It may be a very small piece of the travel experience that few of us will have the chance to try, but it’s still fun to explore what airlines are doing for their international First Class passengers. Lufthansa is certainly no slouch in this area. In particular, the airline’s First Class Terminal in Frankfurt has always captured my imagine. Combined with the new First Class that rolled out on the A380, it’s a fantastic experience. Let’s walk through a trip from the perspective of someone starting in Frankfurt.

When you get to the airport, you immediately bypass Lufthansa’s main terminal area in favor of the First Class Terminal located just to the west. This free-standing building is only for those travelers flying in international First Class on Lufthansa or connecting to international First Class on Austrian and Swiss. If you’re in First on United? Too bad. HON Circle members also have access to the terminal when they fly. These people fly 300,000 600,000 miles over a two year period, so it’s a very exclusive group.

If you’re driving, someone will take your car and valet park it (apparently not very common in Germany, at least not when compared to the US). If you have a rental car, you can leave it and they will return it for you. You walk in to find a welcome area with desks to check yourself in. After processing there, you walk through the security area into the lounge itself.

The main part of the lounge has plenty of loungers, massage chairs, and workstations. There is a large bar in the main area which has the largest selection of whiskey in Europe – 86 different options.

On the side, there is a sit-down dining area where you can order food.

Going toward the west part of the lounge, you’ll find the cigar lounge, which smelled so friggin’ good. This is an old boys club, for sure.

Past there you find the restrooms along with a couple of day rooms for those who need some rest.

Unlike in the day rooms that British Airways has in the Concorde Lounge at Heathrow, these do not have bathrooms built in. There are a few shower rooms that you can use independently. Some have tubs.

When it comes to boarding, First Class passengers do not pre-board with the rest. They board at the last possible minute by going downstairs to the passport control area. Your passport was sent ahead when you checked in, so you just pick it up and then pick the car you want to take you to the airplane. It’s a mix of Mercedes and Porsches models, and while they can’t guarantee you’ll get the car you want, you will get one of these.

You could technically arrive at the First Class Terminal at 20 minutes before your flight and still likely make it onboard (assuming your gate isn’t too far away). They do ask for at least 30 minutes just to be safe, however.

Once you get to the airplane, you come up from the ramp and go right onboard. About 200 to 300 people per day take advantage of this set-up. There are also First Class lounges in the terminal for those who may be connecting from other airlines or simply do not want to go over to the First Class Terminal itself. Munich also has a First Class lounge as do a couple of places around the world, but none as extravagant as this.

Once onboard, then it’s time to take your seat. You might remember when I wrote about Lufthansa’s plan for the 747 First Class with a seat and a bed. That’s really just a temporary solution. The new First Class standard is what has been delivered on the A380. This has fully flat beds in a sound-cocoon. We weren’t able to experience it in flight, but it’s supposed to be an incredibly quiet experience. For this, I took a video to show it better.

If you’re rich, then step right up and buy these fares. A roundtrip from New York to Frankfurt is only a mere $16,000 or so while a roundtrip originating in Frankfurt starts at just over $11,000. Bargain! You can always try to save up enough points as well in order to get this excellent experience.

Many are surprised that it’s taken this long, but Delta has finally begun taking the first big steps in what will ultimately likely result in the dismantling of the Memphis hub. Flights will be slashed 25 percent after this summer. Big cuts like this only hurt the viability of the hub going forward. I thought it would be fun to look inside the Memphis hub to see how it works and why this change will be bad news for its future hub status.

The hub itself has settled in with three banks per day. Planes come into Memphis in the early morning and then go right back out. There’s also an early afternoon arrival that turns around. Lastly, there’s an evening operation. Nearly all of Delta’s operations in Memphis fit into those three banks.

I say “nearly” all, because Delta has more operations from Memphis to its other hubs. For example, there are 10 flights a day to Atlanta. Those flights, however, aren’t there to support the Memphis hub but rather to feed Memphis customers into the Atlanta hub. These operations aren’t impacted by the cuts so far, and they’re some of the few routes where you’ll see larger mainline airplanes in operation. Here are the destinations from Memphis to Delta hubs and focus cities.

