stylo777 From Turkey, joined Feb 2006, 2870 posts, RR: 12 Posted (2 months 1 week 4 days ago) and read 7187 times:
Hello to everybody,
It’s been a while since the last time I wrote about my journeys. This trip is purely done in order to cover at least one of my two “aviation-related” goals for 2013: flying the A380 with as many different airlines as possible and the second goal being the coverage of all top20 airports in Europe. So, you can expect some more fun trips across Europe to cater for the latter one. On this trip I’ll write about how I caught Emirates’ A380.
Just for your info, almost all pictures are taken with my phone camera.
The whole trip is as follows:
IST-MUC-HKG-DXB-CDG-FRA-MUC-IST
…and shown here on a map (courtesy of gcmap)
…and the first two legs with Lufthansa
LH1773 Istanbul to Munich
Operated by Airbus A321-100
D-AIRS, delivered 1996, named after the city of Husum
116th flight on this type and the 3rd time on this particular aircraft
It was a straightforward, very standard Lufthansa Intra-European flight; therefore, I’ll just add some pictures and that’s it.
Departing runway 35L in IST and climbing with North heading
New urban areas to the West of the city
Tastes much better than it looks like; chicken with tomato sauce, rice and vegetables
Some more catering
Clouds all the way to Munich
Quite healthy load with only a few empty seats; I would guess a SLF around 90%
Shortly before arrival, snow covered Munich
Looks like the snow removers did a great job, quite a hill! Shortly before touchdown on runway 08R with the hangars in the background
Construction side for the new satellite terminal
ANA 77W parked in between two LH aircraft
We parked next a company A340-600, the same aircraft type for the MUC-HKG leg
Our A321-100
What now followed was a transit time of approximately four hours. MUC is one of the very few airports around Europe where one can spend such a transit time very comfortably. No wonder the airport won so many prices.
LH730 Munich to Hong Kong
Operated by Airbus A340-600
D-AIHY, delivered 2009, second youngest 346 in the fleet
3rd flight on this type only and a new registration to the log
Our bird parked at the terminal (sorry for the picture quality)
…and TG’s retro 747-400 parked next door
Boarding started very early. Looking around at the gate area this flight will be very full with passengers mostly from Asian origins. Also a big amount of Europeans onboard. I got assigned seat 32A which is right at the end of the wing area.
The crew with a very nice welcome during boarding and pro-active assistance with baggage and kids. I spotted at least three non-Germany based cabin attendants, all three being most probably Chinese. Especially to Asia, Lufthansa has cabin crews of the destinations countries’ origin (e.g. Japan, China, India, Thailand, Korea, etc). Accordingly, the announcements were in German and English (by the purser) and followed in Chinese by one of the international crew members.
The captain also on the speakers with a detailed explanation of the upcoming de-icing procedure and some route information. A flight time of 10:25hrs was announced.
An ice layer on the wing; parked next door an A320 and an A340-300 on the new MUC-CPT route
IFE system, not the best of the industry, but good enough to keep you entertained for such a long flight
Good legroom; the IFE box might disturb some people, but it certainly didn’t hurt me (you’ll know why later…)
We left the position a few minutes later than scheduled since some passengers with checked-in baggage didn’t the way to the aircraft. The baggage offload took some time.
We taxied to the de-icing pad shortly before runway 26L; however, the taxi time was rather long due to other aircraft. This made me quite sleepy at that time.
De-Icing starts…
…continues…
…and suddenly the cabin is even darker. To be honest, it was a strange feeling with all the de-icing fluid covering the windows.
We also had to wait after de-icing. It was very busy at that time with many, many aircraft departing and arriving.
I fell asleep and can hardly remember the take-off. I must have been so exhausted from the day and weeks before this trip, because when I woke up we were here…
Overflying the Himalya
I slept for almost 8 hours, something I had never been able to do, especially not in an economy class seat. I was very astonished and surprised about myself. This also means, I missed the dinner service as well as a big part of the flight.
I recovered the route later: we flew MUC-LNZ-VIE-KBP-ROV-Caspian Sea-Kazakhstan-ALY-over the Himalaya and straight to HKG
The A340-600 has one unique feature: the lavatories in a lower compartment and also the place to check out!
Very good timing from my side, because the cabin crew switched on the lights again for the breakfast service.
Again, a very good seat load factor (almost 100% in economy at least)
A view outside, unfortunately only clouds to be spotted
The breakfast might have been better; especially, the egg was quite dry, but the potatoes and the fruit were tasty. I didn’t touch the sausage at all. The breakfast was served together with hot and cold beverages. In fact, the crew did several beverage runs throughout the whole remaining part of the whole flight. From past experiences LH is quite good in this regards. They do drink runs every hour or so even in darkness for those who are up.
