Moscow 2011: Moscow to Frankfurt

Moscow 2011: Moscow to Frankfurt

• Introduction
• The low-cost part of the trip: Penang to Hong Kong
• Hong Kong “forced” layover
• 1^st time in first class: Hong Kong United and Thai First Lounge
• 1^st time in first class: Hong Kong to Bangkok
• The Thai F experience in Bangkok
• Bangkok to Dubai
• Dubai Layover
• Dubai to Istanbul
• Istanbul Layover
• Istanbul to Moscow
• Moscow Overview
• Moscow Day 1
• Moscow Day 2 
• Moscow Day 3 
• Last Day in Moscow
• Moscow to Frankfurt
• Frankfurt/Lufthansa First Class Terminal
• More 1^st Class – Frankfurt to Cairo
• Cairo Layover
• Cairo to Istanbul
• RIP THY 1^st class: Istanbul to Hong Kong
• Conclusion

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Back to planes and lounges…

Our flight from DME was 2 weeks before the terrorists bombing.  This definitely put things into perspective on how close one can be with tragedy..

 

We left the hotel at 4.30 am on a pre-booked taxi for our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt from Domodedovo airport (DME) that was scheduled for 7 am.  The first impression of DME was that this was a newer airport if compared to SVO. We checked in at an empty first-class Lufthansa counter since we had a first class flight to Cairo later that day.  I had already pre-booked seats 7A and 7C and didn’t realize until we actually got on the plane that Lydia was moved to 7D giving us an entire row to ourselves.  I’m guessing that this must have been due to the first class ticket. Sorry for the lack of pictures of the airport as I was paranoid on whether taking pictures at the airport was allowed in Russia..

The airport was relatively busy with flights to Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Zurich all leaving around the same time.  Lufthansa, Swiss Air and Austrian Airlines all operate their own lounges here but we only stuck to the Lufthansa lounge.  I am kind of surprised that the Lufthansa airlines did not just share a lounge.

The lounge was pretty good and spacious with enough seating. It also had a good view of the tarmac and caught a Cathay flight that just arrived from Hong Kong.  There were some light bites and I enjoyed an early (or maybe super late?) Russian beer to start off the day..

We made our way to the flight after the boarding announcement was made in the lounge.  By the time we got to the departure gate, the general boarding was already completed.  The flight was operated by a A321 with “Euro style” business class seats. 30 minutes after take-off breakfast was served.  I wasn’t really hungry and only took a couple of bites.  I wanted to save the stomach space for the First Class Terminal. It was pretty disappointing that there was no AVOD on this 3 hour flight – just entertained myself with the in-flight magazine and catching up on some work/email. The service on the flight however was really good.  The stewardess serving us was extremely friendly.

Breakfast on the flight: