Frankfurt Rhein-Main

At the “Lounge Meeting Thread” at Flyertalk, I read Flyertalker Pilatusguy arrived from Toronto the same morning and we decided to meet at the Senator Lounge at Terminal 1 A. Unfortunately his plane was delayed by more than two hours. Business / Frequent Traveller Lounge near Gate A 26 was crowded and now empty seat available. Lounge staff could not give me any new information about Pilatusguy’s flight and therefore I decided to head to the Lounges in Terminal 1 B, as these lounges are less crowded than these in A at this time of the day. I take the pedestrian tunnel, could cut customs by using the iris-can self service facilities. It is always nice to notice the strange views you get by other passengers if one uses this service.

From my experience many passengers did not know how to use it. It is very simple. You need a machine-readable passport and must register at the desk of Bundesgrenzschutz at Terminal A opposite Business and First Class Check-In. It takes less than 10 minutes. Once registered you could always use the Iris scan, which saves you some time, especially if you arrive during rush hour. You must not be a German Citizen, it is open as far as I know to everybody, but up to now, the Iris-Scan Service is only available at customs at Terminal 1 B. There is no need to have status or some similar, it is open to everybody.

Well the Terminal 1 B was crowded, at least the gates B 20 – B 28. But as I wanted to use the Business Lounge near Gate B 48 in the other satellite of the B Terminal no reason to worry about. The lounge was full, but not as crowded as this in Terminal A. There were still some chairs and lounge chairs free and so I got another coffee, some cookies and finished the paper and read a little bit, relaxed, watch the planes and the passengers in the lounge.
Boarding was scheduled for 11.20 and gate was C 13. This means quite a long way to go and therefore I left the lounge at round about 11.00. The B Terminal was still full of passengers, luckily the most used the Skytrain to transfer to Terminal 1 A and so the connection to Terminal 1 C was empty. Security took some minutes but no comparison with the long wait in 2004 on my SQ RTW. I passed it after seven minutes with no need for an additional screening by one of the members of security. Terminal C was not so full, the most planes seems to have already left. C 13 is nearly in Terminal 2. My pass was scanned and dumb questions were asked. Sorry, but did TSA really believe somebody answer a question if he is a member of a terrorist group with “Yes”? Okay, questions answered and given the answers they wanted to hear. I got a new boarding pass. Ground Crew of US Airways (Germans) was not very friendly, I asked if the seat beside me remains empty, as this was what expertflyer.com showed the evening before. I was told they could not see this. Well, I doubt they could not but decided not to discuss this and take a seat in the waiting area. I looked around for the I-94 form, but did not see it. Last time I got it at the boarding counter of C 13 of SQ staff.
Boarding began late at 11.35 with Star Gold and Envoy, followed by families. After this, there was an announcement for all passengers who had not filled out the I-94 form to get this at the boarding desk. It happened, one counter had given this to the passengers, and the other counter (the one where I got my new boarding pass) did not hand it to passengers.

Boarding was by zones and I boarded early, as I was in zone 2 and also got the I-94 form in English and German language when boarding the plane.

12 January 2006
FRA – PHL
[Frankfurt – Philadelphia]
US 781, Airbus A 330-300
12:05 – 15:15 [12:10 – 15:10]
Economy Class
Seat 14 G

As I entered the plane, I noticed there was no flight attendant greeting boarding passengers like Thai Airways, Singapore Airlines or Lufthansa. Okay, I know where my seat was, but he first impression it the impression you will remember. And therefore, US Airways should perhaps change this and place at least one Flight Attendant at the door. Honestly, I saw some minutes later a Flight Attendant at the door greeting the other boarding passengers.

While I passed Envoy Class I noticed this was no fully booked, but less than five seats were free. The seat on this Airbus A 330 – 300 does not look to bad, though no comparison with SQ, NH, CX, BA and LH’s new Business Class. Sitting on my seat in Economy Class I thought about another fellow flyertalker who had been on LH in F to Singapore the day before.

A blanket and a pillow were placed on my seat. I put my jacket and my carry-on in the overhead bin and put everything I need during this flight on the seat beside me and in the pocket of the seat in front of me.

