I had night-stopped in the Sheraton Frankfurt airport just across the road from Lufthansa’s Terminal 1 check-in concourse, so I was there in very good time for my 11:00 flight LH904 to London Heathrow.  Even though I only had hand baggage, I wanted to physically check in to make sure they put my Singapore gold card details in the system (Singapore, like Lufthansa, is in Star Alliance, so I would earn points and miles for this flight), and also I would get an early feel for Lufthansa’s customer service standards, which turned out to be very good.

As a benefit of my gold card I was able to access the Senator Lounge, rather than the normal business class lounge, and I was really looking forward to having breakfast in it.  But first I had to find it… Frankfurt Rhein/Main airport (“FRA”) is large with many, many retail outlets and aircraft gates appear to be incidental. Even as a German speaker I found navigation a challenge.

The Senator Lounge was spacious and bright, but for me it was what one would expect of a Business Class lounge in a (decent) airline’s home base; I didn’t see the expected luxury of a “Senator” lounge.  And it was pretty busy, rather than “exclusive”.  One side had comfortable leather armchairs and floor to ceiling windows giving great views of the apron and one of the runways.  The other side had stools and chairs next to tables you could eat or work from.  The food area was small and the offering was quite limited, tucked away at one end of the self-service area, but I managed to hunt down a bowl of muesli, a pain au chocolate and a machine-made cappuccino, and then I surfed the web on the free wi-fi and watched the planes come and go.  On another side is a manned bar area, where I think you can get a barista-made coffee.

The TV screens told me to go to Gate B33. If you have two do the same note that it’s not an aircraft docking gate, it’s a gate from where you board a bus!  I must have just missed one because the one I boarded was almost empty, and I had to sit waiting from 10:35 until a school party got on at 10:55.  I wondered why or how the airline had kept the gate open for them so long: the scheduled departure time was 11am.

It was 11:04 when I passed the (Pratt & Whitney) PW1100G geared turbofan slung under the wing of Airbus A320neo, registration D-AINI.  “Neo” stands for ‘new engine option’ and these engines are 50% quieter than the current engine option (“ceo”), more fuel efficient and they produce a good deal less CO2.  I find the noise from the A320ceo family aircraft to be dreadful, so I was really looking forward to hearing the new ones!

Doors closed at 11:06 (6 minutes late) but then the (lady) captain came over the tannoy to tell us we were being held on stand for a further 20 minutes because of weather-related Air Traffic Control restrictions at Heathrow.  I guess that’s why they seemed in no hurry to board us.

This was a pretty new aircraft and everything was nice and clean, but the legroom was still just the same as in the economy section, and surprisingly there was no power supply for charging one’s devices. I’m sure this irritates business travellers, and those pax who like to stream videos (there is no IFE, not even overhead screens).

Unlike on my Lufthansa flight from Madrid to FRA the day before, we weren’t offered Champagne before take-off, nor were menus distributed. But I did grab a plastic cup of water from the very charming FAs working on this flight.

And so it was 11:29 when we pushed back from stand and began a long taxi to runway 18, from where we took off at 11:55.  The new engines were noticeably much quieter than those on ‘classic’ A320s; they sounded more like large modern fans on the latest wide-bodied aircraft like the B787 or the A350.

After take-off we were served a cold brunch/light lunch, which was bursting with fresh flavours. Mozzarella, pesto, oven-dried tomatoes, hummus and prawns was a delicious plate of food, which I ate with a warm crusty bread roll. There was a small bowl of yogurt with a fruit compote and a biscuit crumb (just like a Mueller yogurt!) and some fine chocolates. I resisted the offer of alcohol because I planned to drive when I got back to the UK, so I had an apple juice, a water and a coffee – the latter two being served in nicely designed glass and mugs.  NOTE: economy pax received a free sandwich and glass of booze (wine or beer).

I reverted to my usual pastime of looking out of the window, but as we neared England the land was covered by cloud. Our approach over London was a bit bumpy, through heavy rain, and I didn’t see the ground until we were only about 2,500ft above it. But our landing on runway 18L was very smooth at 12:18 local and we were on stand at 12:25, some 20 minutes late.

I really enjoyed this flight, with the new quieter engines, excellent friendly service from the crew, and a delicious meal service. I am strongly motivated to fly long haul with Lufthansa some time soon.  8.5/10

This ticket cost me €284, which I felt was good value.