LH4864 MUC-MAN 13 JUL 10 (BUSINESS)
Posted: 26 Jul 2010, 20:06As I had already spent a fortune on a tiny single room in a small hotel in Glenrothes, the initial plan was to find a cheap flight to EDI and then, on the Monday after the tournament, a flight to Spain where I would meet some friends for another week of holiday. At this point I have to mention that I live in the west of Germany which I’m not sure you can see from my profile like on the old board. Due to a lack of options from EDI to BCN I opted for a single flight on Ryanair from NRN to EDI and then a reasonably priced one-way fare from EDI to BCN with Spanair. When I say reasonable, that means it was just half the price of a return ticket, and surprisingly also fully flexible
That routing never really convinced me mainly because of Ryanair being part of it, and in June some really good Swiss business saver fares came up as well as some very rare Lufthansa business class deals
So I started looking for a routing from DUS to MAN as EDI was not available and then from MAN to BCN, and surprisingly with the help of Expedia I found a deal for only 100£ more than the already booked flights. Comparing four flights in C on LH/LX to one on FR and one with JK, this really was a no-brainer, especially as I needed the miles to renew my LH frequent traveller status. So the Spanair ticket was cancelled and refunded and I decided to just not use the FR flight, as the refundable 20£ certainly fell short of the administrational fee of a cancellation. So the final routing was DUS-MUC-MAN on LH837 and LH4864, then MAN-ZRH-BCN on LX395 and LX1956. I could have gone for a direct flight on the outward journey, but the connection brought 1500 additional status miles at no extra cost and as I had the entire day off, I decided to go via Munich as I had not been to the business lounge there. On the day of departure I took a taxi to the airport, at a fixed price of 23€ or 20£ for a 40 minute journey which is a really good price considering that one day of parking in the most remote lot comes in at about the same price, but I would have needed 20 days
I had checked in online and opted for the mobile boarding passes on my iPhone for the first time. At the business class counters there was a small queue which seemed weird as the terminal was literally empty and there were plenty of economy counters available, but I decided to wait. The agent wanted to check my bag to Munich because I had explicitly asked for the connection such that the flights to and from MUC were separate legs on my itinerary. I explained this to the very nice lady and she then agreed to check my bags through to Manchester. Then she wished me a pleasant flight and called me by my name, which I think she only did because she’d had to dig deeper into my itinerary. I was not handed real boarding passes but I decided to print some at a check-in machine because I didn’t want to show the screen of my phone every few minutes. Then I spent a couple of minutes on the observation deck before I headed to security. The fast lane was quite slow because a large family from northern Europe suddenly emerged from the first class check-in area and joined the queue right in front of me. The three children did not seem to follow their mother’s instructions which made the entire process quite chaotic. The lady even asked one of the officers whether she could take what seemed like a whole bag full of water bottles 
The LH business lounge at DUS is nice and reasonably sized, so it was quiet as usual. I helped myself to some coffee and bread roles, the most extensive meal one can have there. What always annoys me is that they only offer t-mobile hotspots in their lounges which are ridiculously expensive unless you subscribe. The flight was called on time and when I reached the gate it was straight on board for me into 2F. The flight was completely full in business class and also quite full in Y it seemed. We left the gate just on time and were on our way shortly afterwards. Service consisted of a newspaper and magazine run after boarding, in the air drinks orders were taken and the tiny snacks handed out. The theme of the “Discover Flavour” series was nutmeg this time. It consisted of a small cabbage salad or so and a slice of brown bread with smoked salmon, there also was a third item that I cannot seem to remember, but it was tiny and certainly not memorable. The entire concept of the different flavours is certainly interesting for the occasional flyer like me but it has to seem weird to frequent flyers because it’s such a fancy way of presenting something so ordinary.
