Announcement

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:15 PM

Cabin Shot

Seat Shot

Tray Table

Business Class Painting

Class Divider
Legroom Shot

Window

Overhead Panel

Cabin service was a hot lunch service in business, a meal service in economy extra, complimentary tea and coffee in economy with other beverages and meals and snacks for sell. The lunch was quite nice despite the suspicious red meat patties and lack luster presentation. Entrée – Minced meat patties in gravy with mashed potatoes and green peas, starter – shredded meat salad with fruit bread, Rolls - choice of brown bread or regular rolls, and Lime mousse cake. There is no choice of entrée, like most European airlines, but after flying a number of intra-European airlines in business, a hot lunch served in a real hot tray is actually no longer the norm here in Europe, but Finland to Europe flight actually is a bit longer than average, so hot meals are hard to avoid.

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:17 PM

Overall tray setup

Starter

Finnish Brown bread

Entrée

SAS packing

Dessert

Plastic glass for cold drinks

Real cups for hot drinks

The service was straightforward and with only two F/As serving the whole plane. The purser was mainly responsible for heating up meals and serving them to J passengers, while the second F/As prepared the beverage cart and BOB carts for economy class. They both worked the economy cabin after the first round of meal and beverage service in business class. The purser checked on the two business passengers quite frequently but she was a bit annoyed with my photography by the end of the flight. It was a bit excessive I know!

Shots of engines

Approaching Brussels

Descent began at 12:34pm Brussels local time (BRU is an hour behind form HEL), and we landed on R/W25L at 12:56pm, and the landing was quick and short, like how an RJ should perform. We parked at gate A56 six minutes later and made an early arrival.

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:19 PM

June 19, 2011
SN 3157 BRU-MXP Lv1440 Arr1615 Avro RJ-100 OO-DWH

Brussels Airlines has always been high on my list to be an airline that I will try, especially seeing all their RJ85s and RJ100s all over Europe. The experience in its European business class is not disappointing and perhaps one of the new European airlines offering a decent overall business class product.

Check-in:
I got my boarding pass at Helsinki, so not much to talk about here.

Lounge:
SN Brussels Airlines offers three different lounges in Brussels – one located at the end of B Concourse for its African flights, one at Concourse A for its non-Schegen and US partners, and this lounge located at the center of the B Concourse for Schegen flights. All the Star Alliance carriers, as expected, use the lounge. Here are a couple pictures of the lounge:
Various seating areas and I like the furniture and the modern theme
Bar style tables

Seating area

Self-serving buffet area

The lounge was fairly busy on this Sunday afternoon, but could be crowded on busy days like Monday mornings. I think it needs more space. There were no complimentary WIFI connections, but a line of computers with Internet connection for passengers to use. The buffet was fine with the usual array of cheeses, meats, breads, fresh fruits, and packaged snacks. There was a bowl of cream of white asparagus soup, which I helped myself a few servings. As of that point, I was just yearning for some fresh hot soup and this white asparagus soup was tasty and filling. There were a coffee machine, soda machine, various fridges containing beers, wines, individually sized bottled waters (definitely appreciated), bottles of orange and grapefruit juices, and various soft drinks. I spent a pleasant hour here, as I got good seating overlooking the B pier.

This is definitely the Brussels Airlines’ land – lines of Airbuses, Avro RJs, Boeing 737s, and even an Airbus A330-300 parked in the furthest gate.

A particular SN A320 – heading to Nice soon

Another SN A319 arriving at gate – Heading to Geneva next

Boarding:
Brussels airport is a very user-friendly airport, and I enjoy spending a few hours here. Today we used gate A48, and the aircraft had arrived early from Berlin Tegel airport. I missed the arrival of the inbound flight, but BRU was not really a picture-friendly airport with the curve on the exterior window. The flight was fairly full in economy cabin, with three passengers in full fare economy cabin, and one in business. Boarding began at 2:21pm, and I was soon settled into 1A. As typical European airline, the seats are basically the same, but catering make the difference. SN adds a placard in the first row of each cabin, and used different headrest covers to separate the cabins. Business got the grey ones, while full fare economy got the light blue ones, and then economy got the red ones. The purser immediately offered a blanket and pillow, as well as asked for my choice of pre-takeoff beverage. I was quite amazed, as pre-takeoff beverage was not common in this part of the world. Swiss offers choices of bottled waters and that was already considered as a very good gesture. My glass of water (yes real glassware was used) came with a packet of savory biscuits.

