Two for the Price of One: Back to Hamburg Airport, Hamburg Airport Lounge

Two for the Price of One: Back to Hamburg Airport, Hamburg Airport Lounge

In this epic…

• Two for the price of one? Or when two become one?
• Off to Manchester Airport on the edge of my seat…
• BA Domestic – BA1387 Manchester Airport to London Heathrow
• Heathrow Transit, American Airlines Flagship Lounge
• American Airlines – AA87 London Heathrow to Chicago, Main Cabin
• Streamlined Immigration?
• The Crowne Plaza O’Hare
• Evening adventures with the Sony A5000
• The Hyatt Regency O’Hare
• Off to O’Hare, American Airlines Admirals Club
• American Airlines – AA1205 Chicago O’Hare to Boston Logan
• A Boston Omnishambles
• British Airways – BA202 Boston Logan to London Heathrow Terminal 5 in World Traveller Plus
• Transit and changes… from holiday to work, British Airways Galleries North Lounge
• British Airways – BA974 London Heathrow to Hamburg
• IBIS Budget St Pauli, Hamburg
• Trade Show 101 (or… don’t sleep on your glasses).
• Pounding the Halls of AIX – What you might had missed…
• A Walk around the Hamburg Dom
• Rushing back to Hamburg Airport
• British Airways – BA967 Hamburg to London Heathrow
• Homeward bound
• Mixing business with pleasure

Back to Hamburg Airport

After collecting my bag from left luggage at Hall B7, I began the trip to home – and with the amount of walking, picture-taking and… everything in-between… I was exhausted.

Heading to the U-Bahn, I picked up a ticket to get me to the airport – and headed underground.

My trip would take me through U3 through to Berliner Tor, and then onto S1 for the onward run to the Airport.

The beauty of a lot of German transport is the idea of a “transferable ticket” between modes of transport. And it works.

The U-Bahn ride was quite busy as rush hour had begun. Not unexpected, but considering I had a full rucksack on my back and the saddle bag was pretty bursting too, this could have been really fun.

However, there’s one advantage of arriving at Berliner Tor – you avoid the busy station that is Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. Which when you’re tied out – is no bad thing.

Arriving at Berliner Tor, there was a short wait for a S1 train to the Airport and Poppenbuttel.

Zug in 1min!

For those of you using S1 to go to the airport, makes sure you ride in the first three carriages of the train. The rear three carriages go to Poppenbüttel.

Das Zug!

Also: make sure you have your ticket. Around halfway through the journey a ticket inspector came on board, and caught a few unsuspecting people.

Busy Zug is Busy.

He almost caught me when I handed him the wrong ticket (I still had a ticket from earlier in the day).

So to avoid the annoyance of S-Bahn inspectors 1) buy a ticket when you travel the trains and 2) show the right ticket

In other words… buy a ticket… and don’t donate to those playing accordions on the S-Bahn.

At Olhsdorf, there was a pause as the train divided, and some confused travellers switched trains. Once that was done, it was time to dive into the blackness of the airport tunnel and to the airport station.

From there – it’s a matter of choosing the right exit for Terminal 1 or Terminal 2. I headed for Terminal 2’s entrance – and finished my repacking before heading to the British Airways check-in area.

This is a good concept. As Germany has a deposit on all single-use products (Pfand), it’s a waste to just throw away the bottle as you’re throwing the deposit away. If you throw it in this container, the refund of the Pfand goes to charity.

With me wanting to keep it easy as possible, I decided not to check any  bags in for the homeward flight – and just get my boarding pass. With that, I headed to security which was busy – and unlike some airports that take forever to take action, people were diverted out of priority lanes into quieter lanes.

My sort of airport that can take that sort of proactive action.

With security done in 10 minutes, I was free to enter the Duty Free shopping area. I had eyes for one thing only.

Yes – Kinder Egg Airbus A330s.

Those in hand, I had a lump of spare time before the flight was anywhere near going to board (certainly the plane from London was nowhere near the airport). I therefore headed to the common use lounge on the top deck

Hamburg Airport Lounge

Located on the top deck of the main terminal, it’s a semi quiet place… except when there are tons of airline executives and suppliers filling it as they prepared to go home.

Plenty of space though.

And darn nice views.

The lounge itself was busy – make not mistake, but unlike Galleries North at Heathrow – there was plenty of space and power sockets.

So that’s an instant-win in my book.

Let’s see what they have to eat in this place. Well, there’s a mixture of cold items

Including Kartoffelsalat.

Fruit

Hot items (ChickenWurst).

Drinks station

Drinks and Wurst.

And hot items… in the form of Wurst. ChickenWurst.

Chickenwurst.

But most amazingly of all was a magical soup machine. We’ve all heard of the magical beer machines in Japan… well Hamburg Airport has a magical soup machine.

1. Place bowl

2) Press button

3) Soup appears!

It’s that simple! Ok, it’s not going to set the world on fire in terms of quality and taste (a very much instant soup affair), but it was pretty edible.

I wasn’t in the mood to object – least of all it was calories after a very long week.

However, I spotted a British Airways Airbus A319 taxing past. That was my cue to wrap up and start making my way to the non-Schengen zone.

After exiting the lounge, it’s a matter of heading to the far B Gates, and through passport control.

Off we go for a hike.

This being one of the evening flights after Aircraft Interiors Expo, it was rammed with lots of people heading to London and beyond.

The queue to clear…

After clearing passport control, boarding was about to begin. To say it was boarding was “elite heavy” would an understatement – I’d guess over half the plane was filled with Emerald and Sapphire card holders.

Eventually, I had made my way to the head of the queue. I was blipped through and I headed down the jetway for the final flight of this trip.

Next: BA967 Hamburg to London Heathrow

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