Flight review: Condor A330neo business class (Seattle to Frankfurt) [SEA to FRA]

In December 2023, I took a business class flight to Germany for a business conference. I wanted to take a direct flight from Seattle to Frankfurt. There were two airlines offering this route: Lufthansa and Condor.

Lufthansa’s business class remains uninspiring and resembles domestic first class in the United States. As a solo traveler who actually is on a business trip, sleep and privacy are absolutely essential for me. Condor’s new A330 business class offers this. Furthermore, Condor flights earn Alaska miles. That’s why I decided it was going to be worth the gamble to try flying Condor.

Condor is not known for being a particularly upscale airline. In fact, they seem to have some sort of identity crisis (and flying them only further reinforced this notion for me). Their business class product blew me away in many ways, yet the absurdities in the process also blew my mind.

Join me as I retrace my experience flying from Seattle to Frankfurt in Condor’s new business class on their new Airbus A330neos!

Checking in

Condor offers online check-in. I was able to do that, but my boarding pass did not contain the TSA PreCheck. I needed to fix that.

So I went to the counter and didn’t have much of a wait in line, which is great, especially because I am flying business class. After handing over my passport, I got my ticket. However, despite not checking in any bags, I was told they needed to weigh my carry-on bag. What the heck? This doesn’t happen to me on any mainland U.S. airline I’ve flown, in economy, and seldom even on Spirit. This is some European budget airline BS that should not be happening for a premium product I paid over $3,000 round trip for.

As I’d later learn, Condor’s budget airline BS continues to permeate throughout the entire experience, unfortunately even in business class…

I was also given access to The Club as a business class passenger, which is also a Priority Pass lounge. However, at Seattle, it comes nowhere close to the Centurion Lounge, so I proceeded there.

Boarding

Boarding happened late. I remember the boarding process being very chaotic. (The experience departing from Frankfurt Airport was even worse, but more on that later.) I understand that there are hundreds of economy class passengers and it can be somewhat of a free-for-all for them. However, there are fewer than three dozen passengers in business class. Could we at least get a peaceful opportunity to board without other passengers crowding the boarding area?

Condor did board passengers who needed extra time (such as those with strollers and those who are mobility limited), which is the right thing to do and definitely deserves to happen before business class gets to board. I’ll give them a plus for that!

Pre-departure and the seat

So far, the experience has been disappointing and frustrating as a business class passenger. While I would understand this is a reasonable experience for an economy class airline, it simply made no sense for a business class hard product that is supposed to be better than Lufthansa’s.

When I finally got on the plane, my frustration evaporated and my mood did a complete 180. I felt like a kid in a candy store!

Condor offers their business class seats staggered with even-numbered seats closer to the window and their consoles near the aisle, while odd-numbered seats were near the aisle and their table was near the window. Almost universally, people tend to prefer their seats to be close to the window. I chose seat 4K months in advance and did not regret it.

When I got to my seat, I found a bottle of water and some Scandinavian nuts, my amenity kit, a pair of headphones wrapped in plastic, a pillow, a blanket, and a mattress pad.

I found it interesting that there was this big cylinder just hanging from the coathanger on my seat. While the profile was not very sleek, to say the least, it did make me excited because it meant a potentially more comfortable flight!

As I settled in, I took a look at my seatside table. I found a sleek new remote with a trackpad, an A/C power port, USB outlets, and seat recline controls.

There are quite a lot of buttons here, which is always exciting to see! As I would later figure out, the leftmost button isn’t actually to change the position of the seat; it’s to turn off the personal seat lamp. However, from a user experience perspective, this was not very intuitive because I either just tuned it out and thought all of those buttons were for the seat, or if I looked at the light icon, I thought it was for the overhead reading lamps and not the seatside lamp.

The footwell is decently sized and can fit the blanket and pillow that you were given for your seat. (Peep: I also temporarily stored my laptop there before I realized I didn’t want to risk it during takeoff.)

The personal TV is massive and was nice to use during the flight.

The water was apparently from a national park. That was concerning because aren’t we supposed to not exploit resources from national parks? Anyway, it must mean something else. Definitely not water from the U.S., lol! And also it tasted good.

Next up, the amenity kit! While the kit’s case is just paper, which was sorely disappointing, the contents inside were nice. Decent, but not great quality. Plus, the things inside were a bit limited in nature. The eye mask was a bit thin and had flimsy straps, but I guess it did the job for the flight.

And how could you enjoy your business class experience without slippers?

One small thing that irked me was the upselling and mentions of pay-for-food offerings for economy class that happened over the PA system. I was nowhere near the economy class cabin; can’t they please keep our ears from hearing that? It was very confusing for me to hear that, as I thought for a brief moment that we were expected to pay extra for some of our food. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, but come on, please don’t confuse me.

Dinner service

After an uneventful takeoff from Sea-Tac Airport (and with nothing noteworthy to photograph since it was the depressing winter in Seattle), we settled in the meal service.

