Flying | Eating | Sleeping

Etihad Pearl Business Class: London to Tokyo via Abu Dhabi and Sydney to London via Abu Dhabi

Fly Eat Sleep — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:31:27 +0000

Changing planes in Abu Dhabi makes for a long journey to Tokyo, but Eithad's open-jaw tickets meant that it was the most cost effective option when I was planning a complitcated trip. Besides, I was also curious to try out Etihad and, as a side benefit, their flight arrives in Tokyo mid-afternoon; most of the European carriers arrive early in the morning, which makes mitigating jet lag all that harder and can add expense if you want to check-in to your hotel early.

Etihad operates from Terminal 4 at Heathrow. Having not used T4 since BA moved out a few years ago, I was expecting it to be a rather sleepy, half empty building - I've often taxied past it and been surprised at how few aircraft are parked there. I've clearly not been looking at the right time; early in the morning it was a zoo. We hit very slow moving traffic a couple of kilometers from the terminal - I assumed there had been an accident, but it was, in fact, the queue to enter the drop-off zone; I don't remember this happening even when the place was packed to bursting by BA.

Check-in lines snaked in every possible direction from all manner of airlines, but, thankfully, there was no line at Etihad's premium check-in area. I was quickly checked through to Tokyo and on my way, armed with a lounge invitation and a pass for fast-track security. Now, while there weren't many people waiting to use the fast track line, those that were seemed, for the most part, pretty determined to slow the process down as much as possible. Given the traffic delays and wait at secutrity, by the time I reached Etihad's lounge, I had gven up hope of having time to take advantage of the spa services they offer.

Etihad's T4 lounge isn't huge, but it's pretty impressive. There a common facility for both first and business class, but I can't see many first class passengers feeling short-changed.

I grabbed a table in the dining room and ordered breakfst pancakes. While I was waiting for the food, something extraordinary happened; a staff member from the spa wandered around the asking if anybody would like to book treatments. With the exception of Thai's First Class facility, my experience of airline spas has always been that you have to turn up hours in advance to have any chance of securing a treatment before your flight leaves, yet here was an Etihad employee actively offering slots (in fairness, I am led to beleive that BA now allows online booking in advance). Assuming that I woudn't have time, I declined, but my pancakes arrived far quicker than expected. Once I'd finished eating, I wandered over to the spa and asked if there was still availability. At first, the receptionist told me that nothing was available (my flight was leaving in 45 minutes), but then a passing therapist said that if I felt like a pedicure and was ready now, she'd fit me in. By this stage, I was coming to the conclusion that Etihad could do no wrong.

After 20 minutes, I was collecting my things together and heading towards the aircraft. This flight was operated by an A340-600 featuring Etihad's newest business class seat; distinguishable from the earlier version because it's coloured tan and black, rather than various hues of teal. The newer version also has more storage space, something I'd come to appreciate on subsequent flights. Both versions of the seat are fully flat and are in a staggered layout which gives aisle access to everybody, although the seaths closest to the window offer much more privacy than those on the aisle.

One quirk of the seats that should be noted is that the table is in a fixed position which, at first, seems rather far away from the seat when you're trying to eat. During the second flight, I realised that the entire seat could be moved forward or back, in the upright position; effectively bringing you closer to the food. This isn't communicated well (or, indeed, at all) by Etihad and I did notice some older passengers on one of the sectors struggling to eat.

Once onboard, Champagne was quickly served and the stewardes suggested that, as the flight wasn't full, I should move to one of the better window seats.

Once airborne, the Champagne continued to flow, now accompanied by miniature chicken kebabs.

Lunch service started without any delay. Like Qatar Airways, Etihad offer an Arabic meze as an appetiser option on all flights; in general it was fine, but not, I think, as good as Qatar's version. The chicken breast in a curry sauce was, on the other hand, one of the tastiest dishes I've eaten on a plane.

