Early departure 0445 means early arrival in Manchester.
Star Alliance Gold membership meant I could use the lounge in Baku (as did in Manchester and Frankfurt on the way out).
The A321-200 had comfortable seats and similar legroom to the outbound Lufthansa flight – but this time with individual entertainment screen at each seat, and a usb socket so you could charge your phone or tablet.
Bonus came when another passenger arrived with the same seat allocation as the one I was already sat in and, (presumably as a gold card holder), I was the one moved to a vacant business class seat.
The (business class) breakfast menu looked very tempting, but I kept my eyes closed for this leg of the journey.
Departed and landed on schedule, and bused (a common occurrence at Istanbul) to (a very busy) terminal building.
Istanbul-Manchester leg, departed on time.
This A321-200 also had individual entertainment system, but no usb charging socket. The touch-screen route map didn’t want to respond to my touch, showed questionable ‘time at source/destination’ and insisted ‘time to destination’ remained 3h40 minutes throughout the flight on the main screen (but a more accurate prediction on the screen that alternates between languages/map).
Slightly less leg room than the earlier flight and, when the guy in front of me put his seat back shortly after take-off it was ‘in my face’. On an early morning flight like this it is understandable that many/most people might want to rest/sleep but I can’t bring myself to put my own seat-back into someone else’s face to equalise my own space…his seat back returned to normal position for food and, thankfully, stayed there for the rest of the flight 🙂
Landed 20 minutes early, allowing me to catch a train that got me home 2 hrs earlier than expected (bonus number 2 of the day).
