Hi there

Before covering the flights themselves, I'd like to mention a few things about the booking. I booked these flights at 8pm on Friday the 25th, the evening before the flight. Originally, I booked through travelocity and the flight was nominally a British Midland flight (price GBP100.80). As e-ticketing was unavailable on this offer, I called up their customer service helpline. I was advised to book a paper ticket, and call them back to arrange "ticket on parchment" service (picking up the ticket in the morning at the airport), and I asked whether that was guarantueed to work. I was assured it would work. I did as told, called them up, arranged for the service, went online, and when going offline after 15 minutes, the phone immediately rang. The "ticket on parchment" service was not available, as British Midland does not allow this if the tickets are booked through any agency. Bummer. The only option they offered me was to cancel the flight, assuring me I would incur no penalty for their error. They told me to book the flight directly through British Midland. Their website listed GBP175 as the lowest fare, and proudly advertised a GBP5.00 discount. My enthusiasm was limited, but I called them up anyway. On the phone, I was offered the same fare I had booked just half an hour earlier through travelocity, and I took up the offer immediately. So all in all, the booking procedure was disappointing: Travelocity could not provide the tickets when I booked just a day in advance, British Midland's website does not list their lowest fares (and dares to advertise a ridiculous discount as incentive for picking a GBP75 more expensive fare!). I was not impressed thus far.


26/01/02
LCY-MUC
Augsburg Airways (Team Lufthansa)
Dash 8-400 D-ADHC

Click for large version

Photo © Chris Sheldon

I decided to be at the airport roughly 2 hours prior to departure, even though I was told 1 hour would be more than sufficient. The journey to the airport was by tube and shuttle bus (Jubilee Line to Canning Town, then a 2 pound shuttle bus) and lasted 50 minutes. My home is quite exactly in the middle between LCY and LHR concerning tube travelling times. It was dark when I arrived, so I barely knew where I was, not seeing the Dome or Canary Wharf from the bus. I went to the LH ticket desk, and they handed me my ticket after a glance at my passport, but they never asked for the booking reference number. I proceeded to the check-in desk and was the first person to check in. I asked for a window seat as far in the rear as possible (I wanted to be able to see anything apart from the engine) and got seat 16F. I was startled, knowing the plane is in 2-2 layout, and asked them about it, but for some reason (presumably to make frequent fliers aware of window and aisle seats) there are no B and E designations. I went upstairs for the passport control and managed to get lost for a few moments in this tiny airport. Must have been tired - I missed a sign and proceeded into a restaurant, wondering where the hell the security was. I quickly discovered my error and went through passport control (not very busy. I was the only customer, and the guards were happily having a philosophical discussion about religion in general, shaming the Hollywood cliche of dumb guards). I sat down in one of the many leather seats and tried to orient myself about the position of the runway etc. It was still dark. Finally, a few planes landed, and they did indeed seem to drop out of the sky rather quickly. I was delighted. After a while, the Dash 8-400 in Team Lufthhansa colours landed, and just five minutes later, boarding began very punctually. There were only 14 or 15 pax on this flight. By now, dawn had arrived in cloudy London and the grey skies hung depressingly over London. I found my seat, delighted that it was no smaller than any other short-haul seat (indeed, I swear it had more legroom than Ryanair). The safety demonstration was brief and to the point, we taxied down the runway, turned around and took off. And I am quite impressed at the performance. After a fairly normal acceleration during the roll, the pilot pulled up first slightly, then very firmly, and I felt pressed down in the seat a lot more than in any 737 or 757 I've ever flown in. After the initial steep climb, the plane quickly took on a more leisurely climb rate and we spent at least the first 15 minutes of the flight bumping through the clouds. I also noticed a wisp of moisture that looked exactly like a trailing vortex, but it was a lot lower than the wing, and it did not circulate around, so I think it was neither trailing vortex of the wing nor proptrail, which puzzled me. When the stewardesses came around with meals and drinks (I already had breakfast, so I declined), I managed to work up the courage to ask for a flight deck visit for the first time in my life (I am generally a shy person), and I was promised she'd ask the crew. By the time we reached Frankfurt, she came by and escorted me to the Cockpit, where I me the pilots. It was terribly exciting, and we talked about the noise-reduction system based on counterfrequencies installed in the Dash 8-400 (it was broken, but they did say it reduced noise noticeably), about the advantages of glass cockpits, about my choice to study aeronautical engineering instead of becoming a pilot, about the performance comparison between modern turboprops and regional jets, about the low airfare I got (they were surprised to hear about this low fare - the lowest for the dates I wanted given the booking time, beating Go by 140 pounds, Ryanair (SZG) by 20 pounds...) and many other things. Eventually, they invited me to stay in the Jumpseat for landing, and I enthusiastically accepted. As we got closer to Munich, the cloud cover broke, and we could see Landshut, the Ammersee, the Zugspitze, Augsburg and Ingolstadt and the view was altogether a lot more magnificient from the cockpit than from any other seat. The light reflected in the wet roads and creeks and rivers, the landscape glistened like a fairy tale land after rain. We passed the airport and turned around to land on the left runway. Parallel to us, the Go 737 from Stansted was approaching. It delighted me a lot to formation land into Munich with the other plane I could have been on... Ahead of us, one plane took off on our runway, and then the tower apparently cleared another one for takeoff, which surprised our pilots a bit ("Muss das denn sein?" they asked each other), and after that one climbed out, we touched down smoothly, rolling on the main gear for ages before the nosewheel finally touched down. There was no hurry in decelerating, and we passed a blocked taxiway and used up two thirds of the runway before exiting. Then we taxied to the stand, as remote as physically possibly, literally at the cargo terminals. I thanked the pilots and cabin crew for the great flight, grabbed my stuff from the rear of the plane and soon I was in Munich airport, rushing homewards, 20 minutes ahead of schedule....

27/01/02
MUC-LCY
Augsburg Airways (Team Lufthansa)
Dash 8-400 D-ADHC

The return flight was a lot fuller, and after a few too many flights on Ryanair, the civilized manner in which people slowly approached the gate for boarding was quite a change. I also noticed that the passengers were mostly young, and the number of good-looking well-dressed people was also surprising. Bankers. Shining outsides, rotten insides  
We were bussed to the plane (the same plane on the same stand as the day before) which parked right beside a Swedish cargo Bae748 SE-LIE that looked old and tired.
Click for large version

Photo © Ulrich F.Hoppe
As I entered the plane, the stewardess was just asking some 13-year-old boy whether he'd stay in the cockpit for takeoff, landing and the full flight. Dammit. Someone had been quicker than me...
We had to wait for half an hour because of slot restrictions by the UK traffic controllers, so we sat on the tarmac uselessly. Finally, we made our way to the runway. Takeoff was unspectacular and despite the strong winds that dominated the weather during Sunday night and morning, it wasn't bumby until we were quite a distance from the ground. Then the plane bumped around a bit here and there, but not too much. I dozed off for 10 minutes, woke up just before they served the snacks (some weird sandwhich corner with way too sweet bread, some butter biscuits and coffee) and read the Economist for most of the flight. It was dark outside. Finally, we began our descent, wich was again barely bumpy, and flew around London for quite a while. Occassionally, I could see 3 or 4 different lights in the sky (other planes), and sometimes there were holes in the cloudcover that I could see through. I had hoped we'd see Canary Wharf and the Dome on final approach, but apparently we came in from the opposite direction. It did not feel steeper than a normal approach to me, and even the landing was not harder than on any other plane at any other airport. Getting out of LCY was very quick, and so ended my second flight, about 35 minutes late.

All in all, a very pleasant trip, except for the ticketing messup with travelocity/BMI. That should really not have happened.

Any comments appreciated....

Regards

Ikarus