I decided to fly home from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles via Washington Dulles, Lisbon, and Frankfurt…as one does. The reason: to fly on a very special Lufthansa aircraft one more time.
Booked! One Last Lufthansa A340-600 Journey (TAP Air Portugal A321 Too)
Lufthansa plans to retire its iconic Airbus A340-600 fleet on October 25, 2026 and I wanted to try it once more. So when it came time to fly home from Pittsburgh, I decided to take the “scenic” route via Portugal and Germany. I’ve had many memorable flights on the A340-600 over the years, and with Lufthansa finally retiring these planes, I wanted one last trip on an aircraft that has been such a distinctive part of its longhaul fleet.
To be honest, I wanted to fly via Zurich on the new SWISS A350 or via Vienna on the Austrian 787-9, but no space opened. Instead, I found space on TAP Air Portugal from Washington to Lisbon, operated by an Airbus A321, connecting same-day to Frankfurt on a Lufthansa A321 with a drastically different “business class” seat!
With first class award space now a relic of the past, I had to book business class on Lufthansa, but that offers the opportunity to try Project FOX, the new onboard soft product, and to try it from Frankfurt rather than an out-station.
The schedule means I get into Frankfurt late and leave the following morning, so I won’t even bother going to into town, as much as I’d love to go Buffalo, which as far as I am concerned is the best steakhouse in the world. I will go grocery shopping for my wife at Rewe, the grocery story inside Frankfurt Airport, and stay at the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport.
With a five hours in Lisbon, I’ll also go into the city for lunch and coffee if I can get through European Entry/Exit System (EES) without issue…this video scares me:
(my recent experiences in Brussels, Amsterdam, Vienna, and Paris have been the opposite: extremely easy)
So stay tuned for first impressions of these flights…I’m really excited to “revisit” these airlines that I haven’t been on in quite awhile since my default these days is SAS (trying to burn down my miles, especially while I still have EuroBonus Gold status).
Epic! Regardless of where you sit, be sure to visit the downstairs lavatories in Economy… for ole times’ sake.
Absolutely!
My friend flew FRA-ORD on the A346 on Wednesday evening and they were offering upgrades to J at the gate for €540. She took the offer! I was proud.