The official handover of the Airbus A380  to Lufthansa took place on May 19th and at the same time the interior was presented online on the web site. Most of us will be flying economy class of course and as we all know, flying long haul in economy can be a pretty miserable affair. I have used Lufthansa a few times on long haul and one of the issues that I have been very unhappy with is of course the lack of a personal TV screen. On the Lufthansa A380 each seat does have a personal TV screen of course and that will at least make the flight pass faster for me - and at least I don’t have to sit and watch the German bundesliga updates like I had to last year when I went to Dubai (see my trip report on my homepage)

If you are extremely lucky you will get to experience the business class. As you can expect the business class seats are wider, you have a bigger screen, probably better food and drink selection and so on. Most of the upper deck on the Lufthansa A380 is filled with the business class seats but I have to say that both the seat and the configuration is a bit of a disappointment at first glance at least. Both Singapore Airlines and Emirates have been able to make the business class into something special with huge seats - on the Lufthansa A380 you have a pretty standard business class seat that doesn’t recline to 180 degrees. There are seats that are comfortable for sleeping even if they don’t recline all the way but normally it is better to sleep if you have a flat bed. I’m also surprised over the configuration - many of the other airlines have tried to come up with solutions were all have direct access to the aisle but on the Lufthansa A380 you have a pretty standard configuration.

The very lucky and very few have the money to fly First class. On the Lufthansa A380 there are only 8 of these seats. The other airlines that have bought the A380 have used the opportunity to really show off in the First class setup with Singapore Airlines having small compartments and Emirates having showers available for the first class passengers. I did have a chance of flying Lufthansa First class last year in a 747 from Frankfurt to Hong Kong (see the trip report on http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=470 ) and that was a wonderful experience. But actually the configuration and plane was quite old so the most amazing part of the experience was the First Class Terminal in Frankfurt and the service there (see http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=457 ). But back to the new Lufthansa A380 First Class. From what I can see Lufthansa has taken a more moderate approach to the first class: the seat looks like a flat bed seat, the screen seems to be large and so on. But there is no WOW factor as you see on Singapore Airlines and Emirates. And it is also strange to see that there are only 8 seats compared to something like 14 on the 747. But I guess in these days with economic difficulties there is not a large market for first class seats. But all in all the Lufthansa A380 first class looks very comfortable but maybe a bit on the boring side. The bathroom seems large and that it is of course great as it can be tricky to slip into pajamas in a small toilet

Congratulations to Lufthansa with the new plane - I hope that it will provide a comfortable and safe ride for lots and lots of passengers and I hope to fly it myself one day soon The images above are taken for the Lufthansa web site. Check out the Lufthansa A380 site to get a virtual presentation of the various classes of the Lufthansa A380.

So far Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Air France have received their A380’s. Now it is time for Lufthansa to receive their first plane and they plan to use this on the route from Frankfurt to Tokyo in Japan. Later on this fall they will receive more planes and these will be used on the routes Frankfurt - Beijing and Frankfurt - Johannesburg in South Africa. Here is the seat map of the Lufthansa A380 and it looks like the lower floor will be all economy while the upper floor is mainly business class with a few first class seats. You can read more about the Lufthansa A380 on their website.

It is still possible to get your hands on plane tickets at a nice price. I would like to recommend all of you to sign up to the newsletters that airlines offer. If you sign up to airlines like KLM, Lufthansa, Norwegian, SAS you are pretty much covered if you are liviing in Norway. KLM has a sale these days - what do you say to Mexico City for 3800 kroner (670 USD)…pretty cheap in my opinion (well, the dollar is pretty low to the Norwegian krone these days so that brings up the price in dollars). You can see the KLM sale here. Lufthansa is also having a sale and they can offer Buenos Aires for 4800 NOK. See the Lufthansa sale on this page. Norwegian is also having a sale but you have to hurry as it ends soon To get the good prices you have to be flexible and you have to travel outside peak times - but it shows that you can still make a bargain on plane tickets

At about 5.30 PM one of the staff came over to me in the lounge and said ”Mr. Karlsen. The flight to Hong Kong is ready for boarding”. So I packed my stuff together and went with him downstairs where I got my passport back from the First Class lounge tiny little passport control and then I was handed over to a driver that took me to her Mercedes S400 Hybrid…she told me that they had only had the car for about 2 weeks so it was brand new. The Lufthansa First class lounge experience was great – the service was impeccable and both food and drink selection impressive – going to a SAS lounge after this will never be the same.