Approaching HKG slowly but surely
I guess, the island right in the middle of the picture is Bluff Island in the East of HKG. This means also an approach from Easterly direction with an arrival on one of the two 25 runways.
Is that the Lantau Link bridge?
Shortly before touchdown
Touchdown!
‘Heavy’ traffic with a lot of CX birds
Asia World City also in town
KLM 747 next door
Immigration was a fairly quick affair. I had experienced a totally different scenario some years ago. Baggage was also delivered very fast. With a priority tag it was one of the first once on the belt. I collected the ticket for the express train to the city and jumped on the already waiting train.
Only 25minutes to Hong Kong Central station
I stayed at the recently built Ibis Sheung Wan and received an upgrade to waterfront viewing room. I had originally booked the cheapest option facing the streets (or better said the other skyscrapers around…), but very much appreciated this upgrade.
Roomy is something different; however, we are talking about Ibis and Hongkong here…
The view from the 27th floor was excellent (day and night)
In the following some impressions of the lovely city of Hong Kong…
stylo777 From Turkey, joined Feb 2006, 2870 posts, RR: 12 Reply 1, posted (2 months 1 week 4 days ago) and read 7184 times:
Part 2 – Return Flight and the A380
The second part of this trip covers the return flight from HKG via DXB. As mentioned in the beginning, the main goal of this trip was to put a checkmark on the A380 flown list of mine. Originally, I had planned to take the midnight service from HKG (via BKK) to DXB with EK’s A380 and continue from there to IST, but things didn’t work out as planned; therefore, I made a detour. The HKG-DXB leg was operated by 77W whereas the A380 would be flown on the DXB-CDG sector.
EK383 operated by Boeing B777-300ER
A6-ECE, delivered 2006 and one of Emirates 124 strong 777 fleet (impressive!)
My 8th flight on this type and a new entry to the log
So far, 5 flights with EK covered in my log
Three days in Hongkong passed very quickly and it was time again to head to the airport and again the convenient Airportexpress was the first choice to get there. Emirates’ counters are located at the G aisle. Around two hours before the scheduled departure time the counters were absolutely deserted. The friendly agent checked the bags through to CDG and assigned seat 35K. According to her information a very light load on this afternoon service to be expected today.
Security checks were handled in an organized and quickly manner, but immigration took a while. Once in the transit area I spent the remaining Hongkong Dollars in the huge food court and made my way to the departure gate where almost one hour before the flight the boarding had already begun.
A6-ECE spotted here at the gate would give us the honors today
Seen here again with the mountains in the background
Extremely light load for such a big aircraft!
View out of my window: TK70 just arrived from IST and expecting a long layover until 23:30 (it was around 17:30)
Dragonair A333 B-HWI completing flight KA603 from XMN
Legroom sufficient enough for me
With this light load boarding finished early. On today’s flight a total of 12 languages are spoken by the cabin crew. They jump into action once boarding was finished and distributed hot towels to everybody. The woman one row in the front must have been a gold member or somebody else very important, because the purser personally came and introduced herself to her and so did the (most probably Italian or Portuguese) cabin attendant assigned to our section.
The captain was also on the speakers with a British English accent. I don’t remember the announced flight time. Once the cargo doors were closed the aircraft pushed-back right on time.
On the way to the runway EK’s midnight A380 service just arrived (you can see the tail in this picture)
Passing the maintenance facilities with an AA aircraft in front
Oneworld logojet of CX and another American airliner in the back – Delta
To complete the American maintenance meet-and-greet in HKG here are United, another Delta jet and a Polar freighter
It must be significantly cheaper for US airlines to overhaul the fleet in Asia or the capacities at home are simply not enough
Turning on runway 07R while a Hainan Airlines A330 is on its final approach
Then it was our turn. Around 20 minutes after leaving the gate position an impressive take-off had been commenced. Surely, the super light passenger load helped a lot. Sitting at the right side of the plane and an immediate right bank after take-off there was no chance to catch a last view on the amazing Hongkong skyline.
Flying through a thick layer of clouds
Cabin crew distributed the menu…
…while a first beverage run is done. Gin and tonic for me please!
It was getting darker outside when the crew started serving the food
I went for the fish option which in overall was quite tasty. I didn’t like the dessert though.
A bottle of white served along with the meal
After collecting all trays and serving another round of drink the crew set the lights to different moods. At that time most of the passengers dozed of already whereas I stayed up and enjoyed all the features of the best-of-the-industry entertaining system (called ICE). All thumbs up to Emirates for such a great IFE system. Throughout the whole flight I watched three movies (The Bourne Legacy, The Imposter and Premium Rush), listed to great songs and enjoyed the moving map.