Cabin during boarding

Pre-takeoff beverage and refreshment

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:20 PM

Pillow and blanket

Newspapers were offered soon, and then at 2:36pm, cabin door was closed, and we pushed back from gate three minutes later. It was a very efficient process. After a private EMB regional jet took off, we turned into R/W25R and took off at 2:51pm. These small Avro jets are famous for its short takeoff and landing field performance, and I was caught off guard by a number of interesting maneuvering sounds in various stages of takeoffs and landings.

Flight:
The pilot advised our flying time of an hour and ten minutes and did not provide any flight information. With short flying time, the purser swung into actions shortly after the seat belt sign was turned off at 2:57pm. There were two flight attendants and both were very professionally dressed and friendly. They were more personable and would never take away an empty glass or cup without asking if you need another drink. That really separated them out from the usual European airlines.

Hot towel was first given – another surprise and unusual amenity, and then, he placed a placemat over my table before serving the cold snack tray. It was nice to get a proper business class meal. The cold meal contains a chilled entrée of Poached salmon on top of sliced celery & rice salad with peas, a plate of Belgian cheese and grapes, warmed white and wheat roll, and a box of Neuhaus chocolates Beverages were served, and then the purser moved on to the flexible economy cabin, which had free meals and drinks (different from J), and the second F/A pushed the cart to the regular economy cabin for the buy on board service. The cold meal was quite nice and appropriate for the length of flight, and the rolls were perfectly warmed! The F/A did a numbers of beverage rounds, and as I said earlier, my empty cup was never collected without asking if I wanted a refill or not. The service is immaculate and I wish Brussels Airlines can fly to the US soon, so I can fly its international service. Their African destinations are a bit too exotic for me.

Cold meal

Chilled entrée

Belgian cheese plate

Cute Belgian flag

Rolls

Neuhaus chocolate

Cup of tea

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:22 PM

Cabin
Avro RJ 100 (same as RJ 85) actually is not bad cabin and with five abreast seating (AB-DEF) adopted by SN, the cabin is comfortable, unlike the six abreast seating that BA City Flyer used and the seat is quite narrow. Row 1 is the only business class row, and Row 1A and C are the most comfortable with abundant of legroom. Of course Row 1 disadvantage is the lack of floor storage. 1D&F has slightly reduced legroom.

Business Class row

Row 1 – legroom shot

Headrest-cover – close up of “b” logo and note the leather material used

Sign for b.flex seats

Descent began at 3:35pm and we landed on R/W35R at 3:54pm local time. The landing was nice and short, and we parked at spot “757” five minutes later. I love bus gate, as I can shoot a few close-up pictures of this Avro RJ 100.

OO-DWH at MXP

June 20, 2011
LH 3708 MXP-LIS Lv1030 Arr1220 Airbus A319-100 D-AILH “Palermo”
Operated by Lufthansa Italia

Lufthansa Italia is one of Lufthansa’s ambitious projects and is based in Milan Malpensa Airport with operation to a number of Italian and European cities. Throughout the past year, it is obviously not a profitable airline and continues to cut back on frequencies and routes. Finally everything comes to an end and it will be its last day on August 31st. So I made an effort to make a trip on LH Italia before it runs out of business. The ticket is actually quite reasonably priced – only $188USD one-way discounted business class fare from MXP to LIS. Booking is pretty straightforward at Lufthansa.com and I used the USA website and paid in US dollars. I actually used its “hold a seat for 48 hours with a fee” service and just to make sure that I was able to find a flight back to Helsinki from Lisbon. Lufthansa website is excellent and I am able to confirm a seat assignment and enter my BD number with no issue – just excellent German efficiency.

Check-in:
Online check in and kiosks were available at MXP airport, but since there was no line at the first and business class lines, I used the traditional service and got a boarding pass from a rather boring check-in agent. She was not especially friendly but not rude. She weighed my carryon and just told me to lighten the weight slight, as it was 0.2kg over the 10kg requirement. She said I could do it later and just gave me the “approved carry-on label”. I honestly did not think she particularly cared. Then she told me to use the fast track security line. I did not take picture, as there was no “Lufthansa Italia” logo. It was indeed a normal “Lufthansa” operation.

Lounge
Lufthansa has a Senator/Business lounge at the Schengen area and no picture again, as it is a typical Lufthansa lounge with limited snack – breads and fresh fruits with self-service hot and cold beverages, and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. There is no complimentary wifi service, but I am able to use my Boingo account. I surfed the web a bit and then headed towards the gate around 9:45am. Milan Airport is better than Rome, but there is a severe lack of seating area and too many shops. Well at least the bathroom is not flooded like the one at check-in level – talk about disgusting.