After a dessert of chocolate ice cream, I tried to catch up on some reading, but found myself dosing off in the, extremely comfortable, seats.

Terminal 3 at Abu Dhabi isn't huge, so connecting is no problem. It does, however, seem to be bursting at the seams despite being a recent addition to the airport. With many flights leaving during the evening peak, the business class lounge was packed, although there were a few seats available. There's a wide selection of food on offer, as well as complimentary drinks from a staffed bar.

My onward flight, to Narita, was operated by a slightly smaller A340-500, this time fitted with the slightly older, teal colured, business class seat. Indeed, all subsequent flights featured the older product. While the general arrangement and spacing is the same, this older seat really does offer absolutely no storage space. There's a small slot for the safety card and that's it. The table is also slightly smaller. I know that magazine racks and table size seem like small issues when you have a fully-flat seat, but coming straight after a flight with the newer seat, both were very noticeable.

Given the late hour of departure, I was happy that the dinner service, again, started soon after we left the ground. The food on this flight was less impressive than on the previous sector. The champagne was served by a curious (bad curious, not pleasant curious) "sushi noodle roll" - basically cold noodles wraped in nori.

I was dull and went with the mezze again, then ordered a fried fish dish as a main - the best of a bad bunch. Why do airlines insist on offering anything fried in batter when they must know that reheating just turns the batter to a greasy mush? Dessert, chocolate cookie cheesecake, was the highlight of a fairly unimpressive meal.

Service on both the London to Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi to Tokyo flights was efficient and courteous, if not particuarly friendly or proactive. The return journey, from Syndey, was more of a mixed bag.

Check-in at Sydney was chaos. It was shortly before Christmas, which is why, I suppose, so many people had turned up with ludicrous quantities of luggage, slowing down the wntire process. The line for economy check-in looked to be endless. I waited half an hour to check-in for business class, and I saw people waiting at least fifteen minutes at the first class desk. Not a great start. Meanwhile, somebody spent twenty minutes having a screaming match (and I'm talking about howling like an injured animal) with Etihad staff about, it seemed, an expired passport. All in all, not a great airport experience.

When I finally reached the check-in desk, I made a half-hearted enquiry about the possibility of upgrading to first, only to be told that every seat, in every class, was full. Etihad use Air New Zealand's lounge at Sydney, which isn't particularly exciting, but does have great views of the airfield and fast wifi.

Onboard the aircraft (another A340-600) the older business class seats were visibly worn. Sitting down for a fourteen hour flight, on which I intended to sleep for at least ten hours, something felt wrong. I soon realised that the cusioning on the seat back had been worn thin by use, to the point where the underlying structure of the seat was pushing into my back in a few palces. I mentioned this to a passing cabin attendant who told me that, as the flight was full, there was little he could do, but that he'd check if there were any spare mattresses in first class. I never heard from him again. Indeed, for the most part, service was pretty poor for most of this flight. The crew were all very young and very reluctant to leave the galley.

In the fully reclined position, the hard points in the seat back were not as prominent, so I did manage some sleep. The food on this flight, the longest of the four I took with Etihad, wasn't great. I thought I was playing it safe by ordering the mezze again (that's not as boring as it sounds, two weeks had passed since I arrived in Japan), but the offering on this flight was a poor shaow of that served on the outbound sectors, while the steak main was tough and tastless.

Before landing I had a steak sandwich from the "anytime" menu; greasy, chewy and unpleasant.

We seemed to be the first arrival into Abu Dhabi, so breezed through security before dawn and into an empty lounge. I arranged to have a shower and a shoulder massage. As in London, the spa treatment was excellent. In the time remaining before my final flight back to London, I tried to catch up on news and such like, but the lounge wifi is so slow as to be useless.

My heart sank when, walking to the gate, I realised that the onward flight was aboard the same, tired, aircraft I'd just arrived on. Thankfully, I was in a different seat that was in much better shape.

