Condor Airbus A330-900neo Business Class Review [FRA to JFK]

Airline: Condor
Aircraft: Airbus A330-900neo
Flight #: DE2016
Route: Frankfurt Airport (FRA) to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
Date: March 11, 2024
Duration: 8 hours, 50 minutes
Cabin and Layout: Business class; 30 seats in a 1-2-1 configuration
Seat: 5F (aisle)
Cost: 55,000 Alaska Airlines miles + $177 in taxes and fees

Famous for its striped planes, which debuted in 2022, Condor is a German carrier that’s far less famous than Lufthansa. Condor is also not part of any airline alliances, doesn’t operate its own lounges, and doesn’t have any transfer partners for points or miles. However, you can book this airline with 2 unique partners: Emirates Skywards and Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan.

The latter is how my wife and I booked business class seats on a Condor plane to fly back to the U.S. after a recent trip to Europe. We made our journey in Condor’s newest business class seats on its newest plane type. The trip had some high highs and low lows. Unfortunately, the negatives all revolve around discriminatory service, while the positives were confined to the physical aspects — the “hard product.”

Let’s take a look at our recent Condor business class flight, which started well and ended poorly.

Booking Condor Business Class

You can book Condor award flights with Emirates Skywards miles or Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles. We used Alaska miles for this flight, paying 55,000 miles + $177 per person.

My wife already had a fair amount of Alaska miles in her account, and I was happy to receive the miles from the welcome bonus on my Alaska Airlines Visa Signature^® credit card in time to book this flight for our journey home from Europe. This was much better than the flight’s $2,058 per person fare.

We got over 3.4 cents per mile in value on this redemption. That’s nearly double our average value of Alaska miles at 1.8 cents apiece.

Frankfurt Airport (FRA)

Check-In

At 24 hours before departure, I received an email saying I could check in online and scan our passports with a smartphone to save time at the airport. That sounded intriguing, so I gave it a whirl.

Holding my phone’s camera over the information page on each of our passports loaded our passport details into the reservation. From there, I was able to complete the check-in.

However, since we had luggage to check, we still went to Condor’s check-in counters in Terminal 1 the next morning. Given the sparse amount of passengers we found here, we expected an empty flight (which wasn’t the case).

We waited less than a minute before an employee called us forward. We weighed and tagged our luggage, then watched her enter our passport information into the computer. I guess using the phone app didn’t accomplish anything.

She handed us our passports and tickets with a look on her face like she was glad she could go back to playing on her phone, given that no one else was in line. I had to ask if there was a lounge to visit, and she replied, “It’s on the ticket.”

Lufthansa Business Lounge (Non-Schengen, Gates B44 to B48)

Our tickets indicated access to the Lufthansa Business Lounge. After passport control, we followed the signs for the lounge and found it conveniently located just across from our departure gate. A smiling employee at the entrance checked our tickets before letting us in.

Inside the entrance on the ground floor was an elevator and a set of stairs. On the upper floor, we found the entrance to the lounge.

The lounge had a large, open seating plan with low chairs next to end tables as well as a few semi-circular high-back booths around small tables. Outlets for charging devices were abundant.

The lounge’s buffet curved along a singular wall of the lounge, and there were machines for coffee, water, and tea.

We visited during breakfast, and hot dishes on the buffet included stewed tomatoes, sausages, and scrambled eggs.

The soda fountain also included orange juice and apple juice. We were looking for orange juice and had to ask an employee where it was; we were surprised that this was the answer.

Nearby, there were bottles of wine plus alcohol and tomato juice for making mixed drinks.

In the rear, the lounge had bathrooms and a few booths with doors you could close for private phone calls. The lounge also had its own Wi-Fi network, and speeds were solid: downloads approaching 110 Mbps and uploads close to 160 Mbps.

Boarding

The stereotypical German “Ordnung muss sein” (“There must be order”) was nowhere to be found at the gate. When we arrived at the gate, document checks for U.S.-bound travelers were underway. We had to ask several people if they were in line before finding the end of the not-a-line going on.

It also felt like passengers were playing a complex game of “Who can be in the way as much as possible?” by standing in front of gates that weren’t theirs. Most of these passengers weren’t on our flight. Once the crew announced boarding, we had to ask who was boarding and who was just in the way. Employees could’ve organized this a bit better.