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:24 PM

Plane-spotting
A Pier
A Malev Boeing 737-700 heading to Budapest

My LH Italia D-AILH getting ready to fly to Lisbon

Due to the parking spot, I can’t get really good pictures.
Gate A12/ Spot”602”

Lufthansa logo

Flight
Boarding began at 10:10am, after the F/As returned to the plane with their coffees, and newspapers were available at the gate entry – one of the main signs of a full service carrier. It was not a particular full flight and two Italian flight attendants greeted us as we boarded the plane. Not sure what their next job will be – maybe mainline Lufthansa or Air Dolomitti. They were professionally dressed and courteous. Business class had four passengers, and I got row 2 all to myself. Refresher towels and magazines were passed out next, and door was closed early at 10:27am, and we pushed back on time. International pier looked pretty busy with SQ 77W 9V-SWB getting ready for its 11am departure back to Singapore (no BCN flight this morning), Delta Boeing 767-400ER N833MH, Nouvelair’s A320 TS_INO, Gulf Air operated by Privatair BBJ HB-IIQ, and a special painted Turkish TC-JOY Boeing 737-800 Winglet, along with Qatar A330, CX 777-300ER, Etihad Airbus A330-200, and Continental Boeing 767-200ER. We taxied towards R/W35L and took off from a sunny Milan at 10:43am. Flying time was two hours and thirty-one minutes with a cruising attitude of 10,700meter. The flight route took us directly towards Barcelona, Madrid and then onto Lisbon.

Cabin Shot

Typical Lufthansa seating – not the new slimline seats

Legroom shot

Headrest – LH Italia had the Italian flag color on its leather headrest cover

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:26 PM

Star Alliance logo

The name outside is Palmero, but not according to this nameplate – its former name is…

“City of Norderstedt” – this particular A319 has been delivered to Lufthansa in 1997, but served briefly with Khalifa Airways and Croatia Airlines, before returning to LH and transferred to LH Italia.

Service was typical European airline, and it was less service than what mainline Lufthansa offered though. On my Munich to Madrid flight last year, there was a separate beverage and almond service, and then a full-sized tray was offered with a full size entrée, appetizer, dessert, and properly warmed roll. It was pretty filling, but LH Italia offered was less. The F/A immediately passed out the lunch tray, which had a full sized salad – Mixed greens with Radicchio leaves, shredded red peppers, and sundried tomato, Italian balsamic vinaigrette dressing, a small entrée of linguini with blue cheese cream sauce and random pieces of mushrooms, and French rolls – similar to what I got from a LH operated by bmi flight from LHR to MXP, which was an hour shorter than Lisbon flight.

Main meal tray

Salad

Pasta entrée

Sides – salad dressings
French roll

Beverage was than offered, and the F/A moved towards serving economy class. The purser would check on us once a while, as I was the only one eating and refilling other passengers’ beverages. After dinner tray was collected, a dessert tray was offered with tea or coffee. Dessert was a small Amaretto cake with chocolate chips and some green fruit sauce. It was okay – better than nothing.

Dessert tray

Hot tea with lemon

F/As then took their seats in the galley and service sort of ended here. But to give them credit, when the young male F/A collected my empty cup, he was more than happy to get me another cup of hot tea. However there was no proper pre-arrival beverage service. I felt that a proper pre-arrival beverage should be offered on a flight over two hours. Anyway, it was still better than the Air France flight to Paris CDG that I flew next.

Descent began at 12:48pm, and it was a lovely day here in Lisbon.

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:29 PM

Scenery on arrival
Approaching the Portuguese coast

I love landing at a city airport – sort of reminded me of Kai Tak
Interesting stadium

We landed on R/W3 at 12:14pm local time and passed by a TAP A330-200 CS-TON (heading to Natal) and an Air Transat’s Airbus A310-300 C-GVAT – an aircraft type and an airline that I have yet to fly. We parked at gate 16 seven minutes later, and I got a few shots of the airplane from the glass jet bridge.

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:30 PM

Lisbon is a very compact airport but there are plenty of eateries and spotting was okay due to the proximity of the aircraft to the terminal, but of course tinted glass does not allow good photography, except a few spot.

Easyjet Airbus A320 heading to Madrid – a rare close-up opportunity

Engine

Logo

Tail

LH Italia D-AILH returning to Milan after 40 minutes in ground – very quick turnaround

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:31 PM

My next flight was on Air France, part of my award ticket back to Helsinki. I was not planning to say much here because it was not a particular interesting flight or route. However, I was so disappointed with the cabin service and the seats that I had to say something. Air France has recently embarked on a redesign of its onboard products, and “enhancement” is supposedly made. As a frequent traveler, I am suspicious of any enhancement and it is pretty bad, as the premium product is washed down to a plastic cold snack and a single beverage service served in plastic.

