An Eating Trip to Spain: Arzak, Etxebarri, Lufthansa 747-8 J, Swiss A220 Y / 777 J

[yflyer]

It was time for meal service...



On this flight supper would be served, and then breakfast prior to arrival.

The menu...



A choice of 3 starters and 3 main courses...



Beverages...



Champagne and white wines...



Red wines...



Beer and spirits...

[yflyer]

A crisp white tablecloth was laid on my tray table...

More champagne, accompanied by a bowl of nuts...

[yflyer]

For my starter, I ordered the Tuna Cotto e Crudo, and this came served on a tray, together with salad and bread...



I was also offered additional bread rolls from a basket...



The tuna was quite tasty...



For my main, I opted for the veal, which I paired with a glass of red...



The meat was fairly well done. My preference on the ground is medium rare, but this is almost impossible on a plane...overall I found this to be quite tasty, if not as tender as some steaks I've had inflight.

[yflyer]

Next, I was asked if I wished to have cheese or dessert...I opted for both...



Both were very good!

By then the many in cabin were done with their supper, and were preparing to rest...



I ended my meal with a box of chocolate, and a glass of wild raspberry brandy...



The box of chocolate came with one milk chocolate and one dark chocolate...

[yflyer]

I couldn't resist ordering one final Gin & Tonic as a nightcap... this came properly prepared, complete with lemon slice without prompting from me (SQ please take note!)...

[yflyer]

It was time to recline the seat to rest and sleep...

Seat controls were on the top of the armrest...well lit, intuitively laid out, with responsive buttons that felt just right, not too stiff and not oversensitive to accidental presses either...



The seat was quite comfortable in lounging mode...



When fully flat, the bed looked and felt very comfortable as a sleeping surface as well.



It was not the widest bed, but width was more than adequate. Also, it was straight (No need to lie at an angle) and quite long. There was no cubby hole either, so vertical space was unlimited. It felt very comfortable.

For a little additional width, the armrest could also be lowered to bed level...



Seat with the armrest lowered...



The cushioning of the seat/bed was already fairly soft, but LH also provided a mattress topper...this was provided all rolled up at each seat.



With mattress topper plus large pillow (white on one side, dark blue with yellow/white highlights on the other), this made for a really inviting sleeping surface...



A thick blanket was also provided.



This was very comfortable indeed!



A view of the footrest, which provides some additional length to any already long bed, if needed...



While the seats are angled towards each other at the base, there is a partition between seats, and a decent gap between your seat and your seat mate.

I fell asleep at about 3.30am Singapore time...



...and only woke up at 10.30am Singapore time / 3.30am Frankfurt time, about 2 and half hours prior to arrival, after 7 solid hours of lie-flat sleep! Thumbs up!

[yflyer]

2 hours prior to arrival, the upper deck lights came on and the cabin crew began preparing for breakfast service...



I took a stroll up the Upper Deck J cabin to stretch my legs...



Upper deck emergency door in between rows 83 and 84...

[yflyer]

While waiting for breakfast, I checked out the IFE...



At that point in the flight, we were over Romania...



I rewatched parts of the movie "Bullet Train" (Good, mindless entertainment!)...



Picture quality were good...



Sound quality was decent as well...



As fellow SQTalker Caravelle pointed out, the movie/tv selections weren't that large, so don't expect the huge IFE programme list like what SQ offers...

[yflyer]

1 hour 41 min to go...



For breakfast, I opted for the asparagus and cheese omelette with chicken patty...this came beautifully presented on an oval plate...



Choice of bread rolls or croissants...



I opted for a croissant...



A choice of coffee/tea came later, maybe just a little later than I would have preferred...



Rather than juice, I opted for another glass of Champagne (Why not? :-) ...



A very satisfying breakfast...

[yflyer]

There was an IFE screen that was supposed to show arrival gate info and connecting flight info just prior to arrival, however on this flight, only the arrival gate info was shown, but no connecting flight info. We were arriving at gate Z23...I suspect that meant a long trek to our gate for our connecting flight to BCN!



We were soon descending for FRA...



While browsing the IFE earlier in the flight, I noticed that there was a function for an inflight camera...I had tried this several times during the flight, but it always came up with a black screen...



I don't know if it was because it was a night flight, and it was dark outside, or if the cameras were off, but it was only in these final stages of the flight that I could actually see anything on the camera view...I watched as the runway came into view...



Moments to touchdown...



On the runway!



A very smooth landing...

On the ground in FRA...



A final look at D-ABYU after deplaning...

[yflyer]

Overall, I had a great experience on this flight from Singapore to Frankfurt.

My opinion on LH Business Class?

LH has a strong business class product on 747-8. It is not leading edge product (First introduced in 2013/2014), but it has aged very well and is still a fairly competitive product to fly.

Hard product

Positives:
- The seats and cabin are still in superb condition and look very new.
- Cabin feels very open and spacious.
- Great fully flat bed for sleeping. Also good for lounging.
- Very comfortable bed.

Negatives:
- Window seat pax don't have direct aisle access -- need to step over aisle pax.
- Limited privacy if you don't know your seat mate.
- IFE selection slightly limited.

