After an exhausting, Christmas market-filled weekend in Germany, it was time to head back home to Ireland for our second last working week of the year – and thanks to a great deal booking (well) in advance, back in March, we’d be trying out LH980 from Frankfurt to Dublin, in Business Class.
I’ll cover the lounge nearest our gate soon, but suffice to say we’d managed to have more than our fair share of nibbles and a few drinks before setting off.
Boarding was delayed about 15 minutes in all, due to a late aircraft arrival from Stavanger of all places, and involved a quick document check at the gate before self-service boarding for all passengers. This didn’t really go very smoothly it seemed, for most, with two gates and the two separate passengers in front of us having issues – one ‘boarded already’, and one ‘seating issue’.
We were quickly on-board what certainly felt like a delightful piece of aeronautic vintage, with ironing board-like seating throughout (including business, as is always the way in Europe on short-haul), and as seems to be a Lufthansa short-haul premium tradition, not even so much as a middle seat table.
You certainly won’t need to send out a search-and-rescue party for your feet either, as the legroom on offer guarantees they’ll never stray too far from your person. We tried out row 1 on the way to Frankfurt, and that was slightly better, though far from limitless – and bounded by the cabin partition.
Despite our delayed boarding start, we were packed up and ready for the off in no time, with doors closed on time. We taxied out to the runway at warp speed and were airborne moments thereafter.
Frankfurt to Dublin is a pretty short flight, coming in at around one hour and 50 minutes on this jaunt – and Lufthansa makes sure not to be overly generous with the meal portions on a flight of this length.
Our meal – no options available, it’s the same for everyone – was some kind of nameless, thinly sliced fish, along with what tasted like an egg and apple salad (but really, who knows), and a few extra slices of apple for good measure. Our crew, realising the likely propensity of the cabin to still be hungry also very kindly and pro-actively doled out two bread rolls on each tray as well. Lastly, a chocolate mousse rounded things off.
There were also two rounds of drink service on offer – once with the meal, and once again after the meal (framed as ‘tea or coffee’, but there was no way I was letting them away with just one glass of wine).
After that, there was only about 30 minutes remaining to stare out the window and enjoy what turned out to be beautiful evening skies before beginning our descent.
Both on the departure, and the arrival, at Dublin Airport saw Lufthansa being parked at the 300 gates (formerly ‘Pier B’, the circular pier in between the Terminal 1 duty free stores) – meaning a very quick disembarkation and a relatively fast-track immigration experience on account of the dedicated set of counters for that gate area.
Bags were also delivered as if it was the last post before Christmas, and, in a show of just how well things can work at Dublin Airport, we were standing at the boot of the car in the Terminal 1 car park 18 minutes after walking off the plane.
There’s not much to scream and shout about generally with intra-Europe business class – Lufthansa definitely had one of the quieter, more pleasant, lounges at a home airport, but the very austere on-board seating (no flexible headrests even, let alone the middle table), legroom and dining, in my opinion, would make justifying the premium to business very difficult and certainly a notch below British Airways, and moreso below Aegean.