“Snack box” – the new environmentally friendly box

Contents – poor for two hours and above flight

Not even a warmed roll

Beverage served in plastic cup

The F/As made zero attempts to do a tea and coffee service, or even a second beverage run. They then took the seat after collecting trash, and talked nonstop for the last hour of the flight. I cannot call it a business product at all, and premium economy product is a bit closer. The snack box was same as my A380 LHR-CDG flight last year, which was fine because of the shorter flight length. But for a scheduled two hours and thirty minutes flight, I expect a hot meal or at least some hot entrée. The bento box is fine, if it has a separate hot entrée dish. Plus is it so expensive to serve beverage in real glassware or cups? I actually think Air France has the worst intra-European business class product and honestly don’t think it can be any lower than this flight. AF intra-European flights are to be avoided from now on. Sorry about rambling but it is very disappointing. Of course the flight ended with a bus gate arrival and the aircraft sat five minutes idle at the tarmac waiting for a marshal, while I saw at least three ground staffs sitting at the stand.

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:32 PM

The journey to fly Saab 2000 and an accidental detailed Finnair A319 report
After a relatively awful Air France flight, I am looking forward to flying Finnair again. Since it was a code-share flight with Air France, I got my boarding pass for this segment the evening before at Lisbon. I was not going to write about the flight, but as the only passenger in the flight and a friendly crew, I decided to take some pictures and made a pretty good review of the Finnair A319. There were many pictures at the full album, but it would give you a pretty good recap of Finnair seats. It is an older aircraft, but it is a very comfortable flight. Sorry that there is no lounge or boarding pictures.

June 21, 2011
AY 3678/AF 1298 CDG-LIS Lv0740 Arr1130 Airbus A319-100 OH-LVK

It was a rainy morning here at Paris and of course, it was the day when we were assigned bus gate, while seeing a score of Air France and even Easyjet Airbuses using the jetbridge. Of course, we were the only the plane with a non-covered stairway. I presumed the aircraft arriving the night before and used a regular stairway and they were too lazy or busy to change it to a covered stairway, which was of course parked next to stand. Boarding began early but due to the light load, we had to stand inside the bus for a long time waiting for last minute arriving passengers. The loading was light this morning with only me in business, and less than half full in economy class. Due to the rain, newspapers were placed on the bulkhead rows of the business class cabin, and the only English selection is Financial Times, not my usual paper, but with the Paris Air Show, it is not a bad read. Door closed early at 9:37am, and we pushed back four minutes later. Taxing took a bit of time, but nothing too obnoxious. We took off from R/W27L at 7:58am.

Engine after takeoff

Flying time was two hours and twenty-one minutes and this aircraft is equipped with nose camera and sky map. I was able to trace the route, when they were not showing videos. We flew towards Brussels after takeoff and then settled at 39,000feet. We flew over cities of Oldenburg, Roskide, Helsinborg, Vaxjo, Hultsfred, Hanko and then into Helsinki.

The cabin was fairly standard intra-European and I believe the seats are Recaro with middle seat blocked for business class. Bulkhead rows feature a bit of extra legroom, but of course all cabin bags have to be placed in the overhead bin. I manage a number of cabin shots.

Cabin shots

Bulkhead row

My seat

Headrest

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:34 PM

Legroom shot at Row 2

Overhead legroom shot for Row 1

Overhead legroom shot for Row 2

Tray Table

Seats in Recline Position

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:35 PM

Service was fairly standard and Finnair had a few additional amenities. Breakfast was featured on this flight and the purser asked me when I wanted breakfast. The breakfast tray was quite nice with a hot entrée of Plain Omelet with hash brown potatoes, and chicken brochette with apricot, a starter plate of sliced cheese, cherry tomato, and turkey, along with Cornflakes in a colorful bowl, strawberry yogurt, and a choice of bread – croissants, wheat rolls and sliced brown bread with butter and strawberry preserve. Beverages were served in Finnair signature glassware and real cups. The F/As checked on me frequently while they were performing the service in economy class. After breakfast tray was collected, the F/A gave me a KARDEMUMMAMUFFINS, along with tea and coffee. Late in the flight, Fazer’s chocolate candies – GEISHA flavored were served throughout the cabin.

Breakfast tray

Cheese and cold cut

Cornflakes

Yogurt

Bread

Entrée

**Carfield** · 5 July 2011, 03:36 PM

Beverage

Muffin after breakfast

Both pre-order catalogs and duty free service was carried out after breakfast. Entertainment wise – CNN Future Cities (Helsinki of course), Worlds of Sports, and World’s Funniest videos were shown.

Announcement

The Quest for Saab 2000 – intra European KF/SN/LH/AF/AY/DC

The Quest for Saab 2000 – intra European KF/SN/LH/AF/AY/DC

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