From the outset, the service onthis flight was excellent, a vast improvement on the crew that brought us from Sydney. Indeed, things started terrifically on the ground as the Champagne was poured with an "apology"; the (non-vintage) Mumm on the wine list was out of stock, so they were serving Veuve Cliquot Vintage Reserve from the first class selection. The food, however, wasn't great, a fact the crew seemed aware of - the lady serving me, without directly criticising any of the food, very diplomatically guided me away from some of the options on the menu. I should have paid more attention later on when, despite the polite grimace from the stewardess, I ordered the duck main course for lunch - it was predictably hateful

Let's give Etihad the benefit of the doubt and say that the chaos in Sydney was a function of Christmas travel and that the badly worn seat was an anomoly which will be eliminated as the new business class is fitted across the fleet. All things considered, they offer a business class seat that's comfier than most at a competitive price. Service with the odd exception, is great, but it's efficient and Abu Dhabi is also a reasonable airport to connect in.

If I was going to Australia again and they were still competitive on price and timings, would I fly with them? Probably, yes. Are Etihad, as they advertise, one of the world's leading airlines? Absolutely not.

While some aspects of the experience were excellent, notably the ground service at Heathrow and both spa treatments, there's just too much inconsistency in the quality of the onboard service and food, as well as small things (e.g., lounge wifi) that should be easily fixed. And yes, I know that picking holes in business class flights is the very definition of a non-problem, all I'm tryng to do is offer an accurate picture of the reality behind Etihad's PR.

Thai First Class Spa, Bangkok

Fly Eat Sleep — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Despite being downgraded to business class, Thai still gave me the full first class treatment when I transited through Bangkok. I can't lie - the whole experience was fantastic.

For reasons known only to Thai, after landing, our aircraft taxied past dozens of empty gates before parking at a remote stand, forcing most of the passengers to wait for buses. I, on the other hand, was met at the door and escorted to a waiting minibus. Once we reached the terminal, a golf buggy sped through the long councourses at Bangkok, paused to clear security, then droped me at the First Class Spa lounge.

Thai's Bangkok ground service is famous for the spa treatments offered to First Class passengers. I didn't quite have time for the full body massage, but the 45-minute long neck and shoulder massage managed to undo some of the damage caused by too many nights sleeping on planes.

Back in the lounge, I ordered a plate of Pad Thai from the long menu and enjoyed a few drinks before heading on to Melbourne. In addition to the spa, the lounge has plenty on comfortable sofas, tasty food and decent wifi.

In addition to its spa facilities, Thai is also famous for switching aircraft at the last minute, but I was stunned at how many people in the lounge were being handed cash compensation after being downgraded from first.

The lounge facilities in Bangkok mean that Thai has to be a serious contendor when using Star Alliance miles for a flight to Asia or Australia, but don't count on flying in the seat you expected to.

ANA Suites Lounge, Tokyo Haneda

Fly Eat Sleep — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

The Suite's Lounge is ANA's first class facility at Haneda's new international terminal; I was there as a Thai passenger.

The lounge offers great views across Haneda's buslting apron and has plenty of gorgeous furniture to work or relax on.

Serivice is enthusiastic, but the food and drink isn't, perhaps, what you might expect at an airline's flagship first class facility. In particular, it was clear that the food was no longer being replenished - it was late at night, but there were still a slew of international flights yet to depart.

Hotel Metropolitan Marunouchi, Tokyo

Fly Eat Sleep — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:20:16 +0000

Booking hotels in Japan can be slightly intimidating - the majority of hotels are run by domestic chains, unknown in the west, while the well known properties (Park Hyatt, Peninsula et. al.) are eye-wateringly expensive.

The Metropolitain Marunouchi is a great choice in Tokyo. It occupies the top floors of the Sapia tower, so every room has great views, while the location can't be beat. Sapia Tower is part of the Tokyo Station City development, a minute's walk from the Shinkansen platforms at Tokyo Station and practically on top of a metro station. Trains on the Yamanote and Chuo Lines (which, respectively, orbit and bisect central Tokyo) are five minutes from the lobby, while a ten minute voyage riding a variety of escalators has you on the Narita Express and bound for the airport. One change, from the Yamanote Line, connects you to the Tokyo Monorail and Haneda Airport.