Boarding also started late, and our flight left 30 minutes late. This was due to late aircraft arrival and the time needed to clean and stock the plane. Once preboarding finished, business class boarded next. We used a separate jet bridge to the left to board through the aircraft’s front door.

On Board Condor’s Airbus A330-900neo

At the boarding door, a smiling flight attendant welcomed me on board. She then jumped in between me and my wife, stuck out her arms to bar the door, and informed my wife that this entrance was only for business class passengers. The tone was, “I assume you don’t belong here,” and it foreshadowed numerous challenges my wife encountered with the crew.

Inside the cabin, the stripe motif we saw on the plane’s exterior continued on the back wall of the business cabin.

The bulkhead wall was a solid color with the airline’s logo.

Business Class Seat

The stripes continued as I found my seat, 5F.

When we arrived at our seats, we found numerous crumbs on the floor and drips on the molding.

I thought the stripes on the headrest were interesting, but I was glad the entire seat wasn’t striped.

Seats in business class had a 3-point seatbelt, and I found bedding and a pillow on my seat — though it didn’t look very presentable.

As I sat down, I found more items for comfort in front of me: a bedroll (in a white cloth bag) and 2 pairs of slippers for some reason. These also had the airline’s stripes.

These fit easily into the generous footwell at my seat.

Inside the footwell was a sleeve for safety information. Given the lack of any other storage at my seat, I used this spot for my laptop.

Along the plastic molding in front of me, I found a coat hook.

Along the aisle, I found a generous armrest-meets-tray area. A pack of crackers was also waiting for me here.

I found the remote for the entertainment system on one side of this space. This remote also displayed the remaining flight time.

On the other side, I found numerous outlets, including a universal outlet, USB-A, USB-C, and the headphone jack.

Above the outlets, still on the aisle side of my seat, I found the headphones (wrapped in plastic) on a hook, the amenity kit, and a bottle of water.

Inside the headphone bag, I also found covers for the over-ear portion of the headset.

Near the headphones was a reading light that turned on and off easily with a button.

I found buttons to control the seat at hip level on the aisle side, below the armrest. These worked easily for reclining and lying down, and additional options allowed for adjusting the firmness of the backrest.

Between our seats, my wife and I found this strange button that popped in and out with a click. Despite our playing with it numerous times out of curiosity, it didn’t seem to do anything.

Overhead, we had lights and a speaker but no air nozzles.

Next to the entertainment system, a big button said “Table.” Pushing it with a lot of force released the tray table.

After pushing hard enough on the button, the tray table dropped down from below the entertainment system.

Then, I could pull the tray table toward my body on an extendable track.

Looking around, we were surprised by how many seats had scratches and scuff marks on the plastic molding.

Choosing the Best Seat

Your options for the best seat will vary depending on whether you’re traveling alone or with someone. Before jumping into the finer details, it’s also worth pointing out that Condor sells prime seats in the first row of business class. These seats have larger screens, a visitor seat for dining together, a bigger bed, and extra space. On our flight, these seats were available for an additional €299.99 (~$320).

Condor’s A330-900neo uses a staggered 1-2-1 layout for business class. Solo seats along the windows are also staggered, with those in even-numbered rows closer to the window with more privacy. Those in odd rows are closer to the aisle.

For the 2 seats in the middle section, some people are closer to their companions than others. These are the odd-numbered rows.

Thus, those traveling alone should pick window seats in even-numbered rows. These will have “A” seat assignments; “C” will be closer to the aisle. Those traveling with someone and wanting to be closer together in the middle seats should pick odd rows with “E” and “F” seats.

Food and Beverage

Once we got settled, flight attendants passed through the cabin with welcome drinks. Options were orange juice or Champagne.

At boarding, each seat had a menu, which we perused out of curiosity and as a way for my wife to ignore her flight attendant (more on that issue in the service section).

Starters included Jamaican chicken, salmon, or a salad, while main dish options included roast chicken, mahi-mahi, or vegetable curry.

The extensive drinks menu offered sodas, beers, spirits, coffee, and more.

The drinks menu also had details about several of the wine offerings.

A welcome note on the menu shared the mindset of the food and drink offerings.

