My next flight will NOT be with Lufthansa! (part 2)

This is part 2 of my absolute nightmare of a trip home from the US. In the last blog, I detailed the trip to Germany and the US, and the trip back to Germany.

Now it's time for the absolute biggest annoyance with air travel: Delays!

We were sitting in the aircraft, all buckled up, ready for takeoff, when a van with two people came up to the side of the aircraft. They wore helmets and vests. "Oh boy, this can't be good", was my thought. About ten minutes later, the captain came on the intercom and explained that we had to disembark, because the aircraft had a malfunction. However, we already had a new aircraft, and all we needed to do was find the new gate. We would then be off shortly.

However, when we reached the gate, we had to wait for an hour and a half to be allowed to board. By then, the boarding time said 7:40 am. The flight was originally scheduled for a 7:15 am takeoff, so we were already 35 minutes late. 7:40 am came and went - no boarding yet. A few of the passengers went to the desk to hear how much longer it would take. No answer. Only that they were working on it. By then, the time was 8 am

New boarding time was put on the monitor: 8:20 am. That made one of the passengers so irate, that he asked the staff member to cancel his ticket, which the staff member did. Very little information was given to us. It was a mix between "sorry for the delay" and "we have no information yet".

8:20 am came and went - still no boarding. I am usually a very calm and positive guy, but even I was reaching the point of having enough. Finally, at 8:45 am, a full hour and 5 minutes after the 7:40 am boarding time, we boarded the flight. 20 minutes later, we were ready for departure. Takeoff was at 9:18 am and we landed in Copenhagen at 10:18 am. Originally, we were scheduled for a 8:35 am landing, so we were almost 2 hours late. I found my suitcase, and went home.

That whole delay in Frankfurt single-handedly made me swear to never fly with Lufthansa again. Some good experiences cannot outweigh the bad. I know it's a low-cost airline, which I definitely experienced. My next flight will be with SAS. They have a direct flight to Dulles from Copenhagen, and I will definitely spend a bit more to get a better class. I am thinking Premium Economy, since I don't really have the money for business class. One more strike for Lufthansa was also when their app suddenly locked me out, with no way to change the password.

Pro: The food on the flight from Frankfurt to Dulles was good. Smooth flight as well. The flight from Dulles to Frankfurt was, despite a reboot of the in flight entertainment, pretty smooth as well. We hit some turbulence on the way, but it wasn't extreme.

Con: The "food" from Copenhagen to Frankfurt, the sandwich before landing in the US, the delay in Frankfurt and the app shutting me out

Three pros and four cons. It wasn't all negative, but I am still not going to recommend Lufthansa. If they had been more open and transparent about the delay in Frankfurt, I wouldn't have minded that. However, because they gave so little information, they go on the cons list.

Overall, I give the flight, as a whole a 5/10.