Food and drinks within the hotel are both limited and expensive, but there are a variety of malls offering better choices close by.

Service is friendly and efficient while the rooms are clean, well furnished and, by Tokyo's standards, large.

What more could you ask for?

Thai Business Class: Tokyo Haneda to Melbourne, via Bangkok

Fly Eat Sleep — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Reaching Australia from Japan is surprisingly difficult. Both QANTAS and JAL operate daily flights from Narita to Sydney, but both take-off around 7pm which doesn't leave nearly enough time to reach distant Narita after working a full day in Tokyo and would still require a connection to reach Melbourne. Rather than spend another night in Japan, I decided to take an indirect flight to Melbourne from Haneda, a short monorail ride from my hotel.

Through a quirk of BMI's (presumably, soon to disappear) award chart, Star Alliance connections between Japan and Australia are priced as a regional flight, so a business class ticket, on sale for over £3000, was snapped up for a handful of miles and a touch over £200. Predictably, there was no award availability on Singapore Airlines, but I was happy to be ticketed on Thai.

A few weeks before the flight was due to leave, I noticed that Thai had switched the aircraft on the Haneda to Bangkok sector from a two-class A340-500 to one of the 3-class 777-300ERs that they have leased from Jet Airways and which feature that airline's massive, fully-enclosed, first class suite. A few, admittedly rather tortuous, calls to BMI, £70 and another smattering of miles later, and I was upgraded to First. Even though the Bangkok to Melbourne sector was still on a two-class aircraft, I figured it was worth it – not only for the suite, but because I had a four hour connection in Bangkok and Thai's first class facilities there are the stuff of legend.

After a week of exceptionally long hours in Tokyo, I was actually pretty excited about the prospect of the sleep I imagined I'd be able to catch in first class. A few hours before the flight, I tried to check-in online, only to be met with an error screen and a message asking me to call Thai. After some confusion, it emerged that Thai had, yet again, changed the aircraft on this route and were now using a two-class 777-300. Bye bye first class suite and Bangkok First Class Spa.

As it happens, when I started checking-in at Haneda, the station manager suddenly appeared and asked if I was aware of the aircraft change. He then went on to apologise profusely for the downgrade, before handing me a pass for ANA's First Class Suites lounge at Haneda. A minute or two later, toying with my lounge pass, I thought I'd chance my luck and enquired if I was still entitled to first class ground services in Bangkok. After five minutes of hushed conversations and much consulting of ring binders, I was assured that a call would be made and the first class team in Bangkok would be expecting me. Excellent.

I'll cover the ANA Suites Lounge and Thai's first class services at Bangkok in subsequent posts.

Preamble over, what was Thai business class like? In truth, varied and middling.

The sector from Haneda to Bangkok featured the older, seven-abreast, seating product. The seat itself was actually not too uncomfortable and I did dose for a few hours. The service on this flight, despite the fact that it was completely packed, was exceptional. I'm not sure if it was because I was being given preferential treatment after being downgraded from first, but I was hugely impressed.

The onward flight, to Melbourne, wasn't nearly as impressive. First of all, Thai's latest business class seat, as installed on this aircraft, is uncomfortable – there is a hard ridge in the middle of the seat cushion itself. Furthermore, despite being only six-abreast, the seat doesn't seem to be any wider – it looks as if Thai have just removed the middle seat and made the aisles very spacious. Both of the Thai seats I tried are angled lie-flat rather than fully-flat. The business class cabin was almost empty, but service still seemed to be unenthusiastic and the food was a disappointment.

