Flight Report: Back to Sweden on Lufthansa

I've previously talked about how to make flying in economy class more comfortable, including ways to get consistently better food on long haul flights but also tricks to get more room, such as my A/C trick. When travelling with two people it's a technique that uses known preferences to discourage people from sitting beside you, giving you a sort of "Business Minus" flight experience.

Air New Zealand's "Skycouch" in their 777-300ERs. Looks nice!

However, for long haul flights, and especially red eyes, the ultimate economy luxury is a row to yourself. If you manage to a get row to yourself, you can sleep across all four seats in enviable luxury. In fact, airlines are taking note of this and Air New Zealand is even offering up a new product which some have dubbed "cuddle class" based on this. Before checking in online, I noticed that based on the seat map it looked like I might have a shot at my own sleeper class. Take a look after the break, plus pictures of Frankfurt and Stockholm...

Light load on the flight? Check. Open row? Check. Plenty of seats to fill, from front to back? Check. This was too tempting to pass up, especially since the flight was at 1:50 in the morning. So what did I do?

I went for it. Unfortunately for me, what Lufthansa didn't tell me was that the flight was actually sold out and they were shuffling people around. I ended up in the middle with nothing to trade and no way out. Misery, but I only had myself to blame. The lesson here? Keep your preferred seat as long as possible and be sure that the plane is actually empty before you volunteer for a middle seat. In other circumstances, this might have been enough to "reserve" the three seats for myself (or at least two), but in this case it came back to bite me!

LH AUH-FRA: Breakfast in Economy

Except for this snafu, the flight went well. Nohing amazing to take pictures of, since I was wedged between two people and far from the window. Once we arrived at Frankfurt, things got better. I was in a window seat on my way up to Stockholm and had a chance to see a United plane in the old liverly (both battleship (pic by Sven Eifert)  and the one below). The merger with United took the weaker brand identity as the primary logo, in my opinion.

You will be missed, UA.

Frankfurt am Main's CBD

Butter Pretzel. Basic and good.

Spring has finally come, although in Sweden it was still around freezing when I arrived. The trees are green and the snow is gone, so at least that's something. When summer does come to Sweden, it's amazing here but the winters really are difficult.

This is Stockholm, "The Venice of the North".

I think I manage to take a picture of this same church everytime I land at ARN...