Introduction
I spent several weeks in Germany this summer and from there it is quite easy to do a side-trip to Madrid to visit a dear friend from school and his family. Until now I had often taken advantage of LAN/Latam’s fifth freedom flight between Frankfurt and Madrid and its attractive value for money, but that tag-on was suspended during the pandemic and hasn’t been reinstated yet. Probably it won’t.

I could have taken a non-stop flight, of course, but there aren’t too many of those a day and a one-stop combination opened up many more scheduling possibilities. So Lufthansa it was, with the outbound routed via Munich and the inbound via Frankfurt. MUC would be a new airport for me and though it would not add a new letter to my “landed on the alphabet” list, the prospect of transiting through there was appealing.

With the easing and complete lifting of many Covid-related travel restrictions and throngs of people longing to finally make that trip they had been forced to postpone for a long time, airlines and airports seem to have been overwhelmed by the surge in travel demand these past months – and it showed. Gruesome news of people missing their flights due to slow security checks, delayed and outright cancelled flights, and stranded luggage not traveling with their owners due to insufficient handling staff were all over the news. Quite the prospect for this traveler…

On to the flights then.


The trip

For the 12:15 pm departure I left my family’s place at 10:00 am, hopped on the 392 bus and a few stops / 10 minutes later alighted at the airport terminal.

Check-in was quick and easy, but security control took around 30 minutes. Only 5 out of 8 lanes were open though the staff was actually nice.






Having still some spare time until boarding and not anticipating much in the way of catering on board regardless of this being a lunchtime flight, I grabbed a bite to eat at one of the stands to tide me over for a while.






Over in the Travel, Polls & Preferences forum someone asked a while ago about flights on widebody aircraft within Europe. TK seem to offer a lot of those. I for one saw TK’s A332, A333, B787 and A350 operating scheduled flights at several German airports.




My previous report was about 6 segments all on B737 variants. This trip was – to please the Airbus fans on here – all on A32X variants. My plane for this segment was an unchristened/nameless A320 in the previous livery.




June 2022
Airline: Lufthansa
Flight: LH2057
STD/ATD: 12:15 / 12:23 (push back)
STA/ATA: 13:30 / 13:30 (touch down)
Route: HAM-MUC
Registration: D-AIWB
Aircraft: A320-214
Seat: 28F

Boarding for this full flight was quick and orderly, with gate agents only taking care of J passengers while the Y crowd was left to the automated BP scanners.

The view from my seat. This seems to be LCC heaven with only Wizz Air missing in the lineup.










Eventually we took off from rwy 05 at 12:35 following an SN A319.




The bottle of still water offered from the catering cart looked a bit lonely on the tray table…




…but it was eventually joined by a sample-sized chocolate bar.




The route from Hamburg initially takes on a south-southeast course crossing the Harz mountains and then skirting the German-Czech border near Hof before turning southwest towards MUC.




After passing the Harz range a huge cloud buildup temporarily blocked the view of the landscape below, but soon enough we were on approach to MUC












Fifty five minutes after taking off from HAM we were landing on MUC’s rwy 26R and after a short taxi we parked at position 220 M in Terminal 2.






My connecting flight would depart in roughly 75 minutes, but from Terminal 2 Satellite, so I first had to find my way there. The terminal is bright, airy and did not feel crowded at all – especially when compared to FRA. Transfer to the opposite concourse is via an underground automated people mover.








Once in the correct concourse and given LH’s scanty in-flight catering offerings on the flight I just had stepped off of, I was longing for something substantial to eat. Being in Munich, the occasion practically called for having a serving of weisswurst - Germany and sausages? You don’t say! - with sweet mustard and a pretzel at a place with very interesting lighting.












A full stomach makes for a happy heart and I was now ready for the continuation of this trip. Fortunately the gate was only 4 walking minutes away.










June 2022
Airline: Lufthansa
Flight: LH1804
STD/ATD: 15:05 / 15:17 (push back)
STA/ATA: 17:45 / 17:35 (touch down)
Route: MUC-MAD
Registration: D-AIDP, Paderborn
Aircraft: A321-231
Seat: 28F




Although the pax load was pretty healthy on this flight again, the seat next to mine remained vacant. With a slight delay of 25 minutes we eventually took off from rwy 26L at 15:30 for what would turn out to be quite a scenic flight.