I didn't really eat much between Tokyo and Bangkok, so can't really comment on the food offered. Service between Bangkok and Melbourne started reasonably well, with a pre-dinner snack of minced chicken on rice crackers.

The full meal service opened with a seafood salad that, while presented well, didn't actually taste very good. The main (below) was most dissappointing - not only was the massaman curry tasteless, but the crew didn't bother to plate it. As I said, the business class cabin was practically empty, so nobody was being rushed into cutting corners.

Reasonable presentation returned with the final course, of fruit and underwhelming cheese. Breakfast was offered an hour or so before landing in Melbourne late in the evening - none of it looked at all appetising, so I passed.

Thai's business class passengers are given access to the fast-track immigration line at Melbourne - a boon as the main line was a scrum.

2012 - Less flying, more eating and sleeping

Fly Eat Sleep — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:45:47 +0000

I've flown almost 110,000 miles in 2011. Of those, only the 20,000 miles shown below have been unrelated to work.

A few weeks into 2012, I'm swapping the job that has generated 90% of 2011's travel for a new role, based entirely in London. Clearly, this means a lot less in the way of flights to write about. In all probablility, there will be more discretionary travel in the coming years, but that's not going to come close to the milage I've been doing since 2008, so the content of this blog is going to be substantially re-balanced.

That's probably a good thing - I fear the last six months haven't offered up anything too interesting for the few of you that follow these random musings. In theory, spending fewer weekends waiting for conncting flights means much more time for eating out in London, exploring the UK and weekend breaks in Europe; I'll try and post about the most interesting things we stumble across.

In the mean time, I still have a slight backlog of posts to catch up on, so January should include, amongst other things, reviews of Etihad business class and Thai's First Class Spa in Bangkok.

The last few years of travel (see below) have been interesting, but I think most of us reach a limit of tolerance when it's best to quit. Somewhere, about eighteen months ago, all the cities, airports and hotels started to lok and feel identical. I'm hoping that by cutting right down on the amount of travel I do, I'll start to enjoy it again.

TAM Shuttle: Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro

Fly Eat Sleep — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:07:36 +0000

Both Sao Paulo and Rio have downtown airports which are extremely convenient for domestic flights. Congonhas, in Sao Paulo, is in the middle of the city, surrounded on all sides by dense housing, offices and warehouses. In contrast, Rio's Santos Dumont sits on the seafront, creating some of the most scenic approaches and take-offs imagineable - be sure to snag a window seat.

Curiously, in stark relief to the mayhem prevalent at Sao Paulo's main international Airport, both Congonhas and Santos Dumont give the impression of calm, if crowded, efficiency. Similarly, in contrast to the dissapointment of their long-haul business class product, TAM's shuttle between the two cities includes a busy crew rushing to serve refreshments and snacks during the short flight.

Searching for flights between Congonhas and Santos Dumont on Kayak, Expedia or any of the other UK agents will return plenty of results, usually at a similar (high) price, but only on TAM, who offer a half-hourly frequency for most of the day. GOL also offer a half-hourly service, while WebJet (soon to be swalloed by GOL) and Avianca offer less frequent servce.

Visiting the websites of TAM, GOL, WebJet or Avianca will yield any number of flights at fares far below those being offered by TAM through European agents. These exisit only to tease you. It seems that the websites of Brazilian airlines will only accept domestically issued credit and debit cards. At first I assumed that my poor (well, non-existant) grasp of Portuguese was the problem - many of the "English" websites revert back to Portuguese at the payment screens, but a Portuguese colleague had similar issues. Together, we spent hours trying to book cheaper tickets, first on GOL then on Avianca, trying a variety of credit and debit cards with absoltely no joy.

I can almost understand that some payment systems only accept local cards, but why aren't GOL or Avianca offering fares through the global distribution systems, even at a slight premium to those booked dorectly on their websites?