The other area where you’ll see larger airplanes is to the sun markets. Florida, Phoenix, Vegas, etc. You know the deal there. Memphis, like other non-hub cities, can often support larger airplanes to these markets because there is enough traffic going back and forth. That’s why we see Delta mainline airplanes in Ft Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Vegas. There are a few cuts in these sun markets, but it’s really the smaller sun markets that are hurt most, like Panama City. For the most part, however, these aren’t seeing much of an impact.

Once you get beyond those two groupings, there are very few mainline airplanes at all. It’s mostly a regional jet operation to a mix of small and medium cities in the South and Midwest along with large cities around the country. The large cities are untouched in these cuts. These are generally other airline hubs that have enough traffic to warrant some flights to Memphis. I’m considering a city to be large if it’s in the top 25 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) in the US from the 2000 census.

Once we get below that level, the cuts start becoming more fierce. I’m considering a mid-size city to be one between 25 and 100 on the MSA list. As you can see, none of these cities are going away, but some are losing frequency.

Then when we get to the small cities (anything below 100 on the MSA list), it’s a bloodbath. Not only are we seeing a slew of cities losing service entirely (this doesn’t even include Montgomery and Monroe which were discontinued before the summer), but many of the rest are taking hits in frequency. The small cities are in trouble here.

So why does this matter? Well, it’s a shot at the heart of how hubs work. The idea of a hub is to bring in traffic from a variety of cities, aggregate it in one place, and then put people on planes to other cities. So you might only have 1 person from Lafayette, LA wanting to go to Chicago, but when you combine that with the little numbers from Montgomery, Baton Rouge, Lubbock, Austin, etc, you get enough to fill that airplane. When you start taking away these small cities, it will inevitably make the other flights at the hub perform worse as well.

If Lafayette is gone, that’s one less person that will fly on that flight to Chicago. Maybe that’s the tipping point for making that Chicago flight unprofitable. You could try a smaller airplane, but most of these are already on pretty small jets. In the end, when you start whacking away at a hub like this, it generally hurts the chances of that hub sticking around.

This doesn’t mean it’s the wrong move. Smaller hubs simply don’t perform as well because there’s not enough of the higher-yielding local traffic in the market to make it work well. Delta really should be cutting back in Memphis if it can’t make money there.

Does this mean Delta will walk away from Memphis? Nah. We’ll still see flights to the other Delta hubs and sun destinations. It’s possible some of the large cities will keep service as well, but the way this looks right now, I’d be amazed if Memphis made it as a true hub in the long run.

Southwest, AirTran merger may mean changes for Northeast Ohio airports – WKSU
I spoke with an Ohio public radio affiliate about the impact of the Southwest/AirTran merger on the region. (This should have been included last week, but I missed it.)

Frequent flier’s tips for dealing with jet lag – CNN Out of the Office
I had some challenging travel this week from a body clock perspective, so I shared some of my tips for helping with jetlag. Nothing works really well for me, but this isn’t bad.

In the Trenches: How to Stop Working So Much – Intuit Small Business Blog
It’s hard enough working at home, but if you aren’t careful, you’ll never stop working.

Frequent Flier Facts – Woman Road Warrior
I sat down to discuss my thoughts on elite programs and whether they’re worth it. This was a piece more for those who don’t know a lot about the world of elite status.

The US Airways pilots union is at it again. This week the group claimed a number of safety issues have occurred and it demanded the airline fire its VP of Safety and Compliance. Is this legitimate or is it yet another stupid negotiating tactic? It seems like the latter to me, but what do you think?

I know I said trip reports would only be on Wednesdays now, but I changed my mind. Lufthansa flew me out to Frankfurt only to come back less than 24 hours later on the inaugural A380 to San Francisco, all in business class. I’ll start with the flight out so you can see the differences between the 747 and the A380. Overall, I like what Lufthansa is doing, but I simply cannot sleep in that angled lie-flat bed. The good news is that a replacement is in the works.

