the clouds as we took off to the east over I-205 and banked to the North to head toward Seattle and climbed up to our 20,000 foot cruising elevation for the 35 minute hop.
The flight was about half full, so it didn’t take long for the FA to provide her “service” – walking down the aisle with a bottle of water and a stack of cups and offering them to passengers. My general rule on planes is to never turn down water, so I had two small glasses to prepare for what I expected would be significant consumption of dehydrating beverages later in the trip. We landed roughly on schedule and taxied past the South terminal where the inbound LH A330 was uploading passengers and cargo from FRA. We de-planed into the A gate area that is now home to UA at SEA, and it took me about 15 minutes to make my way from there to the South terminal.
About two weeks before my trip, extremely unexpectedly I ended up flying FRA-SEA in LH F -- due to a weather waiver while returning to PDX from BHX and a series of ticketing errors (about which I’m not complaining and is a story for another time). I’d already read a lot about the LH F experience from many trip reports (thank you all!!!) and did what I could to get the most out of that flight including visiting the FCT during a 60 minute connection. I had such a great time on that trip, I was excited to return so quickly to LH F, especially with much more time in FRA.
I checked-in to the International Lounge, the contract lounge used by Lufthansa, ANA and a few other carriers at SEA. The agent working the desk re-printed my boarding passes on LH stock, provided me with the nice Lufthansa First envelope and escorted me into the First Class section of the lounge. This was a small area of the lounge with seating for 20 and separated from the rest of the lounge by glass walls. An attendant took drink orders and there was a small snack basket with chips, cookies, cheese, and granola bars. Outside in the general area of the lounge they had similar snacks as well as two soups and a few sandwiches available for self-service.
I had about two hours to kill before the scheduled departure time, and I used it to start this trip report and nurse a Jim Beam and Ginger. I had a feeling that the load in F would be light on tonight’s flight, and only one other passenger joined me in the first lounge. We started chatting and I discovered that she was a UA GS who had been booked to fly SEA-EWR-BOM in BusinessFirst but very similarly to my experience of a few weeks earlier, had been re-routed to avoid EWR and ended up in F SEA-FRA-BOM. I commented how lucky she had been to end up on LH instead of UA. She commented, “well I was in first on my old routing, so this is better because it’s not United -- but still similar I think”. Suffice to say that she learned just how dissimilar to United BusinessFirst it is to fly LH F.
About 45 minutes before departure, the two of us along with one other passenger were escorted to the gate and onto the plane. This A330-300 had been equipped with not just the new First cabin but also the new business seats – it was my first time seeing the new business on LH and at least from seeing (but not sitting or sleeping in) them, it appears to be a significant improvement.. The load on the flight was pretty light – 3/8 in F, probably 50% in C and maybe 40-50% in Y. I was offered a pre-departure beverage, for which they opened a bottle of their new onboard F champagne. I’m fairly certain I was the only person drinking it and managed to finish most of the bottle over the next hour. The amenity kit had changed since my trip in February, and it appears the Rimowa suitcase was replaced with a more generic bag. The contents appeared to be identical.
Shortly after takeoff the purser came to introduce herself, and offered to do, “anything within my power to make this an especially memorable flight”. It was about 40 minutes after takeoff as we crossed from BC into Alberta that the Lufthansa FlyNet service started working (my experience with it overall has been hit or miss) so I used the time to catch up on FlyerTalk, and chat with a few friends via iMessage and Facebook. As the dinner service began, I switched to red wine and then began watching 12 Years a Slave on the inflight entertainment system – appropriate it as it had won the Oscar for Best Picture the previous evening. It was a wonderful movie and having seen about half the nominees I felt the Academy Award was well deserved. This aircraft had a slightly different IFE system than my last LH flight – this was the newer version and I felt it was significantly improved. Not only was the system quite a bit more responsive, but it had a great selection of content as well.
For dinner I took advantage of everything that was on offer – each appetizer, the beef for dinner, and ample servings of cheese and port for desert. It was a solid meal, though I would not say it was exceptional compared to any fine dining on the ground, but I had no complaints as it was well prepared and properly cooked. I then moved onto port for the cheese and desert courses, and finished the meal and the movie with two glasses of Johnny Walker Blue.
