UF_Deutsch

flugvergnugen will share your experience with this route once you've completed your flight? I am flying this route in July and had bought Premium Economy. I am now wondering about what the inflight entertainment is like in PE.

jfidler

I'm flying this in PE in about a week, so I'll report back how it went. As I understand it, there are no PTVs but just a main cabin screen.

jfidler

I flew this earlier this week. It was operated by G-TCCB, which is a Thomas Cook 767 with TC pilots and Condor flight crew.

In Premium Economy, you definitely get more leg room. There is also a "menu" (a single page) for PE that includes one selection. The entertainment was on screens hanging from the ceiling in the aisles, so no PTVs. The "footrests" were actually triangle-shaped cushions velcro-ed to the floor (I'm not joking).

Here's some photos I took:
Seats: http://imgur.com/6c3QWUO
Footrest: http://imgur.com/5vuIIlt
Meal: http://imgur.com/Q6HWxMg
Menu: http://imgur.com/yxzVmu9

Also for those checking in at BWI, look to the far left of the check-in section for Condor and that's the Premium check-in line, which is a lot faster. The BWI experience in general is nicer than IAD for international flights -- much shorter lines for security, and a really short walk from security to the gates. There's also a really nice children's play area on the way, for those traveling with children.

Overall, for the price it's not a bad value. I anticipate needing to make a similar trip about a year from now, and hopefully by then they'll be using actual Condor equipment with PTVs and so on.

UF_Deutsch

jfidler thanks for the pics and review. Good information to know for my upcoming trip.

From your picture of the seats, so basically they the leave the middle seat open in premium economy?

jfidler

Nope -- all seats are used (and were full on my flight). So it's 2-3-2 in both Prem Eco and Eco, though Prem Eco has more leg room.

jfidler

Flew G-TCCB FRA-BWI yesterday coming home in PE. A few slight changes from before:
- Menus were handed out by FAs instead of clipped to tray tables
- The "footrests" were missing from about 30% of the seats, with no noticeable pattern of which seat they were missing from.
- The IFE (which is on shared screens hanging from the aisle) was broken so they only had music, no movies.

The crew was very good and they did 3 meal services. Once with lunch, then again with a snack of apple slices, a piece of cake, or a cheese sandwich (these were plastic wrapped, not on a tray), then finally 2 hours before landing, a proper snack on a tray.

Overall, I'd say the soft product is pretty good, especially for the price, and they just need to upgrade the hard product, which I believe is in the works.

Also BWI international arrivals is a breeze thanks to so few international flights. It was 55 minutes from wheels down to the time I was in my car driving home, and that includes getting to the off-site private parking lot (Pre-Flight Parking). Can't do that at IAD with an afternoon arrival, that's for sure!

Now I just wish BWI would add more international flights -- I'd definitely use them more often over IAD.

UF_Deutsch

I just wanted to give some feedback and comparison.

I flew this route on Condor in the beginning of June. My experience was pretty much the same as jfidler's but I thought I'd add a couple of other comments. There were no "footrests" in any of the seats in PE. This was for both of my flights to FRA and back to BWI. I sat in the front 3 rows (not in the middle) for both flights and the overhead space was extremely lacking, not like on a big carrier. Maybe it was that I was at the front and the curvature of the plane dictated that but I couldn't put my carry-on above me. It looked like seats further back seemed to have more room but I couldn't confirm.

As a comparison, I flew Lufthansa on my second flight to Germany at the end of July. I will say that the room in PE on Condor was definitely nicer to have than the cramped space on my Lufthansa flight. I even chose one of the rows in the back of the plane where there are only 2 seats and still it felt cramped. The PE on Condor was definitely roomier than Economy on Lufthansa. I'd also say that food was slightly better and the service much better on Lufthansa than Condor. Of course, the IFE on Lufthansa was world's better than Condor.

I'd say if Condor would update their IFE in PE, I would prefer them to Lufthansa. I think the main advantage to Lufthansa is that if something goes wrong (luggage, cancelled flight, etc) there are many more remedies available to passengers. When I read the horror stories/reviews of people with bad experiences with Condor, it seems that Condor's lack of customer service and ability to get people to their destination the same day if something goes wrong is their achilles heel.

With all that said, if Condor updated their IFE, I think I would choose them.

Hemera

I booked a ONE-way Business ticket on Condor flying BWI-FRA in July 2018. $900 seems like a good price for an opportunity to sleep on a trans-Atlantic flight. Keeping my fingers crossed that they won't replace it with PE.

jfidler

I was looking at flights on this route in July 2018 also the other day. In July 2017, the flights ran at different times, like the flight on Mondays departed at 5:45pm, and the Thursday flight departed at 8:20pm. This means you could choose the best day to depart to minimize connection time in FRA. Now for July 2018, it looks like the flight always departs at 8:45pm, which means I'd be stuck with an 8-hour layover in FRA on the way back (coming from TLL on LH).

I wonder if they plan to stick with that schedule for next summer. It does make more sense to have a consistent departure time every day of the week they fly.. though it just makes it a bit inconvenient for me

BaltimoreZ71

Just an update, I was recently in Frankfurt (did not fly on Condor) and spoke with a Condor employee who said that the plan is to keep the business class equipped aircraft on the BWI-FRA route. They are also looking into the financial aspect of keeping the service year round. It is something they would like to do and have a lot of requests for but the money will be the deciding factor.

kjh3

I'm considering this Condor route for a trip to Croatia. My connecting flight departs 1 hr 50 mins after scheduled landing in FRA. Anyone have info on how often this flight is delayed? I do not want to miss my connecting flight.