- [Noel] This week, I take a ride on a plane
that from the outside resembles a prison plane.
Just look at this monstrosity.
But what's it like on the inside?
I find out as I take a ride
on Germany's most controversial plane,
Condor's Airbus A330neo.
Well, the weather's getting a little bit chilly
down in Texas at the minute.
So I've done what every true Texan does when the weather
gets a little bit cold.
I've booked myself on the first flight down to Cancun
and I'm here for a few hours
because I've got a flight out
of here this afternoon on something pretty cool.
So I'm flying to Frankfurt in Germany this afternoon
with a German holiday airline called Condor,
and I'm hoping to fly in their brand new Airbus A330neo.
First thing's first though, we've gotta go get checked in.
I'm checking in for Frankfurt please.
All right, all checked in through security.
Time to head to the lounge
quite straightforward here at Cancun,
so let's go and see where we need to be.
Hola, buenas tardes.
- [Clerk] Buenas tardes.
- Okay, perfect.
- [Clerk] Okay, this is for me, Mr. Noel.
- [Noel] Yes, thank you.
- [Clerk] Max time to stay.
Max time to stay until your boarding time, 5:50.
- Okay. - All the food is included,
plus the passport on the tables.
Please no smoking inside.
- [Noel] Okay, no problem.
- [Clerk] Welcome.
- [Noel] Alright, thank you.
- The Plaza Premium Lounge in Cancun isn't too bad really.
There's a few sofas but they weren't too comfy
and I did get a numb bum after a while.
They did have a TV playing Mexican game shows though
and a few bits of food and drink
but not really a massive selection.
- Alright, so this is the lounge here at,
at Cancun.
It's quite small but it's not very busy thankfully,
I can imagine it can get really busy
and really packed here,
but it's not actually that bad right now,
about three hours until the flight,
which apparently is delayed already.
So, we'll see what that's like nearer the time.
But let's get some something to eat for lunch
and see how long this delay turns into.
Alright then it's almost time
to board the flight to Frankfurt
and let me be honest with you, I'm normally a fan
of the A330neo.
I think it usually looks quite nice.
That was until Condor got their hands on it.
I mean just look at this monstrosity,
what the hell have they done to that plane?
It looks like it's wearing a prison uniform.
I wonder if that says anything about
what it's like on the plane.
I don't know. But anyway,
we'll be getting on board Con Air pretty soon
for our flight across Atlantic over to Frankfurt.
I'm, I'm embarrassed a little bit about having to ride on
that thing but hey we'll, we'll, get through it,
I'm confident of it.
Alright, so it's 5:55 in the afternoon.
We were supposed to be leaving like now
they're still off-loading the catering from the previous
flight so I think we've got a bit of a delay.
I reckon that in a minute we're gonna
be about an hour delayed,
according to the screens anyway,
but obviously that means that we go in an hour
and the crew are only just getting on.
Maybe we can be quicker than an hour. We'll see.
I've got a bit of a connection
to take into account over in
Frankfurt as well for another video.
So your fingers crossed we might be okay, but yeah,
no we've not a great first impression I have to say.
Finally though it was time to start boarding
or at least so I thought.
- Thank you.
- Alright, here we go. Time to get on board.
But as it turned out though it was not in fact time
to get on board because we stood on the jet bridge
for about 20 minutes waiting for them
to let us onto the plane.
Eventually though it was really time to get on board.
Hey, how are you? Thank you.
- Condos Business Class cabin on the A330neo is
actually pretty nice if you can overlook
the stripy atmosphere.
It's got these lie flat suites in a 1-2-1 configuration,
which is much nicer than
for instance Lufthansa's Business Class,
which is in a 2-3-2 config.
Meaning that you almost always have someone
to climb over if you're not on the aisle.
Alright then, Wellkommen on board.
The Condor A330neo, thankfully it's not quite
as green and garish inside, although it is kind of blue
and garish, it's like a deck chair painted at the back.
That's kind of like a prison uniform though, isn't it?
It really is, look at the walls at the back of there
and we've got this sort of similar thing
going on here, but you know what?
This Business Class seat ain't all that bad.
It's certainly better than Lufthansa's Business Class seat,
who were supposedly the full service airline of Germany
and this is their holiday airline.
I'll sort of semi link
to them in the past but not quite anymore.
This is a German holiday airline
and the Business Class here is
so much infinitely better than you get paid many
times more on Lufthansa.