The lights were already dimmed, presumably for people trying to get some shuteye.

We started with an assorted warm nuts selection. I ask for champagne to accompany the nuts, but also ask for some water and red wine (as I would later order the beef for my main meal). The flight attendant was very nice and obliged. In fact, she was happy to let me try both of their red wines, and even discussed with me about the different wines they had, including the German wines they had onboard. What a refreshing service attitude that contrasts heavily to the Lufthansa experiences I hear from others!

We then proceeded to the appetizers. I was not expecting much before I boarded. When I saw the menu, I was already impressed by the options and I was going to pick one of the tantalizing dishes. However, to my absolutely pleasant surprise, we got ALL of the appetizers!

The selection of food was just amazing. Plus, we got to choose a variety of breads, and multiple too! From pretzels to Kaiser rolls (Kaisersemmel) to sliced whole grain and nuts bread, we were spoiled with choice for breads. Then just look at that beautiful variety of appetizers.

• Bell pepper dip
• Millefeuille of tomato mozarella [sic], bresaola, balsamico
• Marinated tuna, yellow beetroot, tarragon dressing
• Mixed greens, tomato, balsamic dressing

I was sad about finishing those appetizers. For my main course, I got a slightly less appetizing, but still decent, veal cheeks. I remember it paired very well with the red wine.

I thought then it would be time for the dessert, but nope, we get a cheese course too!

This cheese course comprises of: havarti with dill, cheddar, and goat cheese, with some red grapes. Yum!

Finally, we finished with a lemon tartlet that was great. At this point, I was officially stuffed and kept the lemon tartlet for a mid-flight snack.

Sleep

At last, it was time to sleep. I placed my bed into the lie flat position. As there was no flight attendant turndown service, I did it myself.

Yep, that seat sure does lie flat! With the blanket and the mattress padding, it becomes quite comfortable.

I doze off to sleep and enjoy the flight map…

I even set a thing on my screen that tells the flight attendant to wake me up for breakfast. What an excellent idea!

The one thing I did not enjoy about my sleep experience was the lack of air vents. It actually made it very hard for me to go to sleep. Thankfully, I fixed that for my return flight when I bought some portable fans that I plugged into the USB ports, which kept me sufficiently cool for sleeping.

Wi-Fi

There was Wi-Fi offered by Deutsche Telekom (they are the owners of T-Mobile). It was decent. In the flight back, it stopped working halfway and then Telekom gaslit me and accused me of lying. That was a horrible experience, but oh well, that’s typical German hospitality for you. Thank goodness the Condor flight attendants are exemplary.

I chose the messaging plan. It still cost money unfortunately. I think it was 6 euros.

Breakfast

We woke up to the option to have breakfast. I opened my windows and saw the daylight permeating in, which was awful for me because it was still in the middle of the night in Seattle, haha!

I started with some freshly squeezed orange juice, pulp and all. This is so impressive. I just had to order it as soon as I saw this.

But that wasn’t the only freshly prepared item on this flight. We were also able to enjoy a fresh hard boiled egg with the rest of our breakfast, which came with a chilled meats and veggie selection, bread, jam, and fruits. It was pretty good, but the hard boiled egg was definitely impressive.

Soon, we land in Frankfurt and proceed to enter the sterile zone of the airport. We also got a German chocolate upon landing – how nice!

Overall experience and closing thoughts

I walked away from the plane thoroughly impressed by the onboard service of Condor. It was by far better than most business class products I have had the chance of enjoying. However, I was left very confused when I juxtaposed that with the atrocious ground service. I understand that they are two different parts of the company, but I don’t know another airline that has such a stark contrast to their ground versus air operations.

For my return flight, I got access to the Lufthansa Business Class lounge, which I review on the @upgradedtoeconomy Instagram. Go check it out! But after leaving the Business Class lounge, I have to stand in line for what I thought was boarding for economy class, because the line was sooooo long. Nope, turns out it was a travel document verification and U.S.-bound security screening. That included the airport staff asking me the “security questions” that are always asked before boarding a flight from Europe to the U.S. Sigh, what a waste of time. (Not to mention I think it is a stupid idea for non-American airport staff to ask such questions to U.S. citizens, but I digress.)

Finally, 30ish minutes after our scheduled departure, with minimal updates from the gate agents, the business class boarding begins. Lovely. The Lufthansa lounge staff tried to help me figure out the situation from the comfort of the lounge, which I appreciated, but I feel bad for inconveniencing them because of the incompetence of Condor.

My point is, I hope Condor’s ground operations can catch up to their air operations. If they can do that, they will truly be a real competitive threat to Lufthansa.

My thoughts are, as long as you are willing to deal with the BS on the ground, you will be rewarded by an amazing onboard experience.

Would I fly Condor business class again? Yes, as long as I temper the right expectations for myself. However, the ground experience remains frustrating enough that I would still consider flying another airline to Europe if presented the opportunity. Honestly, if they fixed their ground operations, I would probably make them my first choice to fly to Europe.