Sunday, October 26, 2008

Kiev, Ukraine Oct. 2008: Munich International, Munich Germany (MUC) to London-Heathrow International, London England (LHR)

LH3233 26OCT08 Munich International, Munich Germany (MUC) to London-Heathrow International, London England (LHR) 9:15a 10:25a 321 D-AISG

Flight Time: 1:30
Seat Map

By the time we boarded it was about 8:55a. We had to go down the stairs to a waiting bus. When I got there, the driver closed the door and advised that I had to wait for the next bus. There were now about 7 of us left; we were the last 7 passengers.

In a few minutes, another bus arrived and we were on our way. eventually, we got to the hardstand and walked up the steps to the waiting Airbus A321-200.

The flight attendant said "good morning' in German and I replied in English and walked past the two rows of Business Class seats which held eight passengers. A curtain separated them from the Economy class in a 3-3 configuration. The cabin before the Exit door and mid-cabin lavatory had five rows with the lst row on the right having only two seats. The normal aisle seat is replaced by a backward facing flight attendant jumpseat.

We settled in and the main door soon closed at about 9:12a. A minute later, the Captain came on the PA and was saying something lengthy in German. I turned to my colleague and told him that this does not sound good at all. Also, i am sure that the Captain's English version will be uber short.

Well, I was right. The English version said that we were delayed for 13 minutes due to fog and his speech lasted only a few minutes.

At 9:30a, we pushed back and just before that the flight attendants did the demo manually as this aircraft does not have any entertainment system.

Our taxi out to the runway started at 9:37a. Once at the threshold for runway 26R, we waited. On my right, I could also see a Lufthansa Regional CRJ-900 waiting its turn. In a few minutes, it left and then we waited.

It was 9:51a when we made it to runway 26R and took to the skies.

It was nice as we broke through the fog and the clouds and could see the mountains off in the distance and part of the fog/clouds allowing a smoke stack through. I tried to take a picture, but to no avail.

At 10:02a, the meal service commenced with a ham sandwich and a chocolate bar. You can have whatever beverage you desired; alcohol or otherwise.

At about 10:14a, we leveled off at our cruisin' altitude.

I just realized that I am heading for the U.K. and have a bit of time there and did not bring my U.K. plug.

This means I cannot charge my devices while we wait for the next flight in the U.K. And British Airways does not have outlets onboard so I can charge during the flight, that is a bummer.

I was really tired so I fell asleep. I awoke when we were already descending into Heathrow.

Kiev, Ukraine Oct. 2008: Arriving in Munich International, Munich Germany (MUC) from Kiev

26OCT08 Munich International, Munich Germany (MUC)

We touched down softly at 7:50a (Munich is 1 hour behind Kiev) and I was awoken to see whiteout through the window. Thank God for instrument landing systems. You literally could not see anything outside. In a few minutes, we made it to our gate miraculously and parked at about 7:57a.

We disembarked and made our way to gate G-41 which was actually behind a security area. As we made our way through security, the guy in front of us told the agent that he had some alcohol that he had just bought in

Kiev at the duty free place. The agent looked at the sealed bag and asked where he was going. He said he was

going to Canada. She then left adn when she came back, she told him that he canot take it with him as Kiev

was not a part of the European Union. Annoyed, he told them to thrash it as he would have to check his bag by first entering the country and going outside to the check-in counter.

Finally, we got through security only to be stalled again by another guy who had a knife in his bag. His kids also had after shave which turned out to be O.K. as they had them in the approved bag.

Once the line started to roll again, I took up my stuff and went downstairs to the gates. The agent told us to wait a bit for our seat so we did.

The boarding process started at about 8:38a with a group of young girls.

Once everyone had boarded, we were told to board as we had been cleared. We did and got two seats next to each other.