Hello everyone,
This is my third trip report on airliners.net and I hope you enjoy reading it.

The story starts at summer 2007, when Lufthansa announced to start the new routing TXL-LCY-TXL twice a day. As I always wanted to land on London City Airport and to do some spotting at Hatton Cross. I booked a flight for the 4th of February 2008 as we had a free day there. I paid 98.81%u20AC, which is the lowest fair you can get, when you travel with LH. The flights are operated by Eurowings and normally by the BAe146-200. In December LH started the special "Fly London City" as you get double miles for flying TXL-LCY, so I was lucky to have it booked yet and was still able to get 500 miles instead of 250.
A few days before, I started to plan the day in London, which included a two hour-spotting at Heathrow Airport and some time in the city itself.

I did the pre-evening check-in on the Lufthansa website and called a taxi for 6.40 a.m., because I didn't want to bother my parents, which had a free day, too. I stood up at 6.10 and was very tired, but prepared myself quite well for the flight. I went out into the darkness at 6.35 and the taxi was already there, so we were able to get off to the airport right away. Traffic was still very low, so we needed only 20 minutes to the airport and I paid Euro for the ride. I went to the check-in counter and got my boarding pass, which I hadn't printed the day before. I changed some money to get British Pounds and walked around in the airport.
Here are the first impressions:


Main hall slowly filling with people.


Boarding pass for LH 4838


Love those Berlin sunrises.


Spot my flight  .

I passed security at 7.25 and waited for the departure. On the flight were, as far as I could see, only business men except of me and a young family. Most of them looked nervous or read
newspapers and no one seemed to be as relaxed as I was. Boarding started at 7.50 and we headed for the buses, which were waiting downstairs for us.

LH 4838
To: London City Airport (LCY)
Dep.: 08:05 a.m. / 08:19 a.m.
Arr.: 09:10 a.m. / 08:55 a.m.
D-AEWM (BAe 146-300)


A bus waiting for us to have a ride to the plane.

We had ride across the airport and arrived at a parking position where most of the LH Regional flights depart and boarded D-AEWM.


Lovely again...


Boarding D-AEWM (in the back an A320 Lat Charter!)


Legroom of the BAe 146-300.

I took my seat 8F and boarding was completed very fast, although the flight was quite full. After pushback we taxied a short way to runway 08R, queued behind a AB 737 and then took of very smoothly.


The busy motorway inbound to the city center taken shortly after rotation.


Cabin shot from 8F.

Flight was very uneventful up to then and the first city I was able to recognize was Wolfsburg.


At the bottom: VW-facilities and the VW-Arena of soccer club VfL Wolfsburg.

Soon the meal service started and if Lufthansa has a weakness, then it is surely the meals. A dry "sandwich", a small Mars bar and a drink, well...not really paradise in heaven.


The taste was okay...

As we entered Lower Saxony the weather became worse. Clouds reached us at our cruising altitude and ground visibility was 0 up to the British coast.


Not a lot to see...

We were already in the descent, when the pilot made the following announcement: "An exercise was done to check to security at the airport. For this causality the airport was closed and it was not sure, if we were able to land at LCY. But the airport has reopened now and everything will be done normal."
I was quite shocked when I heard of a closed LCY as I wanted to experience the interesting landing at City Airport. But fortunately everything was fine and we started our approach.


Crossing the River Thames as we are on short final for runway 28.


Retard! Retard!

Of course LCY was very busy this morning and there were several delays because of the exercise. We stood around for around 10 minutes until we were pushed back into a parking position.


Heavy traffic while beeing pushbacked...

