Frankfurt to Singapore on Skytrax’s
most controversial five-star airline
TRANSIT IN
FRANKFURT
We arrived 20 minutes later than our scheduled arrival time from Dresden,
which left us with just over an hour to explore the non-Schengan
(international) deck of the airport.
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| Transit in FRA |
The experience at Frankfurt was generally alright, though not outstanding. While the other members of my traveling party made a beeline for the McDonald’s near the departure gate for the second leg of our journey home, I chose to indulge in planespotting across the terminal.
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| Transit in FRA |
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| D-AIZN, LH A320 |
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| D-AISW 'Stade', LH A321 |
Frankfurt
Airport was a great airport for planespotting, though it gets considerably more
difficult at night as interior lights tend to interfere in photos taken from
the terminal.
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| LH A320 |
Eventually,
after walking for about 15 minutes from the passport control, I arrived at our
gate and managed to spot our aircraft being prepared for the 12-hour journey to
Singapore.
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| D-AMIK 'Dusseldorf', LH A380 |
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| FRA airside |
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| FRA airside |
There was
a little cluster of shops right outside our gate, at which I spent all of my
remaining Euros on chocolates and snacks for friends back home.
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| FRA airside |
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| FRA airside |
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| FRA airside |
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| FRA airside |
Eventually,
I settled down at a quiet area near our gate and started on this report.
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| FRA airside |
As a
prime example of German efficiency, boarding started on time, 40 minutes before
the scheduled departure time. Priority boarding was enforced, with passengers
in First and Business class boarding first, followed by Economy class
passengers on the upper deck, Premium Economy class, and eventually the rest of
us seated on the lower deck.
FLIGHT DETAILS
Flight
route: Frankfurt Airport (FRA/EDDF) to Singapore Changi Airport (SIN/WSSS)
Flight: LH
778
Aircraft
type: Airbus A380-841
Aircraft registration:
D-AIMK “Düsseldorf”
Gate at
origin: Z54
Gate at
destination: E28
Cabin:
Economy
Seat: 62A
Cabin
Load Factor: 85%
Scheduled
flight duration: 12:40
Actual
flight duration: 12:05
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| Credits to their respective owners. |
BOARDING
I boarded
through door L2 on the main deck and was directed to turn right and proceed
down the aisle by the cabin crew serving our section for this flight. I had
read about another avgeek’s rather amusing experience with his set of cabin
crew when he greeted them in German and I wanted to try it out for myself…
…”Hallo,
guten abend!” I muttered at the door. Similar to his experience, that was
enough for the crew to respond with a string of greetings and instructions in
German (though I must admit I had no idea what 95% of whatever they said
meant). To which, I could only gather a simple “okay, danke!” and made my way
(rather embarrassingly down the cabin…
Similar
to other airlines, the Economy class cabin on the main deck of Lufthansa’s A380
was arranged in a 3-4-3 configuration. I was one of the last passengers to
board the aircraft and was disappointed not to get a ‘clean’ photo of the
cabin.
SEAT FEATURES
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| LH A380 EY seat |
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| LH A380 EY seat |
In
addition, there were a pair of standard economy class earphones, a soft pillow
and a thin blanket waiting at the seat. The headphone jack in the armrest was
two-pronged, and for this I brought my converter along and used my own
earphones for the flight. The blanket was far too thin to be of any use, though
I did appreciate the rather firm and comfortable pillow.
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| LH A380 EY seat |
In-flight
entertainment consisted of a personal touchscreen-enabled TV screen, which I
found too slow to be used efficiently. There were brief moments of lag when a
selection was made, and I eventually gave up using the IFE altogether early in
the flight, resorting to catching up on Netflix dramas on my iPad.
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| LH A380 EY PTV |
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| LH A380 EY PTV |
I did,
however, enjoy the views from the tail-mounted camera on the aircraft. This was
something that Singapore Airlines has stubbornly refused to make available on
their fleet, though I suspect is due to legislative reasons and security
concerns.
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| LH A380 tail-mounted camera |
The seat
pocket was stocked with the usual literature one would expect when flying
long-haul on any full-service carrier.
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| LH A380 EY seat pocket contents |
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| LH A380 EY seat pocket contents |
The tray
table was a fairly standard economy class table. Sturdy enough for tablets and
meal trays though I’d think it over before doing any work on a laptop on it.
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| LH A380 EY seat |
The doors
were closed ten minutes before our scheduled departure time. Lo and behold, the
middle seat between me and my seat mate remained empty and we chuckled to
ourselves as soon as the announcement was made. Praise God!
