Flying Lufthansa Long-Haul (AKA United, Step Up Your Game)

Adapted from my trip review I wrote in Flyertalk

Firstly, I'm not one of those people who fly all the time, whether it be for work or pleasure. Nor do I generally fly premium cabins or have access to lounges. However, I have flown some and have achieved some low-level elite status (that doesn't really get me much), and now I understand the system much better thanks to places like Flyertalk. (I'm also not quite as smitten and exited when I do occasionally fly domestic first class on US-based airlines, unlike my other flight review, which was my first time in any premium cabin.)

This flight, as part of my trip to Norway, was a lot of firsts, which I will be highlighting. Beginning with: first long-haul flight on Lufthansa!

 Airbus 330-300 (Click to Enlarge)

Worst Flight Ever?

Red-eye, SEA to IAD

The plane has a 3-3 economy configuration, and I have the isle seat on the right side. Soon thereafter, a family of 7, with none of the five children seemingly above 6 (and they definitely acted the part), sat down around me-three children across the isle, one more in front of me, and the remaining three across the isle from her. Then a family with a newborn (definitely less than 12 months) sits down the row behind me.

As soon as the plane starts moving (and by that I mean as soon as we pull out of the gate) the baby starts screaming, and I could not drown out the baby's screaming with my over-ear headphones (or at least to the point I could barely tolerate my music without busting my ears). Throughout the flight, the parents tried to placate the baby to no effect, even carrying the baby up and down the plane (and probably waking up half the passengers that could actually fall asleep). I'm not sure how the baby managed to scream almost nonstop for almost 5 hours, but the baby finally fell asleep...as we landed at 530am.

Of course, the fun didn't end there. As soon as the seat belt sign was off, the father of the family of 7 sprung up and grabbed several (probably 7) pieces of luggage from the overhead bins and placed them in the aisle, thereby blocking almost everyone from going anywhere, which was a problem because he couldn't seem to get his kids to take a suitcase and get off the plane, and no one was able to get off the plane for about a good minute after the first class passengers got off.

My advice on flying with very small children: don't. If your child cannot behave and control themselves in public, don't fly with them until they can. If you absolutely must fly, fly when it's not going to disrupt everyone else, especially on a red-eye. You can't go around telling everyone that your child will behave because you think that your child is special and thus obviously can't have any faults because you're a perfect parent. This is obviously not true and is just an indication of people's lack of taking personal responsibility.

How Airlines Keep Their Best Customers (and Flying on the Dreamliner!)

On my most recent journey back to California I flew first class for the first time. I received a free upgrade to first class and I can now see how airlines can retain their elite fliers. After my small regional flight I had two flights on first class: PHL->IAH->LAX.