TAM Business Class: Frankfurt to Sao Paulo

Fly Eat Sleep — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Flights to Sao Paulo are at a premium these days since Brazil’s ongoing failure to upgrade airport infrastructure, coupled with a booming economy, has ensured that demand has overwhelmed supply. Both British Airways and TAM offer non-stop flights from London to Sao Paulo, but business class fares are significantly lower if you can stand a stop in Europe.

The lowest fares are normally with TAP via Lisbon, while Iberia can also be good value through Madrid. Beware that, in addition to the main airport at Guarulhos, TAP also serves Sao Paulo’s secondary airport at Viracopos; a hub for Azul’s domestic flights, but not too convenient for anything else. If a travel agent offers you an unfeasibly cheap TAP flight to Sao Paulo, ask them to double check the airport code, GRU is the main airport, VCP refers to Viracopos and few agents seem to be aware of it’s existence; an American Express agent spent 20 minutes assuring me that a flight was heading to “the city’s only airport”.

As it happens, American Express had an offer on a flight via Frankfurt. Lufthansa and TAM flights from Frankfurt carry each other’s code and leave at very similar times. There was, however, a steeper discount on the ticket if I opted for the TAM operated flight. As Lufthansa’s business class is wholly unremarkable, and I’d never tried TAM, I thought it was time for a new experience.

Wondering why I’ve rattled on for an age about airline fares? That would be because I’ve nothing polite to say about the flights. The seats are a fairly standard angled-flat product, but it is seven-abreast on the 777s; the dreaded middle seat is alive and well in Brazil.

The food was actively unpleasant - the mystery chicken dish, pictured above, was actually the high point. Throughout both flights, service was minimal. Before each take-off the crew solicited orders for drinks after take-off, then didn’t bother to serve them. On the outbound flight, the crew didn’t serve anyone anything until they were dishing-up food, 90 minutes out of Frankfurt. Empty drinks glasses and bottles sat, unmoved, for over eight hours at one point. The entire impression was one of crews doing as little as they could possibly get away with.

TAM’s lounge offering in Sao Paulo is so appalling as to be comical. The business class lounge has, perhaps, thirty seats. In the evening rush, with flights leaving in quick succession to a variety of European and American destinations, the lounge was a zoo. People were sharing seats and sitting in the floor space between them. Inexplicably, despite the obvious shortage of space, the lounge features a grand piano. As the receptionist was apologising to another customer about the unavailability of toilet roll, I turned around and used Priority Pass to access the United Lounge.

United’s Red Carpet Club is much larger than TAM’s lounge, but was also packed and chaotic. The guy at reception did say that seats should become available when the flight to Chicago was boarding and, sure enough, a boarding call a few minutes later emptied the room. However, having bashed TAM, I should mention that United’s facility was visibly filthy (sofas you stick to) and ran out of basics; like glasses and water.Guarulhos airport is amongst the world’s most cramped, TAM can’t really be blamed for this. The dreadful standards of on-board service and woeful food, are, however, cause to avoid TAM as much as possible.

Lufthansa First Class: Washington Dulles to Frankfurt

Fly Eat Sleep — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Given that this is the second Lufthansa First segment this year (I know, I know...), I'll focus on the big difference between the flights. Specifically, this flight featured one of Lufthansa's new First Class seats.

Lufthansa is doing something rather odd with it's First Class product - installing three variations of a new cabin in different aircraft. Deliveries of their A380 aircraft come with the standard new seat, which appears to be a re-working of the old layout with more contemporary materials and a larger screen. I understand that this cabin also includes personal storage lockers, which is really the only thing that differentiates the product from that being installed, slowly, as A340 and A330 aircraft are refurbished. Rumour would have it that this is also the cabin that will feature on the airline's new 747-8 aircraft.

The third, and most radical version, is being retro-fitted to Lufthansa's older 747-400s. It seems that, as new aircraft arrive, the oldest 747s will be retired, some will be converted to a high-density layout, with no first class, for leisure routes, and a small subfleet will feature the, amazing, product I'm about to tell you about.

