An inauspicious start (Europe 2025 part 1)

Picture the scene. After a lot of complaining from my parents that we weren't leaving early enough, we finally make it from Point Roberts out to the airport... to find that the check in counters haven't even opened yet. Fine, so we walk over to the viewing deck, picking up some Tim Hortons (a donut and a box of Timbits) on the way... and they manage to mess up even that simple order, giving my dad the wrong Timbits. And the whole way there's bickering because apparently someone's now afraid of escalators for some reason (and as anyone who's flown in recent decades knows, there are a lot of escalators in any remotely major airport). Yeah, things are off to a great start. At least the weather is a bit better than last time. 
  

Finally, the check-in counters opened, and, for the only time on this entire trip, business class priority actually worked correctly and we were able to get our luggage checked with no problem.  

 

Since we just saw this airport a few months ago, I'm going to spare you another full tour. I was very excited to find that the outside area was actually open (and snow-free 🙂) this time! It's not the greatest outdoor airport space (it's pretty tiny, there's nowhere to sit, and there's no view of any kind)... but at least no one was smoking there, unlike in European airports where no one cares about "no smoking" signs.

It would have been really cool if the faux tidepools ringing the courtyard had real wildlife in them (like the famous fish tank), but that's pretty much impossible considered how many tidepool species are endangered these days. It's all but impossible to see anything like this scene in real life any longer, ever since 2013 due to the ongoing sea star wasting disease plague.

From a literal endangered species to an aviation endangered "species" -- it's always cool to see a passenger 747 still in operation! 

Flying upper-deck on a 747 is a life goal of mine, but now that I can finally actually afford business class flights, it's looking near impossible. Without touching oppressive regimes (China, Russia, Iran), there are only two airlines left flying them: Lufthansa, which possibly my least favorite airline of any that I've ever flown and which is known for a mediocre at best, seriously overpriced business class product; and Korean, which only has four of them (making them difficult to track down), flies the opposite direction of anywhere I normally want to go, and is even more expensive. I had been thinking about paying too much and flying a Lufthansa 747 to Northern Europe this winter, but my mental breakdown on this trip put an end to any plans of another major vacation (while reminding me how much I dislike pretty much anything to do with Germany). 

Other sights: the weird all-white Air New Zealand 747 that seems to hang around YVR a lot (at least around the time I was here)... 

One of Edelweiss's new A350s (which feature a significant downgrade in business class compared to the old A340s, making me no longer interested in flying them)... 

And a Star Alliance plane from ANA (an airline I definitely want to fly on some day!). 

"Opening Summer 2025", you say? Well, this picture was taken on the evening of September 22nd, the autumn equinox in 2025, so I'd say they have a few more hours to meet that timeline! 

My parents went to the lounge while I wandered around; I came back to find them sitting in the "private area" section, since apparently there was nowhere else to sit. To be fair, apparently one of the employees came over and opened the door for them, and by the time I got there that room was just as full as the rest of the lounge... but still. 🙂 

YVR is possibly my favorite airport, but the two lounges I've visited there (out of the three that are in the international terminal -- the only other one is the Air Canada lounge) are by far my two least favorite lounges. The SkyTeam lounge was packed when I visited it in February, with a food selection that was just OK and restrooms that were falling apart; the Plaza Premium lounge was slightly less busy, with a much worse food offering and lines for the restrooms (something I find unacceptable anywhere in an airport and never thought I would see in a lounge!). 

On the plus side, it does have much better views than the SkyTeam lounge, especially with a 747 parked right outside the windows! Heck, I wasn't even the only one here watching the planes.

On the other hand, that gave us a clear view of Condor coming in to land... and doing a go-around, before flying loops for a while and eventually coming in to land quite late. (I wasn't quick enough on the first landing, so this picture is the second, successful one.) Definitely inauspicious, especially since it apparently freaked my dad out and he spent the whole rest of the time waiting for the flight going on and on about how there must be something wrong with the plane and/or Condor's pilots. (Which is weird since he's the only one of the three of us who has actually been in a go-around before...)

Planespotting complete, I gave up on the lounge and headed out to the deserted main concourse area -- much nicer (and no lines for the restrooms here!). I was excited to see that we were getting a blue plane today, both because that's my favorite color and because I had dug out a blue-and-white striped shirt to match! (Seriously, I'm not making this up.) I was sad that no one commented on my shirt matching the plane... 

There's the Lufthansa 747 getting ready to leave, as seen from the exterior courtyard (not too bad of a picture for it being through a row of trees and two panes of glass...). 

And there's Edelweiss's A350 pushing pack, right behind our A330. 

At some point, we were joined by another blue neighbor -- KLM, an airline I absolutely have to fly again some day. 

Around this point, the real trouble with Condor started. For one, the gate agent refused to use the PA system, instead shouting ineffectively to try to get everyone's attention. On top of this... well, you know how pretty much every airline emphasizes during boarding that only the current boarding group should line up, and everyone else should stay seated? Well, apparently this guy had never heard of that, and instead told everyone to get up all at once and form separate lines by zone. Which sounds OK in theory, but the signs were tiny, no one could really understand what he was saying, and even without those things, I highly doubt you would ever be able to organize 300 people, all antsy and tired of waiting for an already-delayed flight, in a remotely efficient way! 

Now normally this wouldn't be an issue -- I'm normally not even at the gate when boarding starts, and I consider the ability to board late (without having to worry about bin space) to be one of the big perks of flying business class. But my parents are the kind of people who will normally get to the airport hours early, check in as soon as the counter opens, and then make a bee-line to the gate and sit there for hours before boarding. So that wasn't an option this time, and they were already antsy since they had been hanging out in the lounge instead of at the gate. But I figured we'd still be fine -- since we were zone 1, we should be on the plane right away and able to hang out in our comfy business class seats. Well, nope. Based on the timestamps of these pictures, it was around half an hour from when we were told to get up to when we were finally let on the plane (meaning probably close to an hour for people in the last boarding zone), and it felt even longer because my mom can't stand up for long periods any longer, but didn't want to leave the line to sit down. 

And since the line was such a disaster and the gate agent still refused to use the PA system, when it finally came time to board, most of the people were getting rejected at the boarding pass scanner for not actually being in zone one. And then after that, when we finally got onto the jetbridge (no glass jetbridge this time, sadly), we still had to wait for a while to get onto the plane. 

So Condor completely failed at first impressions, and this trip wasn't exactly off to a good start. Yes, ground handling is typically contracted out (especially at outstations, and especially for smaller airlines), but spoiler alert, some things were even worse leaving their actual hub on the return flight. Thankfully things started picking up at this point, but I've decided to cut this post here and actually post it today, rather than pushing it off until tomorrow or later.