Our route took us first crossing the Lech River slightly south of Augsburg






…followed by the Wertach River near Bobingen




…the northwestern corner of Lake Constance/Überlinger See and Radolfzell




…the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen




…and Basel with BSL in the distance




Upon reaching FL350 the pilot came on the P/A to give some details about the flight and our route via Zurich, Geneva and Toulouse. To see those I would have had to be seated on the opposite side, but I was content with the views out my window.

Service-wise there wasn’t much in the way of catering. On this occasion the bottle of water that had been distributed by the cabin crew on the previous flight was already in the seat pocket in front of you upon boarding.




Those with an appetite had a whole menu to choose from, though I didn’t see anyone taking advantage of the offerings, nor any cabin crew member proactively inviting to any consumption. Barely four years ago, on another LH flight of this stage length, we still got served a hot meal. The Times they are a-Changin’, and so is LH.














Our approach path towards MAD took us above the Entrepeñas water reservoir formed by the dammed-up Tagus River and later endless very dry looking fields where the first harvest had already been brought in.






After landing on rwy 32L at 17:35 it was a long taxi to the old terminal past T4S and T4




Two of BA’s A380’s still parked here.

During the week I spent in Madrid I took a daytrip to Segovia for its Roman aqueduct, Gothic-style cathedral and medieval alcazar (castle).















These last 2 pictures are not mine; they were taken by my friend’s son, an F/O with Volotea (V7). It’s nice how the three landmarks are aligned in the last photo.


I also squeezed in a couple of days at the Mediterranean in a resort town near Alicante. To get there, I took an AVE high speed train.







Going at 300 km/h for most of the trip these trains run definitely faster than the German ICEs.


After a week in Spain it was time to head back to Hamburg. My friends dropped me off at MAD’s T2.

For check-in there was no queue to speak of, but when my turn came the agent handed me just the boarding pass for the first segment to Frankfurt. After lots of typing on her computer terminal and with a very puzzled face she informed me that I would get the BP for my onward flight in FRA, without further details.

Security control took around 15 minutes and I was airside.




The inbound flight arrived with a slight delay and its passengers only disembarked at the time we were supposed to be boarding. This time it would be a plane in the new livery. It had just returned to service after pandemic-related storage a couple of weeks before this flight.








June 2022
Airline: Lufthansa
Flight: LH1113
STD/ATD: 12:55 / 13:35 (push back)
STA/ATA: 17:45 / 17:35 (touch down)
Route: MAD-FRA
Registration: D-AISP, Rosenheim
Aircraft: A321-231
Seat: 30F

Eventually boarding was called and when my group’s turn came I quickly found my seat in the back of the bus. It was again a full flight.






While we were taxiing out to our assigned rwy 14L I noticed that one of the two BA A380’s that were parked here a week ago was now gone. Returned to service, perhaps? Or just moved somewhere else?




We took off at 13:50 and after initially overflying bone-dry fields on our ascent this turned out to be another pretty scenic flight, though again without any kind of catering whatsoever.

We flew past the Lac du Bourget…






…and Annecy by the namesake lake in France…






…followed by Zurich and ZRH…








…and later west of Lake Constance




By the time we reached Stuttgart and STR the cockpit crew started our descent into FRA, where we landed at 15:40 on rwy 25L.






Our plane parked at a remote position from where we were bussed to the terminal.






Once I had made my way from the bus stop in the bowels of the terminal one level up to Concourse A, I found out the hard way why the check-in agent at MAD had that puzzled face and that vague response when I enquired about my onward flight: LH 024 to Hamburg – cancelled!




Fortunately there is an LH flight from FRA to HAM nearly every hour; it was just a matter of getting onto the next flight, or so I thought. From the FIDS with the bad news I went straight to LH’s nearest Service Center at the beginning of Concourse A, where a queue of passengers with similar predicaments had already formed. Four out of five counters were staffed and the queue moved very slowly. After around 30 minutes of standing in line it was finally my turn. The counter agent informed me that the following flights were all full and that the best he could do was to put me on standby on the next one and that I should head to the gate. Or, alternatively, he could recommend taking the train. Had that been my intention, I would have booked a ticket with Deutsche Bahn, not with LH… By the time I left the Service Center, the last people in line would probably be seen only in two or three hours’ time – that long the queue had become.

The service agents were completely overwhelmed by the amount of passengers needing assistance and were literally tearing their hair out. Understaffing everywhere meant longer working hours for them and unhappy passengers galore.

The concourse was teeming with passengers; I’ve rarely seen it this busy.