My driver took me to the Lufthansa 747-400 plane and she walked me to the door of the plane before she said goodbye and I was handed over to the staff on board. It has been a long time since I had the pleasure of walking up the stairs to the top floor of a 747. The Lufthansa first class is located on the upper deck of the 747 and there are about 16 seats there. They seem to be a bit old and I understand that an upgrade is being planned in the end of this year. I had seat 83 K which is by the emergency exit so there was lots of space. But note that there is a permanent “trolley” here where they store drinks. Some have mentioned this as a problem but I didn’t think this was an issue.

My FA asked me right away if I wanted something to drink…so I went for the Champagne, The champagne of the day was Piper-Heidsieck Cuvee Rare. I have to say that after being through Bollinger, Taittinger, Taittinger Rose and several types of red wines in the lounge, I was not really capable to tasting the fine qualities of the Piper-Heidsieck – but it seemed pretty good. When I asked my FA what kind of champagne I was drinking he informed me and then he asked “Why? You didn’t like it?” – not sure why he assumed that. After about 40 minutes we were pushed back and rolled across their airport to get ready for takeoff. Takeoff feels different when seated on the upper floor that’s for sure. Before takeoff we got slippers, a toiletry bag and pajamas. The FA asked about my size and I was like “I don’t know…what do you think?” He seemed a bit bothered by this – I guess he have heard it before. But I ended up with Large to extra large that was a bit too big for me.   The toiletry bag was pretty big but didn’t really contain that much. Ear plugs in a holder, a tooth brush and tooth paste, a comb, a face mask, a moisturizer and a shoe horn.

After takeoff we got a warm cloth soaked in water. I’m not sure what fragrance that was used but the scent was great After about 30 minutes in the air the first class started their service  by putting a cloth on the table and handing out an appetizer…tuna fish with orange or something like that, I even got a real rose stuck in a hole next to my table. It was a nice touch I guess but it is not something I will miss if they remove it from the service. The tuna fish was great but it would have been great if they staff had informed me about what was being served. I also got menus by the way explaining what kind of drinks and food that I could expect

For starter I had the option of Caviar, crawfish, watermelon with goat cheese and tartar of goose breast. Next course was the option between a salad or spicy lemongrass soup and main course options were prawn, mushroom and pancetta stew, swordfish with beans, pumpkin ravioli and sugar or spice duck breast.
My FA took my order and while I was waiting I watched a bit of Angels & Demons on the TV screen. And this is one area where Lufthansa scores pretty low. The screen for each seat is TINY and can’t be compared to the Emirates option at all. When I flew Emirates A380 on business class I had a 17” screen or something  like that and on Lufthansa it is like 10”. But it is video on demand so you can pause it and stuff but the screen is jus t too tiny. About 1 hour into the flight the start was served and I got a nice portion of caviar. I think caviar is a bit like fois gras….it is great but only in small quantities

I guess the FA had seen that I was taking a lot of photos so she kindly offered to take a photo of me ;.) The female FA did a good job by the way but I’m not sure I understand why she kept on addressing me in German to start with every time she spoke to me. Yes, I know that you would all like people to talk German but it is not really going to happen just because you start your conversation in German
The caviar was served with lemon, onion and some kind of sour cream on the side. From there we moved on to the salad which was a bit on the boring side but still pretty good.  For main course I chose the duck breast with polenta and spinach. Not bad at all and the duck has a lot more character than e.g. chicken.  But the combination of a chunk of meat, a scoop of polenta and a heap of spinach doesn’t really scream fine dining.

When dessert came around my female FA just skipped me for some reason…I guess she looked at me and thought “You’ve had enough” or maybe it was just a slip of the mind But I grabbed my male FA and asked him if I could get the pear tart with brown butter ice cream which tasted great with some decaf coffee and some Baileys. So after a loooong day it was time to call it the night. I went to bathroom and brushed my teeth and slipped into the pajamas and went to sleep. The chair was actually very comfortable as a bed and it felt like it was possible to recline it all the way back to a proper bed. I did sleep until I was woken up for breakfast

When I was woken I had a slight hang over from the drinks last night but that’s how the cookie crumbles right? Once again we were handed the cloth that smelled excellent and I also used the opportunity to slip into normal clothing again. The breakfast was a bit strange…the female FA asked if I wanted muesli but what I got was some sort of sour cream mix…and then I got honni corn on the side. I was not sure that that was it…but all of a sudden I was also asked if I wanted some scrambled eggs and bacon. All in all not a bad breakfast but it would have been great to get some information about the options…or maybe I didn’t read the breakfast menu well enough.