After takeoff, flight attendants passed through the aisles, offering drinks and nuts while taking meal orders. I asked for a Spezi, a common German drink that is basically half Coke and half Fanta Orange and is available ready-made from numerous brands. The flight attendant said she didn’t have any but would happily mix one for me.

The flight attendant also confirmed our special meal requests (vegan) and went on her way. A while later, she returned with this massive spread of starters. Along with a hot bread basket, we had salad, hummus, grilled vegetables, couscous, and fruits.

When our main dish (gnocchi) arrived, I was immediately suspicious of the parmesan-cheese-looking bits. Was this vegan? We waited about 15 minutes to ask because the only flight attendant visible in the cabin was my wife’s flight attendant, and we had started trying to avoid interactions with her at that point.

About 15 minutes after we got our dishes, my flight attendant returned. We asked if the dish was vegan. It wasn’t. It was just vegetarian and had cheese on it. Normally, the meal goes downhill at this point, but Condor did something I’ve never seen before. The flight attendant announced that backup special meals were in the kitchen, just in case.

After heating the meals, our flight attendants arrived saying that there were 2 different options, but only 1 of each, so we’d have to choose. I took the gnocchi (this time without cheese).

My wife took the Thai curry.

Both meals were decent — nothing amazing, but they surely beat our original thought that we wouldn’t have a main dish for our meal. My flight attendant brought me a fruit plate at the end of the meal. My wife didn’t get a fruit plate and didn’t ask for it since she was attempting to avoid her rude flight attendant.

An hour before landing, we received the light meal: a tray with fruits, a jelly dish that was quite odd, and a grilled vegetable sandwich. To be honest, this was rather boring.

Amenities

Internet

Wi-Fi was available on our flight, and I found information about accessing it while scrolling through the entertainment system and on this card in my seat pocket.

We could access 10 minutes of free chat service. Beyond that, services required payment. Prices ranged from €7 (~$7) for unlimited chat to €20 (~$21) for 4 hours of full internet access.

The fact that this was called “Premium” was a bit funny because the speeds were quite bad: less than 1 Mbps throughout the flight. I also lost the connection a few times during my 4 hours, but the service always came back within 2 minutes at most. I learned to save my work frequently.

Lavatories

We had 3 lavatories for business class passengers: 1 near the cockpit and 2 at the rear of the cabin. These had large, fold-down baby-changing tables but were otherwise quite basic.

The only things separating this lavatory from what you’ll find in economy were a bottle of lotion and some small cups. I found the presence of cups confusing. Did this mean I could drink the water here?

And stripes were present here as well.

Amenity Kit

The stripe theme continued with the amenity kit, which came in 2 parts.

After removing the outer packaging, the amenity kit had a cardboard box and a striped, zippered carrying bag.

Inside the cardboard box, I found striped socks, a striped mask, a toothbrush, lip balm, and hand lotion.

Entertainment

Each seat had a 17.3-inch TV screen built into the plastic molding of the seat in front. Interestingly, it wasn’t possible to start watching anything before takeoff.

After takeoff, menu options became available. The first page required choosing between Kids and Premium, which I understood as the adult section.

The screen initially showed some flight information before letting me access the multiple sub-menus, which made the system more complicated than necessary.

The entertainment system had 3 menu pages: My Flight, Entertainment, and Condor Insights. The My Flight page had information about the Wi-Fi system, a flight map, and duty-free, but also the movies and music — strangely not located on the Entertainment menu. This page also had a café menu of snacks for purchase.

Movie options were abundant, and multiple options for filtering and searching made it easy to find a movie by genre and language filters.

There were numerous options in the music area, including albums by artists and playlists.

However, the music section was a big disappointment. First, each playlist was 35 minutes or less. Second, I couldn’t find a single band/artist I’d ever heard of before. None — and I have pretty eclectic taste.

The Entertainment tab also provided a path to movies, TV shows, news, and podcasts.

The Condor Insights menu had information about the airline, its environmental initiatives, customs forms, and behind-the-scenes footage from various airline recordings. I could also access the duty-free magazine from this tab by clicking on the icon showing items and their prices — though this didn’t have any “duty-free” label.