Night mood
Our routing today see us passing though Haikou in the South of China – Vietnam – Laos – Myanmar and the city of Mandalay – South of Bangladesh and Chittagong – on a straight line towards the West through the entire of India passing the cities of CCU, RPR, NAG and finally BOM – followed by another straight flying in Northwestern direction via Muscat to DXB
Some 1.5hrs prior arrival we got served a breakfast which was a little bit disappointing.
The coffee was bland, the chicken-thingy still ice-cold and the cold-cut tasteless.
The full route
The goal – and next aircraft to be on
We had to circle around DXB for a while. It’s getting busier and busier at this airport especially during night. On all my last four flights to DXB we had to fly some holdings.
Since it was a nighttime arrival the pictures taken with my phone lack any quality for what reason I just didn’t add them here. I don’t remember (or couldn’t recognize) on which runway we landed.
It took us a while to taxi to our final parking position which by the way was occupied by another company aircraft and had to be cleared first until we were allowed to dock at the gate. In was one of the farthest gates – B25 or B26 IIRC. With all the holding and long taxiing we were still 15 minutes earlier than scheduled thanks to a much shorter flight time.
In the following I “enjoyed” my longest waiting time in the transit area of any airport of the world ever. The HKG flight arrived at 23:00 and my connection flight to CDG was scheduled to leave in the morning at 8:20. There is an earlier flight to CDG around 4am; however, this flight is the only one not operated by the A380.
It’s difficult to understand for non-enthusiast to do hardcore things like this, I have to admit, but I’m so grateful that every one of you who read this report until this part can share this enthusiasm and commitment.
With an arrival on the very end of terminal 3 I just walked until the other end of the construction. Terminal 1 was much busier with a lot of arrivals and departures from India and Europe. In fact, I felt a much cozier atmosphere in the older part (Terminal 1 section C) and simply walked around, watched people coming and going, enjoyed the free wifi and slept in a quiet area for some hours. For some strange reason I totally missed/forgot to take any pictures. Sorry for that! The hours passed quite quickly, even faster than expected and off I was to the new concourse…
Part 3 – The A380 to Paris
EK073 operated by Airbus A380-800
A6-EEA, one of the latest additions to the 31 strong A380 fleet (delivered 12/2012)
My 7th flight on this type and of course a new entry to the log
Walk over to the new A380 concourse named with an appropriate letter “A”.
Stunning architecture (after taking the underground train connecting both concourses)
A1 for me please
There you go…
All gates are constructed like this. On the top there is the primary holding pen, the gate agents are also seated here for handling and boarding the flight.
On the lower level another waiting area shortly before entering the aircraft.
Unfortunately, the overall construction – as nice and shiny it might be – is not picture-friendly at all.
Final boarding commenced on time and I was one of the last ones to enter the aircraft
A6-EEC next door preparing for LHR
Those EA GP7270 engines are impressive! Interestingly the fueling is still undergoing while boarding almost finished.
Dubai is candidate city for the Expo2020. It’s clearly visible also on the ground who is the landlord here: stop markings of aircraft types which are actually in Emirates’ fleet.
The seat (87A, second to last row window) during boarding
And the amazing legroom
Ahlan wa sahlan to EK073 Dubai to Paris
Sistership to LHR
Huge windows
Healthy load in economy
We are still sitting at the gate with the jetbridge connected to the aircraft
At that time we were already past our scheduled departure time. The captain on the speakers excusing it with an ATC regulation (namely a slot), followed by the purser and the impressive information that 18 languages are spoken on this service. I really like it when they announce all those languages. This underlines one more time the international orientation of this airline.
Here I am, inside the A380… a great feeling which unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy to the fullest. I was very exhausted from the night at the airport. I can barely remember the take-off and dozed off until we reached a well know country – Turkey.
On the map…
…and out of the window
The breakfast was again disappointing, but good enough to fill the stomach for a while.
After that, it was time to explore this beautiful aircraft.
Stairway to heaven… eeeehm business class, but closed for “simple” people like me
Nice logo
The last section of economy class
The lavatories in the rear of the aircraft. A trolley on both sides set up with beverages for everyone’s need.
The mood lighting in action and as mentioned a healthy load
Shortly before arrival we were served another meal
I chose the lamb option…
…and this was the chicken menu
The lamb by the way was really good! The side servings unfortunately not…
The OnAir service was on, but didn’t work for me (I still don’t know why). I even asked one of the crew members who said that the coverage is often not given, because of the country we are currently overflying.
