Lufthansa
Economy Class
MUC-MLA (Munich Terminal 2 - Malta)
LH 1976
September 17, 2016
Booked: Airbus 320
Flown:
Departure: 2:50 PM
Arrival: 5:00 PM
Given the fact that the business class seats on Lufthansa short haul are also economy seats with a blocked middle seat, and with tight connections all around with no time for any meaningful lounge use, we opted for economy class tickets all around. We are without Star Alliance Gold status these days having lost my Star Gold status several years back.
We arrived in Munich Terminal One. I had checked in to the Lufthansa flight online back in Vancouver in the event we had to make a run for the gate arriving after any cut off times with the boarding passes added to my Apple Wallet. The bags were a bit slow being dispensed from Air France, probably in part because it was pouring with rain outside.
We walked the long underground tunnel from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2.
We located the Lufthansa Economy Class area and re-printed our boarding cards through the kiosks. Lufthansa has moved towards self tagging and drop of bags and they have a neat dispenser that swallows up the checked bags after they have been weighed and tagged.
We ended up having some extra time with our 3 hour connection on the two separate tickets. We took in a pretzel and a Hell beer in terminal G. It wouldn’t be the Munich airport without an awesome car in the departure hall.
We took the train out to the nice K gates, which is in the second building at Munich T2. It was my first time out there and it’s a nice, bright and new facility.
We were pretty exhausted by this point and MrsWT73 and I found some relaxation on some awesome loungers out by the gates. This was a great idea to whomever thought this up!
LH is not boarding by zone like everyone else in North America so after the priority board was announced, it was a free for all. We were among the first in line since we were hovering around the gates near the building support pillars and were able to easily store the carry on’s once we had gotten on board.
We had row 12 which was an exit row easily booked on line. LH doesn’t permit any storage underneath the seats at all and were checking this space on a repeated basis. It’s also a good reminder that the seats in this row do not recline at all.
We were airborne pretty quickly. I was zonked at this point, not having been able to get any sleep since we left the house. I passed out pretty quickly with the crinkled neck against the fuselage wall.
MrsWT73 had a chicken sandwich and white wine in plastic cup that was delivered during the flight. The food and beverage service was complimentary in economy.
Since I was asleep, I missed most of the flight. I woke up to views of us approaching the island of Malta. We had nice landing approach with a flight path on the east side of the island. Being in seats 12EF we had a great view of the eastern coast of Malta on our way in.
We arrived to a non gate position at the main terminal. There were some Air Malta planes (now a Lufthansa subsidiary) on the apron. They rolled up the stairs and it was a short walk on the apron into the terminal.
There is something about it; I guess I am a Lufthansa fan. The whole deal, even in economy, was much more pleasant that the Air France experience. The bright and classy Munich airport and the friendlier service on board compared to the bizarre Charles De Gaulle dungeons and somewhat surly service on Air France makes LH the winner in my books.