Düsseldorf International

My parents had offered to bring me to the airport and I accepted this offer, because is was a holiday day in Germany and so public transportation was limited and I would have needed more time to reach the airport. They dropped me off at the Terminal A of Düsseldorf Airport, where Lufthansa and most of the Star Alliance flights depart. The terminal was quite busy, with a lot of people using the Friday for a short holiday. Lines at Economy were quite long, but the First Class and Business Class Counters were emptier than on a regular business days.

I headed for the First Class Check in Counter, where only one agent was busy.

Security took a couple of minutes as only one checkpoint for Business and First Class Counters were in use and passengers were not enforced to use the lines according to the service class they were booked in.

This time, my trolley was not manually searched, although I have had my camera in my hand luggage and soon later I was on the way to the Senator Lounge. I took a seat and read a bit in one of the papers before it finally was time to head down to the gate A 72 where my flight was not yet ready for boarding. After a couple of minutes, passengers on the stand by list for this flight were asked to approach the desk and soon later boarding started.

I used the self boarding machines, where I got a new boarding pass showing an upgrade into Business Class. Okay, but not necessary on this short hop, but since the flight was full in Economy not that bad. It would be nice, if I could get an upgrade for the longhaul, too, but it does not looked as it would happen, since the flight from Munich to Montreal was not that full as I was told during check in. I later discovered, that this upgrade even caused the loss of my exit row seat …

03 June 2010
DUS – MUC
[Düsseldorf International – Munich Franz-Josef-Strauß]
LH 833 (Lufthansa); Airbus A 321 (D-AISH)
Gate A 72
09:25 – 10:35 [effective 09:46 – 10:43]
Business Class
Seat 04 A

I stored my belongings in the overhead compartment and under the seat in front of me and waited for the remaining passengers to board the flight. The flight was full in Economy with a few open seats in Business Class.

The captain came over the intercom quite early and welcomed us onboard. Unfortunately he informed us about a delay in Düsseldorf. We had to wait 25 minutes at the gate before we were finally allowed to take off. Only one runway was in use, the reason might be, that Düsseldorf was expecting to get the A 380 for inflight test flights of Lufthansa.

The crew offered magazines,refreshing tissues and chocolate while waiting for the push back. The the safety demonstration was done while we were still standing at the gate.

Finally at 09:46 we were pushed back and taxied to the runway.

We took of in Eastern direction 9 minutes after we were pushed back and climbed in the sunny sky above Düsseldorf. I continued reading in the magazine I was offered and took a few pictures while we took off. After six or seven minutes the seat belt signs were switched off and the crew began with the preparation for the service. I started my laptop and looked about connections to Chicago for the lady sitting on the aisle seat, as her connection was quite tight with the delay.

In Business Class a breakfast, which consists of sandwich and yoghurt were offered, but I declined the offerings and only took a glass of water during the soon following beverage round. The crew were attentive and I was addressed by name.

The captain came over the microphone and told us he tried to safe some time by flying faster and gave us also an updated weather information for Munich.

Later, the crew collected the items from the beverage service and began to prepare the cabin for the arrival in Munich.

Fasten Seat belt signs were turned on again, too.

We landed in Munich at 10:43 and had a short taxi to our gate G 4. I disembarked the plane and called rcs85551, who already had arrived at Munich and was waiting in the First Class Lounge for me.

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