As we stood on a position which was not directly at the terminal, we had to take the bus. I went straight to DLR station "London City Airport" to get the train into the town. It was 09:20 at this point of time and of course that is still peak time, so I waited 10 minutes to save 6 pounds for a 1-day-travelcard. I took the DLR to Canning Town, then switched into the Jubilee Line, which brought me to Green Park, where I head to the Picadilly Line for Hatton Cross.
After being an hour under the ground I got off at Hatton Cross station. I had to walk two times around the station until I checked where to go and that the 27R was active for landings. I prepared to go to the spotting point for 27L and didn't know where to go now. But I just followed the street and after a loooooong walk I reached Enfield Road Roundabout which is an absolute fantastic place for making pictures. Just one picture, that tells more than words:


Wow!

After two hours I went back to the station and made my way into the heart of London. I got off at Picadilly Circus and I noticed the first time how deep I was under the ground. Two steep escalators brought me up to the busy Circus. I was lucky to be there in February, so the city wasn't full of tourists, but there were still many visitors.


Picadilly Circus not crowded, but still busy.

I was very hungry, so I had a meal at the Burger King you can see in the picture. After that I started the typical tourist route: Picadilly->Trafalgar Square->Whitehall->passing Downing Street->Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Then I walked across Westminster Bridge to get to Waterloo Station.


Not really Big Ben, but Big Ben inside.


London Eye, but no time to take a ride.

My program wasn't done yet and I took the Jubilee Line for only two stations to get off at London Bridge station. After all I was quite exhausted and felt very pleased to walk the northern bank of the River Thames which was like a little oasis in the city chaos of London. Soon I reached the Tower.


Nice contrast between the old Tower and the new city hall.


One of the most famous bridges in the world.


Tower Bridge, Tower and penis :P.

Then I walked back to the station and went to London City Airport. I arrived 90 minutes before departure and went straight to a self-check-in desk. I chose my seat (6F) and passed security. I like security very much at LCY, because you can take your time to organize yourself. Generally I like that airport very much, also the departure lounge. Still there were a lot of business men, but everyone was relaxed after a hard day and talked very lively with their colleagues, drinking a beer or a wine.


Boarding pass for LH4843.


A part of the departure lounge.

Our flight was called for boarding and I went down to gate 7. After a short passport control and a check of the boarding pass we walked to D-AEWQ.

LH 4843
To: Berlin-Tegel Int. Airport (TXL)
Dep.: 06:00 p.m. / 06:30 p.m.
Arr.: 08:45 p.m. / 09:00 p.m.
D-AEWQ (BAe 146-300)


Boarding

Again boarding was completed very fast, but you also have to mention that the load factor wasn't as big as on the morning flight. A big disadvantage of LCY is the backtracking for take-off. We had to wait for a departing airplane and a landing airplane, until we were allowed to backtrack. Then another plane took off and another one landed and finally it was our turn. All in all we wasted a lot of minutes at this procedure.


Picture shortly taken after the release of the parking brake.

After departure we had to stay at a low altitude. Probably the London area was full at "prime time" and so we lost a lot of time there, too. Meal service started and the pilot's announcement followed: "We will take the route Amsterdam-Münster-Hanover-Berlin, we are at FL270 and will reach Berlin with a slight delay."


Mars and water

Some light turbulences hit us above Germany, but they weren't bad at all. We approached and over the day the wind in Berlin had changed. Now we had to fly around the airport and finally touched down on runway 26R.


Approach at TXL, with a view to the northern districts of Berlin.

Our parking position was in the middle of no-where, but probably the "Airports of Berlin" wanted to give us a free apron ride because of the 30-minutes delay.


Night stop at TXL, waiting for flight to BKK.

I'm at the end of my trip report now and I hope you enjoyed reading it, although there might be some mistakes, but I'm already very tired.

If you like to read my earlier TRs:
Weekend Trip TXL-RIX-TXL
Spotting In Denmark: TXL-CPH-TXL On SAS

Expect my future TRs on the following routes:
TXL-VNO-FRA-ZRH-TXL
TXL-FRA-MAD-MUC-TXL
SXF-NAP-SXF
GWT-TXL

Goodbye for so long,
Felix