What kept me entertained throughout the flight was the gentleman in 2D. Upon boarding when I squeezed past him I already noticed that he smelled like a brewery while he was dressed immaculately wearing a black suit. When the drinks run was performed, he ordered a white wine and was handed a full glass which he then knocked back in one and tapped the FA who was already serving the next row on the shoulder to ask for more. After his second glass, he produced a pile of business reports from his bag and started highlighting things. For some reason this was a really sad sight as everything seemed to be normal for this guy and it was only around noon. This meets my definition of an alcoholic
Frankfurt airport could be seen at some time and it was interesting to see the new runway coming along. Landing in MUC was a bit late and I was one of the first persons off. Straight through to the passport control on the upper level of the departures area, I had a choice of about fifteen counters and guess what, I chose the one with the broken passport reading machine. The lady didn’t even look at me and just said that my passport wasn’t working. This was impossible as I had only been to New York via LHR with Virgin recently and hadn’t used or even touched my passport since. She then yelled all across the hall why the machine was not displaying my first name but all the rest of my data. I was quite annoyed that she seemed to blame me for the broken reading machine, so I offered her to use my identity card instead which is sufficient to enter the UK, but she said that it was not enough and didn’t even ask me for my boarding pass. After the supervisor came she proceeded to enter my first name manually, how can you make such a fuss for having to enter 5 characters? It’s certainly not my fault that she chose the wrong job, she very much reminded me of American immigration officers 
The lounge was an absolute shocker: First of all when I entered the corridor leading to both the senator and the business lounges, there was a group of about 30 Japanese people in front of me and I was somehow expecting to see them being sent away. However, the boarding pass reading machines did not work and the front desk was a mess. The ladies insisted on copying down the ticket numbers of every single passenger in front of me which took about fifteen minutes. I considered the option of walking into the senator lounge with all the chaos but resisted. Perhaps one day I’ll have that status although I very much doubt that these lounges are any better. The business lounge is a single room which feels very cramped, it also has the old yellow and grey interior as opposed to the more modern lounges. There were people everywhere, no place to sit and most of the items at the bar were not in stock so I decided to leave after queuing for the loo for a while and joined the chaos at the gate. The flight was leaving from a bus gate and was fully booked, so the gate area was very crowded as well. Boarding was called twenty minutes later and everybody got up and gathered around the desk. There was mentioned of boarding by rows or class, so I just joined the chaos. Finally onboard, I settled into 2A and watched the people boarding. Out of the three rows in business class, only three seats were taken, one of them being next to me. The gentleman put a copy of the financial times onto the console in the centre seat and when the FA came around and offered newspapers he asked for the financial times which left me a bit puzzled
Later he realized his mistake, started laughing and offered me the second copy which I willingly accepted 
Pushback was a bit late and once we were in the air, drinks orders were taken and then the FA disappeared again and ten minutes later the meals were handed out alongside with the drinks. I had opted for a coke and the meal consisted of a shrimp salad, a plate of roast beef and a rather big fruit plate the highlight of which was some yellow vitamin mixture in a pipette which was to be poured over the fruit
Another indicator of LH’s efforts to be fancy, but once again for someone featuring the meal for the first time it was quite interesting. What I also noted was that this meal was served with real cutlery while the snack on the previous flight had only been served with plastic tools, then again it had hardly required anything. FRA was again visible and so was DUS, which reminded me of the ridiculous detour I was taking for a few more miles. After a second drinks run we started our descend into Manchester where the weather was abysmal compared to the cloudless skies in Germany these weeks. Final approach was a bit shaky and the cloud cover was quite low, this was followed by a landing with three bounces and some serious braking action. When we reached the gate, I was the first person off with no one in front of me at immigration. The only persons airside were two boys and I overheard one officer saying something along the lines of “You’re coming to a foreign country without any documents and the school you’re claiming to be attending does not exist.” This makes me wonder how it is even possible to get onto an airplane without any documents. This time my passport was scanned without any issues and I had to wait for a few minutes at the carousel. My bag was among the first off so I made my way to the station to print my tickets off one of the machines, something I was a bit concerned about. It worked like a charm though and I had over an hour with my tickets in hand. At this point I realized what a mediocre airport MAN is. I paid a visit to every terminal but failed to find a place where I could grab some food for the train ride and evening ahead. Is there some trick to it or do you really have to be airside to find more than a vending machine?
It was my first train ride in the UK in a long time and I was quite impressed with the waiting room at MAN for a start. Initially I was not quite sure whether it was worth flying to MAN instead of EDI for the miles and service. But I decided to do it and looked for train tickets on the website of Virgin Trains. I chose the only direct service from Manchester airport to Edinburgh Waverley and looking at the prices revealed that first class was only 10 and 15£ more expensive than standard class both ways, so I decided to go for it. Little did I know that the train was the Transpennine Express and that first class meant free drinks and complimentary sandwiches
That was the most pleasant surprise of the day considering that in Germany for a first class ICE train ticket all you get is the right to buy drinks at your seat instead of having to go to the dining car. And you’re paying a premium north of 70£ at that while I paid 60£ for the return journey. This leaves me wondering whether the good price was a glitch of booking that service through Virgin?After all I have to say that I enjoyed the entire day, even though the itinerary was a bit crazy. The flights were okay and perhaps not as bad as my description may have sounded. The flight attendants were all very friendly and responded to every question. I certainly hope that the officer at passport control had a bad day and the only letdown was the lounge in Munich considering that people paying a lot of money for long haul flights only get such a poor offering. As a perk of the frequent traveller status I’ll take it but that’s about it. European business class is not worth more than the cost of a Swiss business saver fare for status holders as the premium check-in, fast lane, lounge access and boarding anytime are perks you already have
Thank you for making it all the way through, I apologise for spelling mistakes or grammatical errors as my English is not perfect and certainly not British. If you’re interested, I can also write a report on the “return” journey to Barcelona which was my first flight on Swiss and quite interesting with only 40 minutes of a connection and delays due to the air traffic controller strike in France.
