My first page (There And Back Again) was about the coming and going of my trip, but I didn’t actually mention the flights, airlines or airports involved. I could have, but I think there’s enough on this subject to warrant its own page.

Tray Tables Up
Business class or better — that’s my motto when it comes to international travel. At least, that’s the motto I want to start following, because spending hours and hours in a flying tube in coach is really awful. Sure, it would double or triple the price of the ticket — but it would be soooo worth it. But that’s not to say all my flights were bad.

My Air Canada flights from and to Portland were actually fairly nice. I was on a smaller jet with a 2-2 seat configuration for the coach rows, and there was actually a good amount of leg room. Sadly, I did have a seat-mate for both flights, so I couldn’t really stretch out, but it wasn’t too bad. No meals on these flights, despite their 4+ hour duration, but you could purchase from the “Cafe” selections. Even so, these flights weren’t too bad.

I was on a similarly sized jet for my flights between Munich and Donetsk, and again was in a 2-2 seat configuration. Not as much leg room and the seats seemed narrower as well. Plus German men wear a ton of cologne… Lufthansa did want to feed us for these 3-hour flights, which was nice of them. Although the flight to Donetsk was a tad cramped, the flight back to Munich was pretty nice. No seat-mate, and I since I hadn’t eaten that day, I took advantage of the in-flight meal of spinach and ricotta tortellini. It was actually a very nice flight… but still not enough to make up for the 18-hour layover awaiting me when it ended.

Of course, the big flight was the one from Toronto to Munich — 8 hours each direction. Going over, not too bad. Although I was in steerage — sorry, I mean “coach” class — I had a window seat which gave me a little extra room. I tried to sleep without much success, but between reading, dozing when I could and re-watching “The Avengers,” the time went by easily enough.

Sadly, no such luck on my way back. I had dreaded it and it happened: I had a middle seat. The coach rows on the plane are in 2-4-2 seat configuration, and I was stuck in a ‘4’ block. Again, I dozed a little bit and I’m sure I watched something (though I don’t remember what), but the bulk of the time was reading. Unlike my flight over, I felt every minute of that flight back. Nevertheless, props where props are due: the landing we had in Toronto was perhaps the smoothest I had ever felt. You almost couldn’t tell when the wheels hit the runway, you just suddenly felt the braking. That was smooth.

Terminality
As I become a more and more seasoned traveler, I feel better about making airport comparisons. Of the four airports on this trip — and out of all the airports I can recall — Portland still has the nicest facilities in terms of comfort, visuals and shops/dining.

Toronto Pearson is a big airport, but I only saw a small portion of it. Lots of long corridors; I’d get off a flight and have to walk 10 minutes, where I would pass through some checkpoint and then seem to walk back the direction I’d just come, only on a different level. I’m sure it would make sense if I saw a map. OK food courts, both coming and going, although a little limited on the outgoing international side. A couple sit-down bars/restaurants, but only two fast(er) food places, which meant long lines if you wanted a burger from Cactus Jack’s Grill or a muffin from Tim Horton’s. I went with the burger. On the plus side, Toronto does take US currency as payment for goods and services, although as the clerks will explain, your change will be in Canadian. (There’s also a bit of a fee bundled into the conversion, but they don’t really tell you that.)

Munich airport is bigger than Toronto, and during my time there I became fairly familiar with the the location of everything in the public section of Terminal 2. There’s a huge, covered courtyard area between Terminals 1 and 2, so it’s easy enough to step outside and get a breath of fresh air (although you have to wander off a bit to get away from the smokers). Oddly, there are no benches or seating — other than that for some of the business — in the courtyard; that kind of sucked, because it was a lot less stuffy outside than in the terminal. I had a late dinner at the McDonalds there and used a self-serve kiosk to place my order; that was kind of fun. Two things to note if you’re trapped in Munich: things basically shut down between midnight and 5 am (although McDonalds was open all night), and you probably won’t be able to get much sleep on the infrequent and not-very-comfortable wooden seats in the terminal.

Donetsk airport has changed a lot since last year, but that wasn’t surprising. Given that Donetsk was one of the host cities for the Euro 2012 soccer championship games, Ukraine had spent a ton of cash upgrading the airports in Kiev and Donetsk to support all the travelers that were expected. So the tiny terminal I flew into last year is now closed, and all flights go in and out of the new terminal. The new terminal is big and airy and can support a lot of passenger traffic — which makes it all seem a bit sad and empty because it doesn’t really get that much traffic. I didn’t see much when I came in, but I was there for a couple hours going out, and I think there was one other flight at the same time. Lots of space and so few people; like I said, a bit sad. I think Donetsk was hoping that the airlines would keep their expanded schedules after the games, but I don’t think that happened.

(Still, it is a little better off than Mariupol, which has an airport but no commercial service. In fact, I was told that the only thing coming and going from Mariupol airport was a company charter, and even that was expected to end once the summer was over. Pity.)

When In…
In Portland, Denver, Toronto, Sea-Tac, Vancouver, Dulles, JFK, Gatwick — virtually every airport I’ve flown to — the airplane is at the terminal building, and that’s where you get on and off (plane and deplane? board and unboard?). Last year, in Ukraine, that was the case for only one of my flights (the one from Kiev to JFK). For all my other flights in Ukraine, both last year and this year, the plane actually stops out in an “airplane parking lot” and the passengers are shuttled to and from the terminal in buses.

And Ukraine isn’t alone in this: my Munich-Donetsk flight was handled the same way in Munich. I suspect that other places might do this as well, but I haven’t been to those places yet. It really struck me as odd the first time or two, but I think I’m pretty used to it now.

Another curious thing in Ukraine is how the airplanes themselves taxi around the airports. I first noticed this last year, and saw it again this trip. At most US airports, there are actually two air traffic systems: one for going between airports, and one for moving around on the ground at the airport. A plane will come in, get instructions from the “local” tower and taxi the plane to where they need to go. In Ukraine, though, there are actually guide cars to help the planes move around the airfield. A car will meet a just landed plane and drive ahead of the plane, leading it to where it will park. If you’re flying out, the guide car will lead you over to the runway. It’s really kind of interesting. I see the drivers talking on walkie-talkies, and that must be how their “local” air traffic control system works.

Fly-bys
Just a couple more quick notes:

• My first flight (out of Portland) was momentarily delayed when we were taxiing away from the gate. The message from the crew was that they needed to move a passenger for weight balance in the plane. I was thinking that no matter who you are and no matter what you weigh, if you were the person being moved, that’s got to make you feel bad. The plane can’t take off because one person — because of their weight — is throwing the plane off? Oh yeah, that’ll need some therapy.
• My flight out of Donetsk coming home could have been a problem, because Lufthansa cabin crews were staging wildcat strikes. On the first day of their strike, Lufthansa had to cancel nearly half of their flights. The strikes weren’t happening every day, but had the struck on the day of my flight, it could have been real trouble.
• The Lufthansa strike did cause a slight delay on my flight out of Munich on Air Canada. Take-offs were delayed by about 30 minutes (which we found out after we got into the queue for the runway), because air traffic control wanted to space things out a little more. Exactly why things had to be spaced out more when fewer airplanes were in the air remains a mystery.
• Lastly, I found out about the Lufthansa strike almost by accident. I was flipping through the channels one evening (there was only 1 English language channel in the hotel’s line-up), and I happened to be on a French-language channel that was rebroadcasting a BBC (English) report on the possibility of a strike. The French anchors were talking over the report, but the captions were still there, and that’s how I first learned that trouble was a-brewin’.