So off to the gate I went, but my standby option unfortunately did not materialize. Thus I became literally a gate louse, never out of sight or further than hearing distance from the gate agents. As one flight to HAM left, I moved over to the gate from where the next one would depart and tried my luck there. As they say: the third time’s the charm or third time lucky. A deadheading pilot who had seen me wander from one HAM gate to the next took pity on me and managed to get me onto the third flight after my cancelled one. By that time I already had three boarding passes, the first one with a big question mark by the gate number, the first two just standby passes.




June 2022
Airline: Lufthansa
Flight: LH024 > LH030
STD/ATD: 19:00 / 19:20 (push back)
STA/ATA: 20:00 / 20:10 (touch down)
Route: FRA-HAM
Registration: D-AIDH, Hildesheim
Aircraft: A321-231
Seat: 16B

As it usually happens with standby / last minute passengers on full flights, I was assigned a middle seat. By that time I wasn’t going to get picky over seats; I was happy to finally be able to continue the trip! Upon boarding I was met again by the deadheading captain, which gave me the opportunity to thank him profusely for his intervention.

We took off from rwy 07C half an hour past schedule. En route there wasn’t much to see, there was again nothing in the way of cabin service and most of my tired fellow passengers - just like me - seemed to be happy to be heading home.






Pretty soon we were already crossing the Elbe River on approach to HAM.






Landing was from the north on rwy 15 at 20:10 and we reached our parking position just a few minutes later.






Later that night with a reestablished Internet connection at my relatives’ place, I found an email from LH informing me that my flight 024 to HAM had been cancelled and that I was rebooked onto the next flight to Hamburg. I wonder, then, why this piece of information didn’t reach either the check-in agent at MAD or the service and gate agents in FRA I dealt with.

In the title of this report I posed the question of whether LH today is a legacy carrier or an LCC. On this particular trip involving just flights within Germany and Europe in Y I got the impression that they are definitely a legacy carrier when it comes to fares, but are borderline LCC as far as on board and ground service is concerned. I’ve used LH often for decades, domestic, within Europe and intercontinental, and they have been my carrier of choice on many occasions, but currently I think they’re not delivering value for money. How about at least resurrecting the snack bags available on a rack at the gate for domestic and European flights?

Cheers,
C.


Previous trip reports:
-7---, -8…, -9…, 737 that is - CM/UA CCS-PTY-MIA-HOU-LAX-PTY-CCS and a few surprises
CCS-MIA crabwise, or getting hooked on classics: Laser DC-9-82 & Swift Air B737-400
Ze ‘Zee’ route – Pt. II: IST-HAV-CCS
Ze ‘Zee’ route from Djörmany to Caracas – Pt. I: HAM-IST
TAP Portugal feat. EuroAtlantic Airways: CCS-CUR-LIS-HAM, or …
A blast from the past: DC-10-30 – When VA was still VIASA…
Checkin’ on Robinson and Friday – on a Wednesday: Aerocardal
TAP. Why not? CCS-LIS-HAM vv + LAN 787-9 interlude
#4: Eldorado by day: AV B787/A321 SCL-BOG-CCS Y
#3: Twotters & a narrow gauge train in Patagonia
#2: “The LAN guy” gives Sky a try: H2 SCL-PMC-SCL
#1: Eldorado by night: AV A321/B787 CCS-BOG-SCL J
Joining the Club - 20 years late: AA LAX-MIA
Venturing beyond: AS SEA-LAX
Sleepless in Seattle: In the Beaver’s lair
HAM-CCS:The first LH and a ride in J - sort of
Chasing Zulu: 4U HAM.LHR-HAM
Moving on: LH ZRH-FRA-HAM
LH CCS-ZRH: Flashbacks along airway UA550
Deep Chile II: Ham, monkeypuzzle trees & a culprit
Deep Chile I: To the hut with the power outlet
Return from Mt. Pleasant – Not so pleasant: LAN
Island-hopping on, well, an Islander: FIGAS
LAN wishes you a pleasant flight to Mt. Pleasant
Another day, another Lufty – HAM-FRA-CCS
Off to Oman 4: Return MCT-FRA WY A330
Off to Oman 3: Of spices, dhows and frankincense
Off to Oman 2: ICE in F and WY in Y
Off to Oman 1: Positioning commute LH CCS-FRA.HAM
LANning back up again: PUQ.PMC-SCL-LIM-CCS
LANning down South America’s backbone: CCS-PUQ
South, farther south, southernmost! PUQ-WPU on DAP

As I posted before, LH domestic service is a joke. It is not even possible to *buy* a coffee... On the other hand, LCC EUROWINGS which also serves MUC from HAM, offers full BOB. Given the fact that EUROWINGS even offers lower fares (if you book in advance) and better, more legroom seats for a little supplement, LH really needs to reconsider their official "skytrax 4*" standards...
Hopefully, you received your compensation for the cancellation without further hassle!