Before long it was dark outside, and the crew was making up beds for each of the passengers. The advantage of such a light load is that each passenger gets a seat and a bed – a feature normally reserved for F passengers on the 747-400 only. I changed into the Lufthansa-provided pajamas in the adequately sized restroom, downed an Ambien, and settled in for almost 5 hours of good sleep.
I woke up two hours from FRA – flipped on another movie (this time Blue Jasmine, another winner from the recent Academy Awards) and opted to skip the breakfast because I knew what would be awaiting me on the ground, but did enjoy a cappuccino or two before we landed and taxied to a remote stand.
Typically using at a remote stand at FRA (which is almost the only thing I’ve ever done in the past decade of flying through there) is cause for annoyance, but not when you are flying LH F – the Mercedes S Class was there waiting for the 3 First passengers. I had not made up my mind if I would visit the FCT or the FCL near the A gates since it was conveniently located near my connecting flight and I had already visited the FCT two weeks earlier (albeit for only 30 minutes). One of the other passengers declared his intention to go to the FCT, and the other had never been, so that made it an easy decision. We were dropped at the immigration entrance, and in 10 minutes had passed through passport control and walked the short distance to the FCT. Three attendants met us, escorted us through security, and I found a comfortable spot to base myself for the next few hours.
I’ve seen some comments recently that the FCT has declined in quality, and that it isn’t as exclusive as it once was, but in my book this is truly the best possible place to spend a layover. I had a tasty breakfast, tried several of the waters in the water bar, refreshed myself with a strong shower, and then decided it was time to try some of their incredible selection of single malt whiskies. Three glasses later, some chatting with one of my fellow SEA-FRA flyers, I started to write this trip report and discovered that lunch was being served. I ate another meal (of course taking advantage of the prosciutto cutter) and was then escorted to the Porsche Cayenne that would be my ride to the A concourse and my flight to AMS.
I was walked to my seat to discover a fairly full business cabin (5 rows set-up for C on this flight, and 15 of 20 seats were full). We pulled away from the gate a few minutes past schedule, and were soon airborne. It always amazes me that LH can serve a full meal in the short 45 minutes between FRA and AMS when UA can’t do the same on a three-hour non-mealtime flight. I had no interest in eating given that my body felt like it was the middle of the night and I’d been gorging myself in the FCT, but I still took a photo for the benefit of you my FT readers.
The newest runway at AMS is located quite a fair distance from the terminal, so when we landed here I knew we had some time until we could deplane. 20 minutes later (almost half as long as it took to fly from FRA to AMS) we were parked at the gate. It's a fairly long walk to baggage claim, but we still had to wait about 10 minutes for the bags to start their progression onto the belt. My bag with Star Alliance Priority tag attached was one of the first up the conveyor, and I breezed through customs and out into the central hall at Schiphol.
Since I only had about 18 hours in AMS, I opted to stay at the airport at a great airport hotel – the Citizen M. This hotel is a 5-minute walk from the terminal, and while nothing fancy is an affordable (my rate was €105 a night) way to maximize your time in the city. Check-in was handled through a self-service kiosk, and I was soon dropping my bags, storing my valuables in the in-room safe, and walking back to the airport to catch a train into the city. The NS trains were a bit screwy on this Tuesday afternoon, so I opted to take a train to Amsterdam Sloterdijk and transfer to another train to Centraal. Along the way I helped confused tourists from Japan, Peru and France negotiate their way to one of the world’s busiest train stations.
By 3pm, I was at the designated meeting spot for my friends, and we made the most of the next nine hours in the city. We walked the canals, ate, drank, enjoyed all that Amsterdam had to offer and caught up. It was a great visit. In the years since I’d lived in Amsterdam, the beer scene has improved immeasurably and we sampled a number of Dutch, Danish, American and Belgian offerings at several different beer bars. By the time I caught the train back to Schiphol at 12:15am, I was ready for sleep. By 12:45 I was back in my room at the Citizen M and ready for some rest. Considering that I’d started the day on a plane, spent my morning tasting single malt scotches in the FCT, and made the most of an evening in Amsterdam, I felt remarkably good.