[Full disclosure: Lufthansa paid for the flight and one night hotel on this trip]

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May 8, 2011
Lufthansa 457 Lv Los Angeles 255p Arr Frankfurt 1035a
Los Angeles (LAX): Gate 104, Runway 25R, Depart 4m Early
Frankfurt (FRA): Gate C15, Runway 7R, Arrive On Time
D-ABTK, Boeing 747-430, Lufthansa White Colors (named Kiel), ~99% Full
Seat 1K
Flight Time ~10h20m

I arrived at LAX about 1.5 hours early so I could have some good quality time in the lounge. Having grown up in LA, there really is nothing like entering the great hall of the Bradley Terminal to get you excited about going somewhere special. This time was no different, but I walked right past the ticket counter and headed through security quickly with my boarding pass I had printed online.

The new Star Alliance lounge in Bradley is nice, and most importantly to me, had a back room with a great view of the new concourse being built as well as all the departures. I grabbed some water, tried to ignore the thrashing the Lakers were taking on the TV, and enjoyed the view. A rep came through about 45 minutes before departure and said that boarding would begin soon, so all passengers should start heading downstairs.

One of the other journalists on the trip (best known as Adventure Girl) just happened to have been seated next to me in the first row. Lufthansa is one of the few airlines that puts business class in the nose of the 747 instead of upstairs. I was happy to take advantage of seat 1K in the nose, where the fuselage is so narrow that only four seats across can fit.

We pushed back on time and took off into the afternoon sun. It was an incredibly smooth flight most of the way. The flight attendants were friendly and were frequently coming up and down to tend to the customers. The seat itself was comfortable for lounging, so I got comfy and started watching movies. Meanwhile, the flight attendants came through with hot towels and a menu with our choices for dinner. The food was actually pretty good, though I don’t like to eat much on those overnight flights. I picked braised short rib for the entree, and did enjoy it, but I couldn’t eat much because it was heavy. I thought it was strange that they bring out the entrees all on one serving cart, and then pull off the foil covers in front of you. That didn’t seem to fit the premium look

At this point, I popped an Ambien and tried to sleep. This did not work out as planned. The seat is one of those angled flat beds which, despite arguments otherwise, are REALLY angled. I could not get comfortable at all, but I did manage to snooze briefly. At one point, I woke up halfway down the seat, face down, with my legs kicked up on the bulkhead in front of me. I have no idea how that happened.

Eventually, I gave up and just watched movies in my drug-induced haze. The sun came up only a couple short hours later, and it was time for breakfast. Soon enough we were descending over the green hills of Germany into the Frankfurt Airport. I’ll cover the ground experience in Frankfurt in a separate post. But now, let’s look at the A380 return in comparison.

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May 10, 2011
Lufthansa 454 Lv Frankfurt 945a Arr San Francisco 1205p
Frankfurt (FRA): Gate C15, Runway 7L, Depart 6m Late
San Francisco (SFO): Gate G101, Runway 28R, Arrive 8m Early
D-AIMD, Airbus A380-841, Lufthansa White Colors (named Tokio), ~95% Full
Seat 14K
Flight Time ~10h50m

This was the inaugural A380 flight to San Francisco, so Lufthansa definitely made a big deal out of it. A380 boarding in Frankfurt (covered soon in my airport post in greater detail) occurs on two levels. From the top level, Biz and First Class passengers board directly from a lounge area that feeds two gates. With 8 First and 98 Business, this lounge fills up. Lufthansa does subway style boarding where you swipe your own boarding pass and then a gate opens for you to pass. Then, on the jet bridge, they check your passports before you board.

We boarded directly on to the upper deck. If you turned left, you would go into the very private First Class (another post, I promise). To the right is 98 seats of Business in what’s really 3 separate cabin areas. The seats are six abreast, and yes, they are still those old angled flat seats with just a little refresh. Apparently, this won’t last forever. I spoke with CEO Carsten Spohr and he confirmed that they are committed to a fully flat seat. The seat has been picked and he says it’s very innovative, but it won’t be announced yet. Others told me that it will be introduced on the first 747-8 when it comes into the fleet early next year.