DEPARTURE
At the
scheduled departure time, Captain Schneider came on the microphone to apologise
for a delay to our departure time. It was approaching the busiest time of the
night at Frankfurt Airport, and we were projected to wait for a further 15
minutes before pushback. I was somewhat certain I heard some groans coming from
the cabin as the announcement was made in German, though I could be wrong…
Captain
Schneider took this opportunity to introduce himself and his crew for the
flight, which consists of four flight deck crew and 22 cabin crew, led by
Purser Dahlia. Despite the delay, we were still projected to arrive in
Singapore ahead of schedule by 30 minutes. I suppose one way airlines get away
from delay charges is to block a greater flight duration than it is in reality.
Our route
would take us over the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Turkmenistan,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, before making our entry to Southeast
Asia through Myanmar and Thailand. The climb out from Frankfurt would take us
to FL330 initially (33000ft above sea level), before making the rest of the
cruise at FL390 once we get lighter.
We pushed
back 15 minutes later, just as the safety information video was shown.
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| LH A380 EY PTV |
The video
was informative and functional, but lacked any character or flair worth
remembering.
We made a
rather long taxi to our departure runway at runway 18, and were fifth in line
behind a Lufthansa 747-8, a Lufthansa A340-600, a delayed ANA 777-300ER and a
TAP Portugal A321.
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| LH A380 tail-mounted camera |
Eventually,
it got to our turn.
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| Departure from FRA RWY 18 |
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| LH A380 tail-mounted camera |
POST DEPARTURE SERVICE
I dozed
off for the next 20 minutes, and woke up just as post-departure beverages and
snacks were served. I requested for a can of American champagne and a cup of water, to go along with the salted
crackers
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| LH A380 EY post-departure beverages |
As supper
was about to be served, I decided to explore the IFE for the duration of the
meal service and settled on Good Morning,
Vietnam, a 1987 comedy-drama starring the late Robin Williams.
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| LH A380 EY PTV |
FIRST MEAL SERVICE
The crew
came down the aisle once again 45 minutes after departure to serve supper.
Unlike SQ, there were no menu cards in Economy class and passengers only know
about the options as the crew went down the aisle. Tonight’s options for the
entrée consisted of a western option of beef with penne pasta or an Asian
chicken with rice. I elected to go with the beef.
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| LH EY supper |
Just as
in Economy class on most airlines, everything was served on a single tray. To
go along with the entrée, there was a simple appetiser of salad with Thousand
Island dressing, some fruits and a roll of bread.
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| LH EY supper |
While the
appetiser and fruits were rather ordinary, I found that the entrée tasted
better than it looked. Though one should not expect too much especially when
meals in Economy class tend to be food reheated and served in the same
aluminium trays on most airlines. Lufthansa was no exception.
I tend to
enjoy military-themed movies and tv series, such as The Pacific, Band of Brothers,
and even Descendents of The Sun. Good Morning, Vietnam however was far too
draggy for my liking and instead I indulged in a bit of delayed Champions
League action through one of the LiveTV channels on the IFE.
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| LH A380 EY PTV |
The meal
service ended 30 minutes later, and our trays were cleared. The crew then went
down offering coffee, tea and a range of digestifs as the lights were dimmed
for the night. I decided to go with a cup of Bailey’s on the rocks to go with a
small cube of Ritter Sport from supper.
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| LH EY disgestif |
I liked
that the crew were friendly and efficient, and managed to complete the entire
supper service in Economy Class within 45 minutes – from serving the
post-departure beverages till the last meal trays were cleared. Passengers were
thus allowed to rest as early as possible as the cabin lights were dimmed with
ten hours remaining to Singapore.
CRUISE
I tried
to get some sleep right after. The empty middle seat helped too, as my seatmate
on the aisle and I had plenty of space to sprawl out and get ever slightly more comfortable on this
long-haul, red-eye flight.
I woke up
five hours later, over Bangladesh, and decided to go on a short tour of the
cabin.
The
toilets are located between the first and second economy class cabins. The
lavatories were in good condition at this phase of the flight – though I could
not say the same of it during my visit at the end of the flight.
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| LH A380 EY lavatory |
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| LH A380 EY lavatory |
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| LH A380 |
I headed
back to my seat and saw that the crew have very nicely set up a self-serve
snack area in the galley, offering packaged pretzels, fruit juices, water,
coffee and tea, and cup noodles. Not too shabby a selection for economy class, but it could do with more variety in my opinion.