Before we go into more detail though, it should be noted that the chances of enjoying one of Lufthansa's new First Class products are slim, unless you're flying a route operated by the A380. As far as I can tell, at the time of writing, the proportion of aircraft which feature the new seats are:

A330-300 - 0 of 15
A340-300 - 1 of 26
A340-600 - 2 of 24
A380-800 - 8 of 8
B747-400 - 10 of 30.

It seems that, to date, the refurbished aircraft all work on routes out of Frankfurt, so you have no chance if booked through Munich or Dusseldorf.

Given those odds, it was a massive treat to board the plane in Washington and find a brand new cabin. I mentioned above that the seats being fitted to the 747's are quite distinct from those on the other aircraft - the difference is that they come with a completely seperate bed. As shown in the photo below, each passenger has a large seat and, next to it, a fully made up bed - there's no complicated lie-flat mechanism or wait for the crew to make up a mattress and duvet here.

The whole thing is incredible. OK, the seats are placed individually on either side of the aisle, so it's not the best set-up for a conversation, but the sleep was the best I've ever had in the air. Strippled of all the moving parts and extendable pieces that are normally needed to turn seats into beds, the chair is also very comfortable. Honestly, I could go on enthusing about, what is essentially, furniture, but I fear most of you are already bored.

If there is a downside to this product, it's that Lufthansa are only fitting eight seats into a space that once held sixteen; on unrefurbished aircraft, they're still only selling eight seats, each passenger gets two. As a result, their First Class capacity is reduced and, consequently, there seem to be far fewer seats available for those of us booking with miles. Indeed, if the, usually accurate, One Mile at a Time is to be trusted, it's now almost impossible to redeem miles for Lufthansa First.

The other big difference this time around was that we were flying through Frankfurt, so were able to access one of Lufthansa's First Class Lounge's, rather than the Senator Lounge that is offered in Dussledorf. Lufthansa do have a seperate First Class Terminal in Frankfurt; it's mainly for those starting their journey, but connecting passengers can access it if they clear security and walk out of the main building. As we had a fairly tight connection, we headed to one of the Lounges within Terminal 1.

After the dissappointment of the Senator Lounges in Dusseldorf and Washington (more about that in a moment), the First Class lounge was a revelation; peaceful, comfortable and with excellent food and drinks served by friendly staff. The, actually fantastic, bellinis were served with an apology about the peach juice not, apparently, being up to the usual standards. We were also treated to a rather amusing floor show as a young american (I struggle to use the term gent given the sea of man-made ugliness that he was wearing) tried to argue his way into the facility. A wall of three statuesque ladies in Lufthansa uniform were stood, slowly shaking their heads, as he spent a full ten minutes sucking air through his teeth and mumbling nonsense about why they should be "working with me to find a solution to this problem".

Now that the interesting, "new", things are dealt with, I should probably give passing mention to the rest of the flight.

As I suggested, the Senator Lounge at Dulles Airport is not particularly pleasant. It's crowded, noisy, offers a WiFi service which is so slow as to be useless, while the food and beverage offering is deeply unappealling.

I was actually asleep for the last majority of the flight, but during the hour or so that I was conscious, the service was excellent. Perhaps not quite as accomodating as we experienced on BA the previous week, but otherwise faultless.

Before sleeping, I did partake of the full meal service, including all three appetisers. By the time I ordered they had run out of my preffered main, halibut, so I took the steak. Again, it was perfectly edible, but overcooked in comparisson to BA's effort with a similar dish.

Pictures and details of the food follow. Sadly, given the apparently impending demise of BMI and, it's to be presumed, their generous frequent flyer programme, I doubt I'll be able to book Lufthansa First again anytime soon. It was definately worth the additional miles that BMI charge, over, for example, first class on United. If any of you are sitting on a stash of BMI miles, I would urge you to make some effort to blow them on a Lufthansa First ticket before they turn into magic beans or, more likely, something even less useful.