I looked about the features of this plane. There was an inseat monitor in the seat in front of me while the remote unity was as usual in the seat. Therer was also the inseat phone. The armrest could be lifted and there was an adjustable headrest but no footrest. The cabin of the plane looked in some way run down. Several scratches at the seats at the aisle and on the cabin walls and also on the doors to the lavatories. The in-flight magazine was not in very good condition; some pages are missing and some were ripped. The seat had some stains as the carpet in the cabin had.

Nearly 30% of the seats in Economy remained empty and the most passengers had a free seat beside them (so had I). The security announcement was made via in-flight entertainment system.

We pushed back at 12:10 and were airborne at 12:20. We flew in northwest direction to the Netherlands and than to Great Britain and Scotland.

After the fasten seat belt sings were switched off, the Flight Attendants began service. First they began to sell the headphones for 5.00 EUR / 5.00 USD / 3 GBP; I did not buy one, though I had forgotten to bring my own, but had on the one hand plenty to read and on the other hand thought (and still think) this is a rip-off for an intercontinental flight. It is an AVOD system, but films were not very interesting so was the music program and you do not have the bride variation of genres you have on All Nippon Airways or Singapore Airlines, it is more like the system you have on the few LH Airbus planes with in-seat system.

Meanwhile it was 13:00 German time and the Flight Attendants began the food and beverage service. The announcement of the menu was barely understandable, but the words “chicken” and “pasta” one could understand. I took the Pasta. Pasta in this case was seven Tortellini with a sauce tasting neither as pesto nor as tomato sauce. I do not know what sort of sauce this should have been. The pasta were cooked to long (“al dente” would have been at least five minutes earlier). To the Pasta, one got a croissant, a cracker, butter, cheese, some slices of oranges and a mousse. On the positive side, if one ordered a beverage in a can like Coca-Cola, Sprite, etc. one got the whole 0,33 l can which is a nice touch. Spoon, fork and knife were plastic. After the meal there was an additional beverage round with tea and coffee but also soft drinks were offered. As far as I noticed no alcoholic beverage was offered in Economy. A little bit later the trays were collected.

Approximately half an hour later the light was dimmed and one was asked to close the window shade. I will never understand why one should close the window shade on a day flight. The funny thing is, in Business you are not asked to close it (at least on my flights on LH and TG), while in Economy you are. The most passengers used the reading lamp to read or watch a film.
I read and relaxed a little bit, thought about things at work and my job and some projects I have to finish when I return. I also make some notes about the flight.
During the flights, the Flight Attendants did not look about passengers. Once or twice I saw one of them walk trough the cabin. In the back of the plane they have their seats and read or sleep. Also in the back, there were a tray with water and orange juice and some pretzels. I walked several times back to get something to drink.
Lavatories were okay, but not as clean as on other, especially Asian, carriers.

After 7 hours the lights were switched on again and there was another food and beverage service. This time, one got a sandwich and something to drink. The sandwich consists of ham and cheese and tasted like the one you get on a LH flight in Economy.

During the flight there were three announcements by the captain. One was made over Scotland before we headed over the Atlantic, the other was made as we entered American Territory at Portland / Maine and the last one at Long Island before we began our descend into Philadelphia. The flight itself was calm, a few times a little bit bumpy, but especially two hours before touch down we had nearly a blue sky with no cloud and could get some nice views of Long Island and the region between the Atlantic and Philadelphia and of Downtown Philadelphia.

We flew over the harbour of Philadelphia and the Marine Port; I noticed a big passenger ship at Philadelphia but could see it only for a few seconds and therefore I am not sure, but it looks like the Atlantic Liner “United States” (the last ship who got the Blue ribbon for the fastest transatlantic crossing), but I thinks, the United States must be bigger. Perhaps someone could tell which vessel this is ….

We touched down at 15:05 and were at our Gate C 13 five minutes later.

Nobody hold Economy Passengers back, so late Envoy Passengers and Economy Passengers deboarded the same time and headed in direction to Immigration.

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