Adventures with Lufthansa and FTU Amsterdam – LH997 Amsterdam to Frankfurt
- Would I like to speak at FTU? Umm. Yes!
- To the airport, LH953 Birmingham to Frankfurt
- An (un)expected extended layover
- LH996 Frankfurt to Birmingham (Business Class)
- The Park Inn Amsterdam Schiphol Airport
- Speaking at FTU Amsterdam
- LH997 Amsterdam Schiphol to Frankfurt Main (This section)
- What is the meaning of the words “Reasonable Connection” at Frankfurt?
- LH958 Frankfurt to Birmingham
- Learning goes both directions
With the time ticking away, it was time to leave the Park Inn, and head back to the airport. Thankfully, this was a nice free ride, that dropped me near Schiphol Plaza.
This was rather convenient as I needed to 1) get some gifts and 2) get some model planes. Well, I couldn’t pass the model plane store at Schiphol Plaza couldn’t I?
Why yes, I’m an #avgeek.
With that done, it was time to check in and get my boarding passes for the way home. This was handeld by a machine – and soon enough I had thermal printed boarding passes spat out at me.
Not wanting to hang around particularlly, I headed through security – where a Nude-o-Scope awaited me. For once, I had to go through it. Mostly painless, and seemingly well organised… unlike some Nude-o-Scopes around the world…
That done, I was airside. Time to walk slowly to the gate and relax.
Bubbles!
A slightly broken information screen. At least you can see it’s out of use…
Off to the gate. The long hike to the B Pier
Most importantly, the Dutch prefer Miffy over Hello Kitty. This is important frequent traveller information. Hmm. a KLM Miffy 737 sounds like an excellent idea…
With free wifi (with a nag note every 30 minutes), it was usable.
Soon enough, the Boeing 737-500 pulled up at the gate, and the pen area was solid – this was going to be another busy flight.
Boarding was eventually called, and I took my leave of The Netherlands, and back to Germany .
LH997 Amsterdam Schiphol Airport – Frankfurt am Main Airport
Lufthansa Boeing 737-500, Seat 16A, Economy Class
477 Miles Flown, 125 miles earned + 32 Executive Miles.
Heading aboard the plane, it was back to familiar territory of a Lufthansa 737. Nothing wrong with that… but it was another hour and a bit in a NEK seat. Wonderful.
Business Class – not for me this time
My seats down the back
The legroom on these 737-500s isn’t too shabby to be blunt – although those seats do feel like you’re sitting on a shelf.
The plane filled up in due course, with another full flight today (and during this trip, this is the fullest I’ve seen Lufthansa short-haul for a long time).
Pushback was on-time, and after the safety demonstration was completed, our plane made a short taxi, and off to the sky
Climb was quick, and soon we were beginning our one hour trip back to Frankfurt with an eager captain at the controls.
The Amsterdam area below
The cabin during cruise – gotta love those classic Boeing overhead controls.
Lights came on quickly, as the cabin crew conducted service. This being Lufthansa short-haul, it was time for the classic sandwich.
Nonstop-Sandwich
Well, what is there to say? It tasted fresh, if overly cheesy (with the big slice of cheese removed… regular readers will know why). It was a reasonable portion for the flight length… although, if I’m honest – not overly creative. On the plus side, it allows food to be distributed extremely quickly.
A shame the drinks service took nearly half the flight to get to the back of the plane.
Waiting for drinks…
The usual trick if you want your own can of coke on Lufthansa… order a diet coke.
The crew were business friendly – but honestly looked like they’d rather be anywhere else that night.
Clean-down followed very quickly as we started to vector towards Frankfurt, and with the cabin darkened again, the lights of the darkened world were there for all to see.
Mainhatten below me.
As our decent continued there was one heck of a nasty sight which I grabbed on the video.
Low ground fog. Hell.
Landing itself was a sharp thump, and soon enough the plane slowed down, and peeled off the runway. However, there was a problem – where the heck were we going to park? It seemed that the fog had caused a major impact on the ground at Frankfurt, with our plane being sent around the houses to find a parking spot.
Fire engine depot
After an extremely long taxi (with my connection time going back into the dangerous territory – 1 hour 45 was not enough now, with 30 minutes of taxing), our plane finally was assigned a hard stand over at the V Hard stands. For those of you you who don’t know Frankfurt airport, these hard stands are normally used by cargo aircraft, and are in the far end of T2 – the opposite side of the place I need to be (T1).
Very foggy out.
Disembarkation was quick, as both front and rear exits were used as we headed onto the apron and (thankfully) waiting buses.
At Frankfurt.
Overall: Fog isn’t anyone’s problem, however – it caused issues for those of us on tight connections. The service was a little sluggish, but acceptable for a short-haul flight. Not bad, but not outstanding.
Next: What is the meaning of the words “Reasonable Connection” at Frankfurt?
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