A promised in the A340-600 thread (
see here), here is a quick review of my recent trip to New York specifically to travel on these planes.
In summary, my journey was Heathrow-Frankfurt-JFK last Friday, then JFK-Frankfurt-Birmingham overnight on Sunday/Monday, with Lufthansa. Obviously the A340s were on the FRA-JFK legs. Quite a reasonable trip overall.
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The first part of the trip is, of course, getting to the airport. An 0630 departure from LHR isn't particularly pleasant, but oh well! After work on Thursday, I left the office in Birmingham and travelled to Euston on Avanti. I then stayed the night in the Zedwell Capsule Hotel, which was quite interesting - I'm a fan of hotels like this, but this is the first British one I've stayed in - it was perfectly satisfactory for the price, I'd happily stay again.
Around 0300 Friday morning I caught the N9 night bus from right outside the hotel direct to Heathrow. This bus takes around 75 minutes, but is excellent value at the standard TfL £1.75 fare. It was surprisingly busy.
Upon arrival at Heathrow T2, I went straight through security, having checked in online - I was in the departures lounge within 5 minutes of walking in through the terminal door, which I thought was quite good. It was a similar experience to last time I was at T2 in October. The only downside was having about 2 hours to wait before my flight...
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Flight 1: LH921 0630 LHR-FRA 0905
This flight was not very full - I'd estimate around 20 people in business/premium and 30 in economy. I was expecting it to be a bit fuller, but oh well, it meant there was plenty of space! D-AINY, one of Lufthansa's A320neos, was the aircraft in use - it was perfectly pleasant, although I didn't find the seat backs very comfortable. Leg room was fine. I had an aisle seat near the back.
Shortly after boarding had finished, it was announced that we would be delayed due to fog at Frankfurt, estimated to be 35 minutes. However, clearly the fog forecast improved rapidly, because we took off at 0657. Arrival at Frankfurt was only a couple of minutes late - we arrived at a bus "gate", everyone easily fitted onto one bus. On the journey to the terminal we were nearly run over (slight exaggeration) by a 777 careering into its gate at speed.
On the walk through the terminal, I took the opportunity to register for the European entry system, so hopefully I won't have to do that again when I next enter Europe - we'll see... Connection at Frankfurt was fairly painless, I think I had to go through security again though.
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Flight 2: LH400 1100 FRA-JFK 1350
This flight is what the whole trip was about - the A340-600. In this case, D-AIHW. I had a window seat near the back (at the point where the middle seating reduces to 3 across). The seat was reasonable, legroom was fine, blanket and small cushion were provided. The flight was quite busy - business was over half full, and economy had only a couple of seats spare. There was a surprisingly large number of French-speaking passengers. One of the cabin crew announcements said that, between them, the crew spoke 14 different languages.
Take off did, as has been suggested in the other thread, seem to be quite slow, but obviously we go up in the air safely (at 1132). There was a good selection of in-flight entertainment, and the food (main meal and then snack shortly before landing) was reasonable. The downstairs toilets were an interesting feature.
Arrival at JFK was a few minutes late, landing at 1356, but I wasn't bothered as I had nothing planned. The JFK arrivals experience was reasonable, there wasn't much of a queue at the border, but I used the MPC app to skip the queue and was through in under 5 minutes. Notably, the border guard was the friendliest (if you can describe border guards as friendly!) I've come across on the 4 occasions I've travelled to the USA.
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I took the AirTrain to Jamaica, somewhat reluctantly because it costs nearly $8 but I didn't really fancy going straight into the cheapskate fare avoiding option of getting off at the long stay car park and walking. I then took the J line into Manhattan to check into the hostel I was staying at (the Nolita Express hostel - basically another pod hostel, but with "proper" rooms (just very small), and very good value for the location).
As mentioned, the only reason for this trip was to fly on an A340 - I had nothing planned for the 50 hours or so that I was in the city. I therefore had to come up with some things to do, bearing in mind that I was there in October and did a good selection of the "must see/do" touristy stuff then. One of my interests in theatre (well, the technical side of it) so I went to the discount theatre ticket booth in Time Square to see what was available. Somewhat unbelievably, there was literally no queue, so I went and bought some tickets. With a bit over an hour to go until that evening's show started, I ordered a pizza from an excellent Italian restaurant we found last time, which was ready to collect by the time I'd walked there. I then walked to the theatre, and got there as the doors were opening - excellent timing. After the show, I went back to the hostel and went straight to sleep, having been awake for over 25 hours by this point!
I had a Saturday matinee show ticket as well, but needed something to do in the morning, so I decided to go over some of the far reaches of the Subway network. Thus, I went up to the end of the D line then went for a wander round Van Cortlandt Park (which was rather snowy), then took the 1 line back into Manhattan in time for the show. I then went to the ticket booth again and bought yet another ticket for the evening, before going on another Subway exploration to Jamaica and back (out on the E line, then walk to the end of the F line then back in to the city) followed by the third and final theatre show of the trip.
Sunday was another day of Subway exploration - I've now done all 4 routes to Coney Island... Then over to Howard Beach on the A line to catch the AirTrain back to JFK - except this time I decided to be a cheapskate and do the walking option from Aqueduct station to Lefferts Boulevard, which was an interesting walk. Obviously, being me, I took the AirTrain in the wrong direction just so that I could tick off the line to Howard Beach stop before returning to the airport!
JFK T1 was quite pleasant, although if you stare intently at the ceiling in places through sheer boredom you'll see a few signs of it looking a bit tired... Anyway, I was through security within about 15 minutes, no need to remove liquids or shoes. Food on both sides of security was incredibly expensive - needless to say I didn't buy any... A standard size tube of Toblerone was $30 in one of the duty-free shops!!
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Flight 3: LH401 1540 JFK-FRA 0515
Another A340-600 flight, his time on D-AIHF (I was half expecting both flights to be operated by the same plane, given that there are only 5 of them in use, but fortunately that was not the case). Departure was late: there were strong headwinds apparently, so the inbound working was delayed. We left the gate at 1620, and take off was at 1641. Most of the flight I attempted to sleep so wasn't looking very often at the flight information, but at one point the screen said we were doing 1100km/h which I think is my speed record (strong headwinds becoming strong tailwinds on the return flight).
This flight was again fairly full, good level of occupancy in business, not so much in premium, a few spare seats in economy. I had an aisle seat near the front of the economy section this time. Once again, food and service were reasonable. Arrival was pretty much on time, landing at 0513 having made up most of the time lost.
The airport was quite dead at this time in the morning - transfer through to the non-Schengen part of the terminal was relatively simple, including going through security again. With just under 2 hours to kill, I found some semi-reclined seats near the Air Canada lounge.
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Flight 4: LH952 0730 FRA-BHX 0805
This flight was booked to be another A320neo, but in the event an A319 was used (D-AILN). Coincidentally, D-AINY which I'd been on from Heathrow was parked at the adjacent gate. The change in aircraft wasn't a problem thought - this was easily the emptiest flight I've ever been on. I had a row of 3 to myself. I thought the seats were slightly more comfortable than the A320. We left the gate a few minutes early, and landed at BHX just before 8. The UK entry process was fine, with no queues. There was, however, a queue for the people mover to the station, because one of the vehicles/tracks is undergoing maintenance. Nevertheless, from stepping off the plane to walking in through the door of my office in central Birmingham took less than 50 minutes. I will admit that I perhaps wasn't as productive that day than I normally am in the office...
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Anyway, overall I was happy with the flights. Lufthansa service was perfectly fine, all the airport experiences were reasonable, nothing went wrong. A successful trip!
