Flight #2 back from New Mexico: Chicago to Munich

Sorry for the delay everyone!  I’ve been playing catch up now that I’m back from the field.  And with the chance of the university shutting down, I figured I’d have time when working from home to work on this.  Low and behold, Liverpool has cancelled classes, so I now have time!

Upon arrival into Chicago from El Paso, Annique and I made our way over from the C concourse to the B concourse, where the Lufthansa flights leave from.  The plus side of this is that we didn’t have to re-clear security, but the downside is that the domestic terminals only have United Clubs.  The international terminal instead has the Swiss Airlines and SAS lounges, which are definitely a step up from the United Clubs.  That being said, this United club also offered lasagna, in addition to the standard hummus and bread and snacks.  I couldn’t eat the lasagna because it had both beef and onions, but Annique liked it. The lounge wasn’t particularly inspiring, so Annique and I went and explored the airport a bit. ORD airport apparently offers a yoga room, so we went for a bit of (YouTube-led) yoga, which was actually very relaxing before our flight.

A few minutes before boarding, a member of staff came around to alert us that boarding would begin soon.  By this time, it was almost 9 pm, so the only flights left from that section of the concourse were to Munich and Frankfurt.  We arrived at the boarding gate about 5 minutes before boarding began, which was a very efficient process and took less than 20 minutes total. Partially because the flight was only about 1/3 full.  The rear business class cabin was a ghost town.  Premium economy is separated from regular economy by only a short curtain-like divider near the ceiling, not a wall, like you find on some airlines.

The exit row seat was great!  I had probably the most in-depth exit row explanation ever, which is probably a good thing overall.  When boarding was completed about 10 minutes later, Annique switched seats to come sit in the exit row with me (which was totally fine with the flight attendant and probably safer for the plane, anyway).  At the seat were reusable bags as amenity kits.  I’d forgotten Premium Economy seats get amenity kits, so I was pleased. 

                We also got a small menu book (A5 paper size) and some pretty low-quality headphones.

They then played the safety video twice, once in German and then once in English. I fell asleep during taxiing, woke up for take off, then fell back to sleep until dinner was served.

I went for the marinated chicken thigh. I read that Lufthansa serves the same food here as in Economy; the difference is the Premium Economy meal is served in real dishes. The portion wasn’t massive, but I’d been snacking in the club, so I wasn’t particularly hungry. The food was flavorful, and was probably one of the best Economy meals I’ve had. The food and the after dinner Baileys was a good combination.

After dinner, I reclined the seat and popped out the footrest and slept pretty much continuously for the next 4 hours.  I woke up when they were preparing for breakfast.  I think that’s some of the best I’ve ever slept on a plane, which was amazing. 

Breakfast is usually the weakest meal on planes and in airports, and the breakfast on this flight was definitely weaker than the dinner.  It wasn’t bad; I liked the fruit and meat.  I don’t really know what the white sauce was with the meat.

Upon arrival into Munich, we made our way to the Senator lounge to wait for the next flight.  We apparently initially went to the wrong lounge; the extremely unfriendly check-in person said we had to go to a different one because it was closer to our gate.  When we arrived at the “correct” lounge, an equally unfriendly man checked us in.  I asked a different, equally unfriendly person in the lounge if Annique and I might be able to sit together, but apparently it was too much effort to change 2 seats, so we got squished in in the middle of the cabin, rather than being put in one of the 3 empty rows just a couple rows further back…

For this 9-hour flight across the pond, we had United Club and then Senator lounge access (3/5).  The dinner and Bailey’s was pretty good overall (4/5).  As a result of the ground experience, the overall service was only ok (2/5), but the bulkhead seat was great (5/5).  The in-flight entertainment was good, and the ads weren’t too horrible, which gets a 3/5.  Overall, the flight gets a 17/25.