That's a whole different debate anyway, this is quite nice.
I've got like a little individual suite here, TV up there.
We've got some stripy slippers down there,
and there's some bedding in there.
I've never got any stripy pajamas to wear as well.
We really will go for the full prison
experience then won't we?
I have to have a look in a bit. But then we've got,
controls for the seat just here.
Like it's a nuts just over there We've got
USB, USB-C which is nice, three pin plug headphone socket,
there's little amenity kit just there as well as a headset
and we've got sports equipment and accessories it says.
What is that all about?
We'll look at that in a little while as well.
I don't really think we're gonna be doing much sport on this
plane and I'm hoping to get bit sleep.
It's about a nine and a half hour overnight flight back
to Europe for this plane.
Fingers crossed, we get away fairly soon.
We are now sort of an hour after we should have left.
We're still nowhere near ready.
They're only just boarding people so who, who knows,
maybe we make up some time on the way at least.
Alright, let's have a little look at the amenity kit
and stuff that they've given us on this flight.
They've just come around with some OJ by the way.
We've got this thing here which is it says sports
equipment and accessories.
Interesting. Maybe it's like a travel thing
to put bits in your suitcase and apparently collect them.
Oh that's interesting. That's pretty cool.
And then we've got, we've got fly good travel set,
made of sustainable materials.
There we go. Let's have a look apart from the plastic tag
that's sealing it together I guess.
So we got a bit of an eye mask and not a brilliant one
but it's the only one I've got
'cause I've left mine at home like a moron, a pair of socks.
Uh, we've got a lip balm
and also a facial moisturizer,
toothbrush and toothpaste
and that's pretty much it.
And we've got these stripy slippers,
apparently there are no stripy pajamas.
That's a bit of a shame isn't it?
I was looking forward to rocking the stripy prisoner look,
but nevermind I should have to make do with me socks
and me travel organizer,
sports equipment thing.
Yeah, we've got a duvet
and stuff over here as well to use during the flight
of course and a pillow as well
to get some sleep hopefully.
Eventually and about 90 minutes late
we push back from the gate
and got on our way to the runway.
Our route tonight then took us across the Gulf of Mexico,
crossing the south of Florida overhead Miami
and out across the Atlantic.
We coasted in over Cornwall
and flew across the south of England over the channel
and across Belgium and Germany
before landing in Frankfurt with a flight time
of eight hours and 51 minutes cruising at 39,000 feet.
And one thing that is really cool
that I've just found on the in-flight entertainment system
though is this landing video section.
You go in there and it shows you flight deck landing videos
at destinations all across Condors network.
Isn't that amazing?
And it shows you the whole approach
and landing from the flight deck perspective,
landing into Cape Town for example.
And you can watch them for airports all over the world.
Isn't that amazing? That's pretty cool.
As we flew over Miami,
the crew started the first meal service
and it's fair to say there was a fairly impressive choice.
Now I do have to say, and I will tell you
how much this flight cost as always at the end of it,
but this flight was significantly cheaper
than my last transatlantic flight I did with Norse Airlines
in their premium economy cabin, which was pretty dreadful.
The food was dreadful, it was just a premium economy seat.
This is cheaper and I mean just, let's just face it,
this is the starter for the meal that we've got.
We've got like prawns and stuff like that.
We've got a three course meal tonight.
Right, so the main course is turned up.
It was a choice of the salmon, a pasta dish
or beef tonight and I've gone for the beef
and just look at that.
That was amazing, doesn't it?
It's very nice and I'm gonna tuck into that now.
That was cooked really nicely as well.
That was beautiful.
For dessert I went for this chocolate mousse,
which was actually pretty tasty as well.
- [Announcer] It's time for the Noel Philips Loo Review.
- Alright then time for the Condor,
A330 neo, Loo Review
and the striped theme continues with the wall
behind me on the other side of the loo,
We've got a nice mirror, a sink that's a little bit dirty,
but then again we are a few hours into the flight,
a few toiletries and things there.
A shaving socket, a rather mucky floor and a loo
and my lovely stripy slippers.
And so far I have to say Condor are quite impressing,
despite the stripes everywhere
that sort of make you go dizzy.
But other than that it, it's pretty good.
The crew are professional, I will say not,
not the most friendly, but then they are professional
and sort of good at what they do.
