Trip Report: VLC-MUC-AMS
I was looking forward to try a new airline, Spanair, but at the same time I'd read a bunch of negative reviews of it online (old planes, need to pay for food). I was also a bit nervous because I needed to check my bag in, but my connection time in Munich (MUC) was only 50 minutes, and I absolutely needed to get to Amsterdam (AMS) on time so I could get to Eindhoven for an important meeting.
In Valencia (VLC), there wasn't a Star Alliance lounge, but I was excited to see that I'd be flying on a plane with the Star Alliance livery! Nerdy, I know, but I'd never been on such a plane before. The inside of the MD-83 was quite old though.
I had taken on board takeout from Cerveceria 100 Montaditos (earlier post here) since Spanair's website said that there would only be food for sale on board. So I was quite surprised to get handed a package with one cheese sandwich and one ham sandwich! Plus I could get tea or coffee, and juice as well. The sandwiches did not taste that great, and I could read on the package that they had preservatives. But still, it was nice to get something free.
I'd read before that MUC was a nice airport to connect through, since it's one terminal building only, but I have to say that it's one terminal building in name only. That's because it seemed like more than half of all flights are parked away from the terminal and you have to catch a bus to/from the main terminal! To add insult to injury, I could have walked from my first flight to my second in less time for me to take the bus to the terminal, run to the other side of the terminal, only to get on another bus back to where I came from. It was a mad dash (my connection time ended up being only 40 minutes), but I did stop by the news/coffee stand for a free paper on my rush to the second bus.
I was seated in the first row of economy on the CRJ900 (it was a Lufthansa Regional flight, operated by CityLine). But since business class is basically the same as economy, only with a curtain partition separating the two, I got underseat storage.
I was surprised on this 1 hr 30 min regional flight to be served fresh food! I had water with lemon, and a choice of cheese or "chicken" sandwich. "Chicken" turned out to be some type of salami; I guess Germans can turn any meat into a pink sausage. It was served on a grain bread with a Bounty candy bar (chocolate covered coconut shreds).
Upon arrival in AMS, I was pleasantly surprised that my bag did make the connection!
Overall, my flights on Swiss (earlier trip report here), Spanair, and Lufthansa were quite satisfactory with food service on every segment. But I would have expected some aspects of the itinerary to be smoother, more integrated. I booked the flights on lufthansa.com, and Lufthansa owns Swiss and my Spanair flight was booked with the LH code. But when I called Swiss to get seat assignments, the agent was not ony rude, she condescendingly told me that booking on lufthansa.com was booking through a travel agent, so I didn't have all of the benefits of booking directly with the airline. Plus I wasn't able to check in online for my Spanair flight on either the Spanair website (since I didn't book through them), or the Lufthansa website (since the flight wasn't operated by them).