Catering and amenities

Positives:
- Tasty, well presented dishes.
- Relatively fast meal service means that pax have lots of time to rest between meals. Meal service did not drag on too long.
- Gin & Tonic came with a lemon slice! (Hey this is important for me. A proper G&T must have lemon. UA, BA, QF all do this automatically. How come SQ sometimes omits the lemon slice, even in J?)
- Decent liquor selection.
- Very attractive Van Laack pyjama top and amenity kit provided.

Negatives:
- Comparatively limited number of meal choices.
- No mid-flight snack (Although this was less of an issue on this flight as most of the flight would be spent asleep).

Cabin Crew

Positives:
- Warm, friendly and responsive
- Very professional

Negatives:
- Pax were typically not addressed by name

Comparison with SQ

As for comparisons with my recent SQ26 Business Class experience, 4 months ago, in Nov 2022, on the same SIN-FRA sector on the A380? I would say I would still prefer SQ for the following reasons:

- Newer A380 Monocoque Business Class seat, and even quieter A380 cabin, though the 747-8 upper deck felt more exclusive and intimate.
- All out pampering by SQ's cabin crew
- Mindblowing IFE selection in Krisworld
- More elaborate catering and F&B options on SQ. But that said, in terms of taste and presentation, the LH catering, with more quality than quantity, could also hold its own. Also sometimes SQ's meal service tends to drag on for a long time. In some ways, faster LH-style meal service could be preferable.

X-factor

The unique selling point for me was, of course the fact that this was a 747-8. Whatever minor quibbles above could be overlooked when one was on the 747-8 upper deck...

Verdict

As you can see, there were far more positives for Lufthansa than negatives here. Lufthansa have a good product that checks most of the right boxes for what passengers now expect from business class. I enjoyed my flight very much, and would not hesitate to fly LH J again if the price was right.

The current business class product on the 747-8, first introduced in 2013/2014, is roughly contemporary to the 2013 J that SQ still deploys on their 77WR and A350.

Lufthansa have recently announced a new Allegris J product that will be rolled out in coming months / years. The biggest downsides with the current product , such as lack of direct aisle access and limited privacy will be addressed by their new Allegris J. I hope to have the opportunity to try that at some point in the future.

[yflyer]

Off the plane in FRA at 6.15am, we found ourselves in a large, mostly empty terminal, just after 6am in the morning...



We were in the Z area of the terminal.

We headed to the departure screens to check for our connecting flight to Barcelona, departing at 7.10am. Based on the screen, our gate was A26. There was no map of FRA on the display, but knowing the alphabet, it would appear that A and Z were pretty far apart...



After using the bathroom and getting ourselves organised, it was now 6.24am. Not a lot of time to get to the gate (And of course, checking out any of the LH Senator Lounges was out of the question).

Thankfully, Mrs yflyer and Miss yflyer no.2 had been prepped by me to expect a long walk through FRA to get our connecting gate. And they were used to my speedwalking...

"Don't worry, we have lots of time...let's go!"

So we walked...

And walked...

We arrived at passport control, which we needed to get through. There was a snaking line about 30 people deep for non-EU passport holders. Thankfully the line moved quickly, and we had our passports stamped within 10 minutes of joining the queue.

Thankfully there was no need for an on-arrival security check at FRA for connecting passengers, which would have been another potential bottleneck.

By 6.41am were were through to the A gate area...



We continued our trek towards A26, and arrived there at 6.50am. At the gate, Lufthansa Airbus A321 rego D-AIST...



By then, regular boarding had already commenced, but as Star*G we joined the priority boarding lane (by then empty), and headed right in...

[yflyer]

We passed the business class cabin (As is typical for intra-Europe J, this was just regular Y seating with the middle seat empty)...



...and took our seats in the first row of Y...



My seat was 5F, a slimline, window seat...



Recline was limited, however this was a fairly short 1 hr 45 min flight, so that didn't matter too much.

Pushback at 7.18am...



...and take off at 7.30am...

There was wifi on this flight, with a variety of pricing options, based on bandwidth and not time or data usage, which I thought was very enlightened....



Rates ranged from EUR 12 for the entire flight, for speeds fast enough for streaming...



...to EUR 7 for internet surfing and email...



There was even a cut-price EUR 3 (!) super cheap option for just messaging. I purchased that just to see whether it worked as advertised.



The conclusion: Yes, the EUR 3 option allowed you to communicate via WhatsApp messages very effectively etc. You could even send pictures, although the pics took ages to be sent. In retrospect, in future I would pick the EUR 7 or EUR 12 option, but it was nice to know that internet on these flights worked ok, and was reasonably priced.

[yflyer]

Catering on this flight was mostly for purchase...



Each pax did get a complimentary bottle of water, and a small bar of chocolate...

[yflyer]

There were great views out the window on this morning flight on a clear day...



Great enroute views of Lake Geneva...



And further on, the Chartreuse Mountains, just north of the French city of Grenoble...



The inflight wifi also provided a moving map display...