Does that make sense? Am I just rambling on needlessly?
But anyway, it's, it's pretty good
so far enjoying the flight I have to say.
I'm gonna try and go back to my seat and try
and get bit of sleep before we arrive
to Frankfurt has got a full-on day tomorrow.
- [Announcer] That was the Noel Phillips Loo Review.
- Now I seem to spend half my life traveling
around the world and like anyone who travels
around the world regularly will tell you, getting access
to your favorite streaming services on the go can
be pretty difficult.
Services like HBO Max
and Peacock are pretty much impossible to get hold of
outside the US which means
whenever I want to watch my favorite TV shows
like The Office, well it can be pretty hard, really.
- That's what she said.
Or he said.
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That I come back to my seat
and put my bed down to try and get some rest.
Of course, the stripey theme continues into the bedding.
It's just everywhere. You can't escape it.
It's like a barcode everywhere you look.
So the bed is, it's, it's long, but it's very thin.
That is what she said.
If you can see where my arm is here, I've literally got,
I'm wedged in,
like a sardine here.
I don't know if you can see it from this angle
of the camera, but I'm literally wedged in
because there's a massive bloody armrest right just here,
which is not ideal really,
but it's really gonna allow my side here
it might be all right. There's no way to lower
that armrest, it's fixed.
So yeah, that is probably a little bit of an oversight,
I guess it's a bed
and it's gonna allow me hopefully to get a little bit
of sleep before we arrive into Frank'n Furters
in the morning.
So I am going to put on me eye mask
and say goodnight.
Goodnight.
Morning,
an hour and a half until we land into Frankfurt.
Now I managed a few hours sleep, not masses,
not massively comfortable with the bed,
but I managed to get a bit of sleep,
which is better than nothing, which is quite nice.
They've just woke me up with breakfast. I need coffee.
As we flew over Southern England, breakfast was served
and I went for the omelet, which was okay,
but it wasn't quite as nice
as dinner had been the previous night.
Yeah, and we are just about to fly over the UK.
We are sort of coasting it, over Cornwall in a minute.
And one thing I just can't get my head around
after living in Texas for like over a year now,
well over a year,
it's just how dark it is at this time in the morning.
It's seven 30 in the morning in England,
it's still dark, crazy.
I know it's like winter there,
but it's winter in Texas as well.
But it gets lighter like half six in the morning.
The clouds below started to clear as we crossed the channel
and I was surprised to see Europe coated
in a blanket of snow.
A big contrast of the weather
a couple of weeks previously when I was last there.
We started our descent overhead, Dusseldorf
and the clouds soon built up again beneath us.
The final approach there was incredible.
We remained above the clouds until short, final
and emerged from them as we were already
right over the airport.
It was amazing.
My flight over to Frankfurt this evening from Cancun cost me
$1,400 or around 1200 pounds one way.
For Business Class, I thought this was a steal.
Considering my flight with North from Gatwick to Miami,
a shorter route and only in Premium Economy, cost me $1,700
just a couple of weeks before.
I was really impressed at what Condor do in Business
Class for such a low price.
I bought this flight direct on Condor's website just a week
before the flight.
But now it was time to see what a mess
Frankfurt Airport would be in this afternoon.
- Alright, welcome back to Frankfurt.
Not my favorite airport in the world, I have to say.
But for some reason the second time I've been here this year
and we're only sort of three weeks in anyway.
Let's see what a nightmare this place is today.
And welcome to Frankfurt in Germany.
Condor, they were worth pretty decent actually, that I have
to admit they were a bit better than I expected
they would be for a holiday airline, that they are.
Well, that was actually pretty decent.
And their Business Class, I have to say, the hard product,
at least their Business Class was probably better
than Lufthansa's.
Certainly the best Business Class
that I've flown off from Germany at least
the soft product obviously is holiday airline to a degree,
but it was still pretty flipping good,
really certainly a much better than I thought they would be
just, I wish they'd get that livery sorted out,
made them look look a little bit
nicer, maybe on the outside.
But I don't know. Let me know what you think to that.
It's a very controversial subject. It's Marmite, isn't it?
You either love it or hate it.
Let me know what you think to Condor's livery
and also let me know what you think
to Condors service down in those comments.
But in the meantime, I'm off to get my next flight.
So thanks very much for watching from a freezing,
freezing cold front.
Be kind to one another and I'll see you on the next one.
Bye for now.