We’re back on a widebody after a couple days for this flight across the Atlantic to L.A. aboard Lufthansa’s largest aircraft, the A380-800. The big superjumbos were an early casualty of the COVID-19 Pandemic, being withdrawn due to lack of passenger demand in 2020. For 3 years, the jets sat in storage, their future uncertain, until, with passenger demand coming back with a vengeance, Lufthansa returned the Whales to the skies in the summer of 2023. Currently, the airline plans to operate them to 4 destinations this winter - Bangkok, Delhi, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Server: Solo
Airline: Lufthansa
Aircraft: Airbus A380-800
Origin: Munich Airport, Erding, Germany (MUC)
Destination: Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, California (LAX)
Flight Number: LH452
Route: EDDM-KLAX
Seat: 55A (Premium Economy)
Time En Route: 11 Hours 48 Minutes
Waiting to board our aircraft, an 11-year-old A380 registered D-AIMN appropriately named “Deutschland”. Previously, she was named “San Francisco” until her withdrawal in April of 2020. After 3 years of storage, she returned in October of 2023 and flew without a name until June of 2024, when she was re-christened in honor of her home country. Recently, she has been withdrawn again and parked, presumably for maintainence and repainting in the current livery, as she is one of the few A380s left in the pre-2018 Lufthansa paint scheme.
After a couple days without hearing a non-A320 family flap-lowering sound, the noise of Deutschland’s flaps and slats lowering into the 1+F position for departure is music to our ears. From a first impression, the Lufthansa premium economy seats on the A380 seem to be not all that different from standard economy. The menu seems to be better and there’s a couple more inches of recline and 7 more of legroom, which is much-appreciated.
Takeoff and climbout from Munich, listening to the Trent 900s do what they do best. The sight of light gray engine nacelles on an A380 is soon to become a thing of the past, so we’re enjoying it as much as we can.
We’re at our intial cruising altitude of 32,000 feet over northern Scotland, near Dornoch, when lunch is served. We’ve selected the creamy veal goulash with spätzle and carrots, and it hits the spot.
At FL360 over the Canadian province of Manitoba a few hours out from Los Angeles. Dinner will be served in an hour or two, even though it’s the early afternoon, due to it being evening back in Germany.
After a dinner of mushroom ragout with pretzel dumplings and cherry tomatoes, plus a 1-hour power nap, we’ve woken up over Pomona, California in our final descent into L.A. Those big flaps make for an excellent wake-up alarm when they start to motor into position!
Landing on Runway 24R at a foggy LAX with the afternoon procession to 24L for departure well underway. Glad we’re not sitting in that right now.
The conga line to get out of LAX has backed up almost to past the main Tom Bradley International Terminal, so we’ve had to take a longer-than-usual route to taxi to our gate. In the process, we’re passing what used to be the Continental Airlines hangars, with the outlines of the “Continental” titles still visible.
Parked at the TBIT. Overall, it was a fairly good flight over from Munich; however, there are both better seats on Lufthansa’s A380s themselves as well as better premium economy options in general for traveling from Europe. Still, though, for price-conscious flyers looking for a bit of an upgrade, it’s a very good choice.