I quickly realized that these seats are much better when not in the bulkhead. On the 747, my screen came out of the seat and the magazine net was on the bulkhead, out of reach. When there’s a seat in front of you, the screens are better positioned as is the magazine rack. Other than that, I didn’t notice many changes. The controller was simplified a bit and the inflight entertainment system was faster. It still, however, was not touch screen. I’m told it’s a touch screen in economy but not in Business because people can’t reach it anyway. Not true. I would have preferred a touch screen over scrolling using arrows on the controller.

The best enhancement to the inflight entertainment? There were three cameras – one on the tail, one in the nose, and one underneath. I can watch that channel all day (or, um, at least half the flight). The air show map is greatly improved as well with better detail on where you are and cooler views of the route. One other big improvement? Being on the upper deck means, as on the 747, there’s a storage compartment between the window seat and the sidewall.

As expected, the A380 was very quiet on departure. That long, slow takeoff roll just makes you think you’ll never get airborne, but of course, we did. We turned left and headed north . . . for a long time. We went along the west coast of Denmark and then up along the coast of Norway. Finally, near Bergen, we headed out to sea and went well north of Iceland and Hudson Bay.

I had a salmon appetizer followed by some traditional Swabian dumplings. It was very good. And every meal was accompanied by a pretzel roll. I cannot understand why they can’t make them in the US like they do over there. Man, those are so freakin’ good. After the meal, the crew came around with a cake to celebrate the inaugural, but I passed. I went exploring.

First point? There is nothing more fun than peeing while staring out the window. Every plane should provide that opportunity (and an increasing number do).

Our Business Class cabin was mostly reserved for invited guests, and having so many onboard, we had several opportunities to talk to people. I was able to speak with the A380 Product Marketing Director from Airbus, Lufthansa’s CEO, and several crew members. Just as on the previous flight, the service was excellent from the crew. As the flight wore on, I got tired. Having slept only a handful of hours in the last two days meant that I was getting loopy. I was able to nap for about an hour but not in the bed position. I had to treat it as a lounger and then I was ok. I stayed in the position to watch a movie and found it comfortable for that as well.

People like to talk about how big the A380 is, but it really doesn’t feel that large. Part of it is that it’s not particularly long, and you never see the other deck. Lufthansa has premium cabins upstairs and coach down below. The stairs are blocked off and people cannot go between cabins. (We were an exception since we were journalists covering the flight.) Because of that, it feels smaller than a lot of other, longer airplanes.

Later in the flight, they served a second, small meal which I followed that up with some leftover cake from earlier. We had gone so far north that by the time we came down, we had great views of Mt Rainier, Mt St Helens, and Mt Hood. The winds were so light, and the flight was only a few minutes longer than the flight east. That was a problem. They had this timed for media coverage, so we had to circle for about half an hour before we came in to a cloudless San Francisco.

We got off the plane on the top deck again and then went through customs. Then we came right back to the gate for a celebration before I, Adventure Girl, and Johnny Jet headed over to our United flight back to LA.

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May 10, 2011
United 274 Lv San Francisco 301p Arr Los Angeles 425p
San Francisco (SFO): Gate 72, Runway 28L, Depart 6m Early
Los Angeles (LAX): Gate 75B, Runway 24R, Arrive 8m Early
N482UA, Airbus A320-232, United White Top Colors, ~80% Full
Seat 18A
Flight Time 52m

That flight was uneventful despite a runway change before departure which made for an interesting dance to get airplanes lined up right. I’m glad Channel 9 was on for me to listen. But I promptly passed out once airborne from exhaustion and woke up on the way into LA.

Overall, I really enjoyed the Lufthansa service and the food. That seat, however, just didn’t work for me in a world of truly flat beds. It’s good to see that Lufthansa is recognizing this and will be making the switch next year. That combined with the service and food will make for a very serious competitor to just about anyone.

[See all photos from my trip on the Lufthansa A380 SFO inaugural]