All good things come to an end right? And after about a 10 hour and 30 minute flight it was time to land in Hong Kong. After a steep descend we landed at Chek Lap Kok airport in Hong Kong. If I were to give a conclusion of this flight I would say that Lufthansa delivers a very good product from the lounge to the flight experience. The service on board was good and even with their old layout, the seat was very comfortable and gave me a good night sleep. The food amd drink selection was also very nice. One area where there is room for a lot of improvement is of course when it comes to personal entertainment. The screen today is just too small compared to the competitors and even if “Size doesn’t matter” it was still just too tiny. When I checked the price of a round class ticket on first to HK, I think it was like 75000 Kroner (about 13.000 USD). I wouldn’t mind flying first class every time I travel but I’m not willing to spend that much on the ticket So I guess I have to save up some SAS points again so I can try out first class on a different airline.

Get in touch if you have any questions or comments

Here is a short video showing a walk through of the Lufthansa First Class terminal lounge when it was pretty much empty.

I’m not sure when I heard about the Lufthansa First Class terminal the first time – I have been to some business class lounges over the years but the Lufthansa First Class terminal sounded pretty amazing. So when I booked my award ticket I made sure to go First Class vith Lufthansa via Frankfurt in order to get access (you can read more about who gets access on Lufthansa.com)

The flight from Stavanger to Frankfurt took longer than expected. I think the flight took about 2 hours and 45 minutes!  When I came out of the plane there was a man there with a sign with my name on it and he had a nice Mercedes parked right next to him. So I joined him (he never actually checked my boarding card by the way) and he took me to the terminal building. He was initially planning on taking me to the First class lounge in the B building by I asked about the First Class Terminal so he drove me to the A section and I walked from there. To get to the First Class Terminal you have to walk out of the main terminal building and walk for 2-3 minutes to get to it. When you get there you actually have to ring the doorbell and one of the staff comes to fetch you.

The lady that escorted me in took my passport and boarding card and told me to just enjoy and I would get my passport back later on when it was time to board the plane – it is not that often that I hand over my passport like this but I guess you have to trust them.
When it comes to the lounge….well, I guess there is not that much to say apart from WOW. First of all there are lots of leather chairs spread out in the lounge and there were not many people there so finding a place to sit was not a problem. Each table had a selection of nuts so they have taken the roasted nuts to the next level 

The selection of food seems to be pretty amazing…yes, the Emirates lounge in London was not bad either. But in the Lufthansa First Class lounge they have taken it to the next level. Lunch was pretty amazing with a huge selection of antipasti from a buffet (including huge a huge parma ham and a huge Pata Negra) and there were also several warm dishes including Thai soups, Indian food, risotto and so on, And for dessert a wide variety of sweet stuff including tiramisu, chocolate mousse, panna cotta etc. If you can’t find anything good to eat at this food buffet you either have some pretty weird food allergy or are very picky about what you eat.

As a Norwegian I also have to mention the drink menu….which is extensive Here you can choose to drink Bollinger, Taittinger, Ruinart etc champagnes, 8 different red wines, 80 different scotch and whiskey’s !, 7 types of gin etc…you get the picture. It is quite nice to sip some good champagne while having some Voss water to keep saturated Apart from that the First Class terminal has a cigar lounge where you can enjoy your whiskey together with a cigar and they have 4 shower rooms where you can take a shower. I did take a shower and unfortunately the water was freezing. But apart from that the facilities are very nice. There are also a couple of rooms where you can get some sleep if you want to.

The internet is free of course and there are also several small “offices” where you can get access to the internet if you have not brought your own laptop. It does not get much better than this.

About to enter Lufthansa First Class terminal in Frankfurt

Tomorrow morning I’m going to Hong Kong and I’m first of all looking forward to the First class experience on Lufthansa both on the ground and in the air So I’ll be starting at the crack of dawn with a flight from Stavanger to Frankfurt and after a few hours I’m going to Hong Kong on the upper floor of a Lufthansa 747. This will be a pretty short trip but I have to admit that I’m not very good at packing. There are websites dedicated to how to pack smart and light but I have never been any good at that. I normally start the night before I travel and pack in state of panic I guess and I normally bring too much. But hey, better safe than sorry right? Below is my trusted Samsonite suitcase in the process of being filled  So what does one wear when flying first class I wonder? I have prepared my tuxedo and hope that will be sufficient

This is a trip report from a trip to Dubai with Lufthansa. We bought these tickets when we came across a great Lufthansa offer a few months back and the price was just to good to turn down. We got the tickets for 2800 kroner (about 420 USD) per person for a round trip from Stavanger in Norway and that is almost half the price of what you normally see. We did go to Dubai in 2002 and you can read that trip report here. I’m also planning on making a new proper trip report…this trip report will focus on the flight to and from Dubai.
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