Round The World and other travel

Flight Log 2: LH3414

Cologne-Bonn (CGN) - London Heathrow (LHR)

This seemingly straightforward short intra-European flight is in fact one that is capable of generating much confusion, so before launching into the specifics of the experience, perhaps it's best if I begin with a bit of background. This was a genuine Lufthansa flight, marketed and cleared with the various authorities by the German flag-carrier. Instead of allocating the required aircraft and crew members from its own resource pool, however, Lufty had chosen to provide the service using hardware and staff hired in from another carrier, in this case British Midland International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of LH. Such an arrangement, involving staff as well as equipment, is usually known as a 'wet lease'. Under this arrangement, bmi procedures were followed in all matters relating to operation of the aircraft, but every detail of the service, including seats, food and the in-flight magazine, was to Lufthansa standards. None of this, by the way, has anything whatever to do with the concept of code-sharing. Alles klar?

A further consequence of the wet lease arrangement was that Lufthansa took the commercial risk of providing the flight, while bmi would get paid the same rental fee whether it ran empty or full. I reflected on this point as I took my originally-allocated seat (2F): the signs had been ominous in the departure lounge but it was quickly confirmed that we were carrying a total of just fourteen passengers, all except me in Economy. I commented on the poor loading and was assured by a crew member that the flight had been busy the previous day.

I entertained myself during the very short boarding process by taking in my novel surroundings. I was thoroughly familiar with both LH and BD, but not elements of both mixed together! So it was interesting to see Lufthansa's grey interior, but a bmi red engine cowling outside; and a Lufthansa Magazin in its pocket alongside a bmi tri-lingual safety card. (The aircraft was also used on the Lufthansa Italia service between London and Milan.) Moments earlier, a British cabin crew member in her blue hat had greeted me with a friendly Guten Tag! and had examined my boarding pass as I stepped through the door.

One of the cabin crew invited me to sit anywhere I wanted in the two-row Business Class cabin, explaining that their instructions to set up four rows of J had been thwarted by the cabin divider when it decided to get stuck in its current position. Being generally a fan of bulkhead seats, I moved forward into 1F. We started engines on-stand and moved off at 1829, CGN being cleverly designed to avoid the need for push-back. The safety demonstration was (of necessity) the standard bmi version, edited to include exact German translations of each point made. A remarkably short roll had us airborne at 1836 and we made a nice turn over Cologne as we gained altitude. The expected flight time was given as 52 minutes.

Once we reached cruising altitude, my meal was served - a typical example of a Lufthansa short-haul Business Class meal, with two nicely presented cold snacks, a small dessert in the form of fresh fruit pieces and a plentiful supply of various types of bread. I drank water and white wine and finished with a coffee, which again was Lufthansa-style, right down to the accompanying yoghurt-filled Ritter chocolate. The purser had earlier asked me if I'd spent a few days in Cologne. I explained that I'd been in the area for less than 24hrs and, feeling that this was a rather abrupt and unsatisfactory answer to a friendly question, went on to spill the beans about exactly why I'd been there at all. While serving my coffee, she let me know that she'd just been telling the Captain what I was doing. Apparently his response had been: "That's brilliant - just wait until my eco-warrior neighbour hears about this!"

I noticed that the crew hadn't bothered to shut the curtain, perhaps because the divider unit had jammed. It hardly mattered: the nearest passenger was just forward of the over-wing exit and no-one from Economy used the forward toilet. I received multiple top-ups of all three beverages as we made our way towards London. We had to do a bit of circling over Essex, followed by a further loop over the East End of London, where there were some angry-looking clouds to greet our arrival. We made a standard approach to 27L, lowering the undercarriage over Kew Gardens and touching down at 1852. Seven minutes later we parked at Terminal 1's Gate 48, which meant that I would soon have a long walk ahead of me!

This was a memorable short flight. The wet lease arrangement made for plenty of (slightly geeky) interest, while excellent service was provided by one the best bmi crews that I had come across in a while. I couldn't decide whether perhaps crews were hand-picked for the wet lease routes, or whether it had been down to the low passenger load, or simply a random occurrence. It hardly mattered; what was important was that I stepped through the door and up the jetty with a healthy dose of that sometimes elusive feel-good factor.