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| LH A380 EY self-serve snack bar |
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| LH A380 EY self-serve snack bar |
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| LH A380 EY self-serve snack bar |
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| LH A380 EY self-serve snack bar |
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| LH A380 EY self-serve snack bar |
I
returned to my seat and carried on watching The
Originals on Netflix.
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| LH A380 |
SECOND MEAL SERVICE
The cabin
lights were turned up about two hours prior to landing in anticipation of the
second meal service. The crew came down the aisle offering juices and
coffee/tea before passing by 15 minutes later to serve breakfast.
For
breakfast there was a single option – scrambled eggs with spinach and sausages.
This was served on a tray with a bread roll and yoghurt.
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| LH EY breakfast |
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| LH EY breakfast |
The eggs
were runny, but not fantastic. The same could be said of packaged yoghurt. The rest of the
accompaniments were pretty bland (especially the spinach) and I didn’t touch
too much of it.
The crew
came round again to clear our trays with just under 90 minutes to go before
arrival.
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| LH A380 EY PTV |
DESCENT
I went
around the cabin once again after breakfast, hoping to get some cabin shots in
the day.
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| LH A380 forward EY cabin |
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| LH A380 mid EY cabin |
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| LH A380 aft EY cabin |
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| LH A380 upper deck EY cabin |
We had
just about an hour to go as we were passing into Malaysian airspace, and I got
started on Midnight Diner, a Netflix
series set in a Tokyo diner that focuses on a different story every episode, often
based on one customer who shares their story with the owner and chef, known
simply as Master. Episodes are also
named according to the favorite dish of the character in that episode, which is
also the dish requested at the diner by that character, e.g. Tan-men, Tonteki and Tamago Tofu
I really
enjoyed the pilot of the series, and caught up with the rest of the season over
the next few days after the flight.
We
started our descent proper at about 4pm Singapore time. Captain Schneider came
on the microphone again and announced that we will land at 4:40pm local time.
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| LH A380 |
We got
lower and lower, and before long the seatbelt signs were turned on and the cabin
crew went round again to prepare the cabin for arrival.
I
switched my IFE screen to the tail camera and took in some fresh perspectives
of an otherwise ordinary landing in Singapore.
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| LH A380 tail-mounted camera |
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| LH A380 arrival in SIN |
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| LH A380 arrival in SIN |
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| Basic Military Training Centre, Pulau Tekong |
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| LH A380 tail-mounted camera |
We
touched down on runway 20R at 4:35pm local time, to some challenging winds from
the south (hence the slight crabbing
and lateral drift you see in the photo above).
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| OH-LWC, Finnair A359 |
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| A6-EEK, Emirates A380 |
We had a
fairly long taxi on the parallel taxiway all the way to our gate on the other side of the airport. We
arrived at our assigned gate at gate E8 in Terminal 2 ten minutes later.
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| LH A380 nose-mounted camera |
ARRIVAL
As we
were parked at the tip of the ‘E’ pier in T2, I had about 10 minutes of walking
to do from the gate to immigration. Along the way, I passed by some interesting
sights in what is otherwise the most boring and plain terminal in Changi.
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| 9V-MSA, SilkAir's very first Boeing 737-8MAX |
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| D-AIXC, LH A359 |
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| SIN T2 |
The
arrival process was quick, seamless and efficient, as is with every arrival in
Singapore. There were no queues at immigration, which is surprisingly
considering how T2 tends to pick in the late afternoon with European arrivals
to Singapore.
I waited
about five minutes for my baggage, and was out of the terminal on a cab at
5:05pm. Changi Efficiency at its
finest!
CONCLUSION
I felt
that Lufthansa exceeded my expectations on this flight, just as it did on the
outbound to Frankfurt a month prior. Though I might feel this way as I did not
carry high expectations of European carriers from the onset.
I felt
that the service rendered was pleasant. The crew were friendly, efficient and
did their best to engage passengers keen on conversations with some small
chit-chat as they made their rounds. Even with a considerably healthy load in
economy class, the crew did well and were consistent with their customer
service throughout the flight.
The food
served was good for economy class, though some parts of the breakfast entrée
could do with a tad more seasoning. I am a fan of self-serve snack bars on
long-haul flights, and following the flight I felt that Lufthansa has some work
cut out for them in that department – in terms of variety and quality of snacks
offered.
Overall,
Lufthansa serves as a cheaper alternative you could consider when planning
trips from Singapore or the region to Europe.
Thank you
for reading this report, and as always your feedback and comments are
appreciated!
What do you consider to be the single most important factor when choosing an airline for long-haul travel?