The, frankly rather odd, potato salad that was served as a pre-apetiser.

The caviar service arrived in sealed, individual, portions, rather than being served from a tin. The crew suggested that this was an anomly and not a new policy.

A full rack of appetisers.

Tuna Teradito (no, I've no idea what Teradito means either) with a citrus-cilantro vinaigrette.

Poached chicken salad with grapes.

Roasted corn flan with mushrooms... Not a sterling effort.

Salad with "delicious" dressing. It wasn't bad, I'm not sure about "delicious", but there you are.

Grilled tenderloin of beef with Chimichurri sauce, Costa Rican rice 'n' beans and green beans.

Delta Shuttle: New York LaGuardia to Washington National

Fly Eat Sleep — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:44:42 +0000

I think it's pretty safe to say that we've found the bottom.

Given that we were escorting somebody else to JFK, the original booking was on a JFK to National flight. Just as we were about to leave Manhattan an e-mail arrived from Delta informing me that our flight was cancelled due to bad weather (heavy-ish rain...). As a bonus, Delta had automatically re-booked us on a new routing, changing planes in Atlanta; turning a 200 mile journey into a 1300 mile trek.

Within the next thirty minutes, the $5 a month I pay to access Expert Flyer repaid itself ten times over. After some wrangling with the Delta call centre, I eventually managed to speak with a human being and, following some discussion, convinced them that I should be able to re-book onto an alternative flight from LaGuardia.

Delta uses the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia, a listed structure quite seperate from the main terminal complex. Actually, that's not strictly true, Delta use a loosely bolted together steel shack that stands next to the Marine Air Terminal. After another arguement around whether or not we had paid for checked bags in advance, we managed to check-in and headed through security with no wait. Once in the departure area it was apparent that things were going very wrong. Flights were being boarded with the caveat that, "in complaince with federal law", the aircraft may return to the terminal if it hadn't taken-off within three hours.

A heavily delayed flight to National was boarding and the announcer suggested that anybody booked on later flights to Washington (i.e., us) should board this aircraft as they had no idea when any later flights would actually depart. Due to the rain, obviously.

Unfortunatley, while they could accomoate us on an earlier flight, Delta were unable to say what might happen to our luggage. As we were heading back to Europe from Washington less than 24 hours after arriving, we opted to remain at LaGuardia and take our chances on the same flight as a our cases.

As it happens, our flight started boarding around the time it was scheduled to depart, pulled back then taxied directly to the runway, past a large line of aircraft including, I beleive, the earlier flight that Delta were trying to coax everybody onto.

Boarding was something of an eye-opener. As all of the paying passengers lined up at the gate, a group of, uniformed, Delta crew walked past and boarded before us. Note that there is no pre-assigned seating on the Shuttle. While I think it's dissappoiting behaviour, I can't claim to have been at all surprised to find that all of the exit row seats were filled with Delta uniforms. What did shock me a little was that the uniformed staff were sharing a bucket of fried chicken, stinking out the aircraft as customers boarded. Only in America.

When we were there, New York was plastered in billboards promoting Delta's WiFi service. Perhaps the airline should focus on getting the operational basics close to correct before they start adding more bells and whistles? Just a thought.

In a similar vein, can I also suggest that the standards set by the (actually pretty good) Delta Assist Twitter servce be applied to the rest of the company's customer communications? Most of the world does not use Twitter, regardless of anything airline executives may have read in a magazine. I was finding it impossible to extract a refund from Delta for the lounge access fee I had pre-paid (with there being no lounge at LaGuardia). Days of phone calls had ended in stalemate - an exasperating circualr debate about things that needed done online and then via telephone; loosely translated, Delta's position was "please piss off, we really can't be bothered dealing with you". I happened to tweet an off-hand remark about the situation, without specifically tagging @deltaAssist and was astounded have them resolve the problem with a minimum of hassle. Proof that even the most disfuntional of organisations have some good people.