Trip Report: Singapore Airlines A380 Frankfurt to New York in Business Class (FRA - JFK)
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
-
An early-departing daytime flight to the East Coast from Europe – 8 hours in an exceptionally wide,
leather seat with 81" of pitch and a lie-flat mode. Breakfast and lunch services.
Pros
Great food
Amazing service
Staff are super vigilant about cleaning the lavatories
A380 feels very spacious and quiet
Espresso machine onboard (and staff willing to use it)
30MB of free Wi-Fi included with a Business Class ticket
3 door boarding is very calm and orderly
Cons
The flight is very early (8:30am departure, meaning a 6:00am check in)
The flip-over bed is extra inconvenient on a daytime flight where you might want more fluidity between the sleep and sit positions
Tips
Back of the plane (row 96) feels very private, despite the proximity to the galley and lavs
The middle two seats are great for couples, but you won't have window access
The back of Business Class is known for being much colder than the front
"Book the Cook" feature lets you choose your meals from a huge menu
The Frankfurt airport has a high-speed rail terminal so you can easily arrive from other parts of Germany
Disable your phone's app auto-updates and Facebook/Instagram's video auto-play settings before boarding the flight so you can maximize the free 30MB of internet.
Download a copy of Crazy Rich Asians
to read onboard the flight – it's a fun book and it was awesome being
aboard the very same flight where one of the book's pivotal scenes
happens!
🔄 This is our return flight, the outbound flight is here.
How I did it
I found a great deal
– $1995 per person, round-trip – so I just paid for the ticket. I
earned around $300 worth of Chase and United points from this trip.
Airport and Lounge
Frankfurt airport is conveniently connected to Germany's high speed rail network. We arrived around 6:00am for an 8:40 flight and while there wasn't much of a line at the Business Class counter, there's a security screener who interviews you before you can approach the counter. I'm not sure how this program works because our interviewer didn't seem to speak German or English very well, but we managed to slog through it.
I'd been led to believe Frankfurt's Business Class lounges are kind of horrible, but ours was actually quite nice. It was the same drab grey color scheme as the rest of the airport, but there was plenty of space, fast Wi-Fi, coffee, drinks, food... all the things you want in a lounge and it was right across from our departure gate. Unfortunately I hadn't been keeping up with my travel blogs on this trip and missed this announcement that we could have used the much nicer Senator lounge next door. Oy.
I dearly love Frankfurt's old school split-flap departure board!
Security interview at bag check
Lounge has a kids room
Lounge bar
Lounge buffet
Boarding
Boarding was unusually well organized, and they used 3 jetways to speed up the boarding process. We sat in the same row as on the outbound flight, but since it's a daytime flight, we both opted for a window rather than the two adjoining center seats. The window seats don't have overhead storage, but there was plenty of space for both my and 96K's bags in the shared bin.
Orderly boarding queues
Orderly boarding queues
My seat was outfitted just like it was on the previous leg
We sat in back again for the privacy and cooler temps
Amenities are stocked in the lavatories
The Flight
This is a daytime flight departing Frankfurt at 8:30am and landing at JFK at 11:00am. Despite getting up so early to catch the flight, I wasn't feeling tired in the least so I decided to try a new approach to combat my jetlag: lots of espresso and a Provigil.
I was greeted quickly and my choices from the online Book the Cook menu were confirmed. Beverages were offered, I chose tomato juice. Once we were airborne warm nuts, wine, and hot towels arrived.
Business Class includes 30MB of free Wi-Fi. Make sure you read the card so you know how to set it up, and make sure you've disabled app updates and Facebook/Instagram video auto-play before you're airborne, otherwise you can burn through 30MB really quickly.
Definitely read the card: I couldn't connect without going to the special URL.
Breakfast
The 8 hour flight has a breakfast service right after take-off and another lunch service later on. I didn't want two huge meals in that short a period of time so I pre-selected a Caesar salad for breakfast. It was tasty.
Pre-departure tomato juice
Warm nuts and red wine
Caesar salad
yogurt
fruit
Lunch
For lunch I'd ordered the suckling pig via their Book the Cook feature and it was fantastic. It started with a prosciutto and mozzarella plate, and a selection from a bread basket. The pig came with roasted potatoes, cabbage, and carrots. It was followed by an almond torte and then chocolate ice cream. I ordered a yet another espresso and poured it over the ice cream and had a chocolatey affogato.
prosciutto and mozzarella salad
Book the Cook suckling pig
Almond torte
Proto-affogato
Landing
We landed 40 minutes early in New York. Security at JFK was a breeze (lines were short even for those without Global Entry), but the baggage was delayed due to our early arrival.
Final Thoughts
As with the outbound flight, this is a damned-near perfect flight – especially considering it was under $2000. Not much I'd change if I were king except maybe have it leave 2 hours later.
From Pokemon to Neko Atsume to shuinchou temple books , Japanese people love collecting things. If you've ever taken a ride on the glorious shinkansen bullet trains or ridden one of their extremely clean and punctual urban lines, then you know there's also a national obsession with great trains. The Eki stamp ("station stamp") is where those two obsessions meet . Most Japan Railways stations (including urban metro ones like the Yamanote line) have a unique stamp reflecting that station's history. Kids and train nerds (called "Tetchan") buy cute little books to collect the stamps of all the stations they've been to. The USA has a similar program with the national parks . One of my favorite stamps… All train-nerdiness aside, an Eki stamp book makes a great souvenir : it's flat, small, cheap, and light... and shouldn't take but a few moments to do when you're out and about. Special Eki stamp books are usually available at booksto...
( updated Jun 2024 ) I love Washlet bidet toilets. I've had one in my house since my first visit to Japan 20 years ago and I love it when my hotel room or my plane has one. And it's not just me, the NYTimes wrote about them , and several competing brands have appeared in the US in recent years. If you want a Washlet in the sky, you don't have much of a choice – only ANA and JAL have them, and only in the premium cabins. (I think they have an exclusive arrangement with Toto, as we've not seen the Washlet appear even in the super luxurious middle eastern airlines that have butlers and onboard showers). ウォシュレット! But what about hotels? As the spokesmodel in this commercial says, "I can't go on vacation anymore". A few of us were discussing this the other day and I said that yes, in fact, the presence of a Washlet would be a slam dunk for me when choosing a hotel. So I went poking around to find places outside of Japan that have them and started...
(updated October 2024) As I've said many times before , I'm not a big hotel person – I'd rather be out seeing the sights and meeting up with people than ensconced in the stylishly-bland, comfortable nowhere of a posh urban hotel. There are exceptions, though. Visiting a traditional Japanese ryokan inn immediately comes to mind. While they're often located in beautiful settings, the hotel itself is the primary destination. Beautiful seasonal food, soaking tubs and onsen baths, and lots of quiet time for just chilling out for a couple of days. For experiences like these, I'm very much a hotel snob. Wood-fired hot tub bliss Our first-ever trip to Vermont back in 2010 was specifically to visit Frog Meadow Farm in Newfane. A friend in San Francisco was describing it to us and it sounded a lot like an American ryokan for gay men: seasonal breakfasts, a wood-fired soaking tub, a massage studio, miles of private hiking and cross-country skiing trails, orchards and h...
Comments
Post a Comment