The crew prepared the cabin for arrival. We approached Paris from the North and the captain on the speakers again we not so great news regarding the weather: temperatures around the freezing point.
The approach itself was very bumpy and shaky. I mean, the A380 is relatively stable in the air, but this huge plane was shaking from one side to the other. Maybe it felt even stronger in the back. Finally, we touched down, quite hard and used almost the whole length of the runway to come to a stop.
Touchdown!
Still rolling on the runway with quite some speed and the end of the runway very close. In order to get the exit the pilot had to brake very hard.
We couldn’t make up the departure delay in the air, so we arrived around one hour delayed at Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport Terminal 2C.
Good thing was, we were the only airline arriving at this hour in this part of the terminal; however, the bad thing was I had a full load of A380 in front of me at immigration. In order to be able to catch my connecting flight to FRA I just jumped the lines and asked a French guy to let me in front which he accepted. Unfortunately, my bag was one of the very last ones to be delivered so jumping the lines was worthless.
I so much hate this airport. Running with a bag through the terminal and catching the terminal train to the other terminal (T1) took some time because the ways are not really sophisticated (and that’s putting it mildly). I found my way to the check-in counters of Lufthansa, but it was clear that I missed that flight. A simple rebooking to the next service and Cappuccino at the Starbucks followed. At this time I was just exhausted to take any pictures and the next flights were again standard Intra-European Lufthansa services: professional, consistent and on-time. And very much covered on this forum…
Only two things to add to the last part:
1. I was very lucky to catch a B737-500 from CDG to FRA before they completely disappear from the fleet (D-ABIL in this case)
2. Very funny to see A6-ECE – the EK 77W which I flew with from HKG to DXB – in FRA
I hope you enjoyed this rather lengthy report. Please leave your comments.
flightsimboy From Canada, joined Sep 2005, 848 posts, RR: 4 Reply 2, posted (2 months 1 week 3 days 23 hours ago) and read 6941 times:
Hey Stylo777,
Great report on your quest to travel on the A380. How do you compare the Airbus A380 to it's cousin the A340-600!! Give me an option between the two I still have yet to fly on, and I'll grab the A340-600 over the A380!!
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): This trip is purely done in order to cover at least one of my two “aviation-related” goals for 2013: flying the A380 with as many different airlines as possible
A nice start already to your reports. Glad you got your first A380!
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): and the second goal being the coverage of all top20 airports in Europe.
LH1773 Istanbul to Munich
Operated by Airbus A321-100
D-AIRS, delivered 1996, named after the city of Husum
116th flight on this type and the 3rd time on this particular aircraft
I really like introductions like these, but I myself am too lazy to include them in my own reports lol
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): Especially to Asia, Lufthansa has cabin crews of the destinations countries’ origin (e.g. Japan, China, India, Thailand, Korea, etc).
The Lufthansa welcome videos shows their cabin crews from different countries as well.
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): To be honest, it was a strange feeling with all the de-icing fluid covering the windows.
Yes it is terrible indeed. I experienced this on my Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Toronto a few years back.
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): I fell asleep and can hardly remember the take-off. I must have been so exhausted from the day and weeks before this trip, because when I woke up we were here…
You must have really been tired. Well the vibrations once airborne along with turbulence also puts one to sleep too I think lol
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): This means also an approach from Easterly direction with an arrival on one of the two 25 runways.
Good to know that. I love those views of Hong Kong from above!
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): I stayed at the recently built Ibis Sheung Wan and received an upgrade to waterfront viewing room. I had originally booked the cheapest option facing the streets (or better said the other skyscrapers around…), but very much appreciated this upgrade.
Congrats on the upgrade.
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): In the following some impressions of the lovely city of Hong Kong…
Thanks for including those pics of Hong Kong. I would sure like to go there someday or maybe make a stopover if I ever fly with Cathay Pacific.
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): On today’s flight a total of 12 languages are spoken by the cabin crew
This is one thing you can always expect from Emirates.
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): Our routing today see us passing though Haikou in the South of China – Vietnam – Laos – Myanmar and the city of Mandalay – South of Bangladesh and Chittagong – on a straight line towards the West through the entire of India passing the cities of CCU, RPR, NAG and finally BOM – followed by another straight flying in Northwestern direction via Muscat to DXB
Very interesting route.
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): Walk over to the new A380 concourse named with an appropriate letter “A”.
They may be huge, but the actual window on the outer pane seems to be much smaller.
Quoting stylo777 (Thread starter): The approach itself was very bumpy and shaky. I mean, the A380 is relatively stable in the air, but this huge plane was shaking from one side to the other. Maybe it felt even stronger in the back.
Felt this way on a 747-400 compared to flights on the Airbus A340-300s. The latter are more steady feel.
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