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Archive for November, 2011

Experience on Lufthansa A380 Nov 28

I just had the pleasure of going on a short vacation to Singapore. The trip came about when Lufthansa had a great offer from Norway to Singapore in connection with starting the use of the Airbus A380 on this route. Here are some of my observations after flying a 12 hour flight in economy class.

IMG_6603As I have a SAS Eurobonus Gold card we had access to the Lufthansa lounges in Frankfurt. There is actually a lounge by the gate (E5?) for this flight but the lounge was quite small and was not very cozy. Anyway, boarding was fast and we had seats in the front cabin both ways (rows 55 and 56). Upon entering the plane the blankets and headset was already placed on the seats which I think works out pretty good.

IMG_6610I have had to joy of flying A380’s before (both with Singapore airlines and Emirates) but never on economy class so I was kinda excited to see how it would be. The seat itself was OK and as usual you just have enough space – the cabin is in a 3-4-3 configuration. On long flights on economy class I think the entertainment system is one of the key factors and the Lufthansa A380 has of course a screen for each passenger. The size is not bad but I was kinds disappointed by the selection of movies – on Emirates it seemed like they had an endless list of movies but I found it rather limited on the Lufthansa flight. And the screen itself is touch screen but I had a bit of problems of maneuvering around. Maybe I was not aiming correctly but I felt like I had to press several times to choose the things I wanted.  The headsets are collected before touch down but they keep on running the movies all the way until the wheels hit the ground so bring your own headset if you want to catch the last part of the movie.

IMG_6614There are also games to be played but there is not game control that comes with the seat – you have to ask for this from the crew. I asked for it and got a small cube that folded out to be a game controller. This had to be plugged into the USB connection under the arm rest (kinda awkward position) and after that it was game time. But the game controller feels a bit flimsy and it was not very easy to play with it. The control for light, calling the crew, volume etc is placed on top of the armrest. The placement doesn’t seem to be ideal as it looked like people where leaning on top of it and with their elbow they would press the buttons and hence you could see the lighting go on and off in some seats.
Sleeping comfort. Well, as a friend said “economy class is economy class…it doesn’t really matter if it is in a new plane“. Sleeping on economy class will never be easy as it is hard to find a good sleeping position when sitting upright. One nice feature on the seat is the head rest where you can fold in support on the sides so that you have something to lean your head on.
Service on board was pretty good – we got a drink to start with together with some nuts and after that a meal was served along with more to drink. They also came around later on with more wine and even cognac and Baileys. 

So all in all: I would have enjoyed seeing a better movie selection and I would like to have a better game controller. But it is a huge step forward compared to long haul with Lufthansa 747 where they used to only have a screen hanging from the ceiling ;-)

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