The menu on the top of the screen allowed for turning the overhead light on and off and calling for a flight attendant. Other options included the flight map, saving items as favorites, settings, on/off, and a moon with Zs icon that I assumed to be “do not disturb.”

The “do not disturb” feature had 2 options: asking the flight crew to let you sleep or to wake you for meals.

A Bluetooth icon allowed passengers to connect their own headsets, which was a nice touch.

Within Settings, I found parental controls as well.

Service

When considering the plane and its amenities in isolation, this would be an “above average” flight. However, the service started on the wrong foot and never recovered, though it did have a few flashes of brilliance.

The incident with the flight crew immediately assuming my wife didn’t belong in business class started our experience on the wrong note. My wife was 1 of 2 non-white passengers in business class on this flight. After the flight, we spoke with the other (a black man seated 2 rows behind us), and he said that this same awkwardness happened to him at boarding as well.

When serving the preflight beverages, the flight attendant on my side quickly realized I spoke very little German and then spoke to me in English for the rest of the flight. While getting her welcome drink, my wife informed the flight attendant on her side of the plane that she didn’t speak German. That attendant consistently spoke to my wife in German throughout the rest of the flight despite multiple reminders. It made for a really frustrating experience.

My wife’s flight attendant was responsible for serving roughly 10 passengers, and my wife was the only Latinx woman among those passengers. The flight attendant remembered to speak to other passengers in English but only spoke to my wife in German.

We limited our interactions with her after my wife went to the bathroom and the flight attendant closed the curtain in her face and told her, “This bathroom is for business class only.” It was beyond rude, and there was no way the flight attendant couldn’t remember my wife was a business class passenger by that point. It seemed like she was discriminating against my wife on purpose. Even if she genuinely thought an economy passenger was trying to use the bathroom in business class, that wasn’t the right way to handle it.

Once the meal service ended, we tried to avoid my wife’s flight attendant for the rest of the flight. She insisted on speaking to my wife in German, despite multiple reminders, and was rude whenever given the opportunity. When we wanted more water, we watched for my flight attendant and asked her to bring it for both of us.

After the flight, while waiting in the customs hall, we talked to the other non-white passenger from business class — a black man in his late 50s who’d been seated 2 rows behind my wife. He had the same flight attendant. We wanted to know how his experience with the flight attendant was.

His first response was that she gave him “weird vibes” from the moment he walked onto the plane, that she insisted on speaking to him in German (despite him saying he only knows about 10 words in German), that she was rude, and that he’d decided to sleep for as much of the flight as possible to not have to deal with her. That’s a pretty horrendous description of a flight in business class.

Looking back, we probably should’ve switched seats at some point during the flight. It didn’t occur to us at the time. However, that shouldn’t be necessary when flying in an airline’s premium cabin. And as the other gentleman pointed out during our discussion, “It doesn’t matter that you’re in business class. No one should be treated like this, no matter what cabin you’re flying in. People are equals.”

We received a survey from Alaska Airlines after the flight (since that’s how we booked) and also emailed some feedback to Condor. We were 100% honest about the service and what we could only understand to be discrimination based on skin color. Neither airline has responded. It truly soured the “service” aspect of this flight.

Arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)

Once we landed at JFK, we were happy to depart from the middle door between business and economy because we wouldn’t have to pass my wife’s rude flight attendant and have any more encounters with her. The door opened quickly, business class passengers deplaned first, and we rushed to get off the plane as quickly as possible.

Final Thoughts

We were pretty excited about this flight and had a few weeks to reflect on it before I sat down to write this review. Neither Condor nor Alaska has responded to our comments saying that the 2 non-white passengers in our cabin both felt they were mistreated based on skin color. That’s pretty sad.

Our experience at the airport before getting on the plane was largely positive. The hard product on our flight was a solid 7/10, which is pretty good. And my flight attendant was excellent. If I’d flown alone, this would be a very different review. Unfortunately, I can’t overlook what happened on the other aisle or the overly negative experience of the person sitting beside me. Do flight attendants have bad days and come off as rude sometimes? Sure. But this felt like something more than just a sour mood; it felt intentional, and that’s messed up.

There is zero chance I would fly Condor again until there are massive changes to ensure this type of treatment doesn’t happen to other passengers. That would start with a heartfelt apology, but that doesn’t seem to be coming.