Tanks for stopping by, Debonair. I read your post in the relevant thread in the other forum. Maybe more careful planning is in order next time. I did not apply for compensation as I got to my destination just a few hours late. With the DB, on the other hand, I am still in a clinch over cancelled trains and delays.

It's really sad to see how far LH has fallen. I flew them all the time when I was younger, and they always gave hot meals even in Y, as you mentioned during the second flight. I also remember the service being very friendly and attentive. How was it on your flights?

capicua wrote:

Maybe more careful planning is in order next time. I did not apply for compensation as I got to my destination just a few hours late. With the DB, on the other hand, I am still in a clinch over cancelled trains and delays.

Nice to read back from you. I would most certainly ask LH for full compensation, as I can see from your post, it seems they also have failed to provide meal vouchers in accordance with EU regulation.
Regarding your problems with DB, have you contacted the SOEP, the national arbitration board? Maybe they can provide assistance...

BoeingERJ1000 wrote:

It's really sad to see how far LH has fallen. I flew them all the time when I was younger, and they always gave hot meals even in Y, as you mentioned during the second flight. I also remember the service being very friendly and attentive. How was it on your flights?

Apart from the first segment, where the bottle of water and the chocolate bar were destributed by the F/A's inflight, there was no service at all.

debonair wrote:

I would most certainly ask LH for full compensation, as I can see from your post, it seems they also have failed to provide meal vouchers in accordance with EU regulation.

The staff appeared to be totally overwhelmed that day; probably nobody thought about meal vouchers, neither them nor me. The passengers ahead of me in the service line needed to get to Bologna that day and asked to be booked onto literally anywhere in northern Italy, be it Venice, Milan, Turin, Bergamo, Genoa, wherever just to get out of FRA...

debonair wrote:

Regarding your problems with DB, have you contacted the SOEP, the national arbitration board? Maybe they can provide assistance...

Thanks for the tip. I believe we are about to come to an amicable solution.

A matter not belonging in this forum, but I was suprised to be denied access to the 1st class lounge despite having a 1st class ticket. The reason given was that I held a discounted ticket (with a Bahncard) and was therefore not eligible.

capicua wrote:

The passengers ahead of me in the service line needed to get to Bologna that day and asked to be booked onto literally anywhere in northern Italy, be it Venice, Milan, Turin, Bergamo, Genoa, wherever just to get out of FRA...

A matter not belonging in this forum, but I was suprised to be denied access to the 1st class lounge despite having a 1st class ticket. The reason given was that I held a discounted ticket (with a Bahncard) and was therefore not eligible.

A friend flying HAM-FRA-BLQ was rebooked during LHs September strike HAM-DXB-BLQ on EK....

Off-topic: yes, lounge access only 1st-FLEX tickets or BahnCard100...

debonair wrote:

A friend flying HAM-FRA-BLQ was rebooked during LHs September strike HAM-DXB-BLQ on EK....

How is this even possible? That's almost ten times the distance.

Just a quick suggestion. You have the ATD correct and that is when the door is closed and the parking brake is released, or some variation of that. for the ATA it isn't when the aircraft lands, but when it is at the gate, parking brake set and door (could be passenger or cargo depending on the company's choice) open. Places such as MAD, SIN, and JFK it makes a difference and could add a substantial amount of time ($$).

VMCA787 wrote:

Just a quick suggestion.

Thanks for the suggestion, VMCA787. I'll take that into account in future reports.

capicua wrote:

In the title of this report I posed the question of whether LH today is a legacy carrier or an LCC. On this particular trip involving just flights within Germany and Europe in Y I got the impression that they are definitely a legacy carrier when it comes to fares, but are borderline LCC as far as on board and ground service is concerned.

I enjoyed your post. Thanks! And:

Couldn't agree more. Even long haul service decayed in my view. The food became boring chicken or pasta, there's no cognac after dinner, when you want a long drink you have to go back to the galley to politely ask for it and it feels like you're intruding...

United all of a sudden feels like a good alternative in Y on FRA-ORD...