Historically speaking, Lufthansa has always been an airline known for luxury service, building their brand around the idea of having extravagant lounges in both their Munich and Frankfurt airports, driving their first class passengers directly to and from the lounge on a Porsche or Mercedes, and even in the past having their flight attendants wear an outfit that looked a lot like that of a Disney princess. Even when flying in economy, they try to add something extra to your flight experience, be it as simple as being served German chocolate right before landing, something that brings a slight memorable touch to the likely not very memorable experience of their economy passengers.
The airline truly is not a low-cost airline of any sort, but cannot achieve the true luxury of Singapore Airlines, Emirates, or Qatar Airways, leaving Lufthansa stuck to compete with British Airways in the market of middle-class airlines, which, unlike income groups, doesn’t describe the majority. Instead, Lufthansa is stabbed on both sides by low-cost airlines for being too expensive and luxury airlines due to their inconsistency. Fortunately for Lufthansa, their executive board is well aware of their inability to maintain their luxury brand against the competition, though they have not done anything to fix the problem at hand.
The Brand New Allegris Cabin
To become the luxury brand that Lufthansa once was, the airline has worked on their Allegris cabin, which is an excellent cabin concept. The first-class cabin can compete with Emirates, being in some ways better than even the suites of Emirates, given the product is not aimed to be sold on the A380, where Emirates has a shower. The first-class suite looks more fancy than that of Emirates with the wood finish and gold trim in true Dubai fashion, but it does pack quite the punch. A thoroughly soundproofed suite that is made for a couple but could be booked by one person who would get 2 large seats for themselves and has a 40-inch television screen, something that I would say is better the emirates in every way possible.
The business class cabin is also great, with different seats fitting different passengers. All offer direct aisle access, a decently large screen, and the feeling of being in a spaceship. Premium Economy seats offer shellbacks to not disrupt your neighbors and relatively large screens. Lastly, they even offer pretty competitive seats in Economy, which is a surprise for sure.
The original reveal of this cabin design bumped Lufthansa to 5-Star status on Sktrax for a while, though very soon it changed back to 4 stars simply because of the inconsistency of Lufthansa. Lufthansa has all the great cabin concepts, but unlike Emirates and Singapore Airlines, it could be more consistent in what they deliver.
The Average Lufthansa Experience
An airline is not judged by the best seats it offers, but rather the average seat it offers, which is something Lufthansa fails to do. The airline continues to operate a pretty old fleet that has not been retrofitted the way Singapore Airlines and Emirates do with their older aircrafts, leaving passengers stuck with old and outdated cabins.
I personally flew Lufthansa this summer when visiting Italy, and during my trip, and I saw both the Munich and Frankfurt airports, flying the airline once again after a more then 10 year gap, during which I experienced the same exact problem. When flying in the summer of 2013 from Los Angeles to New Delhi via Frankfurt, my experience was far from pleasant, flying on their 747–400 on 3 of the four flight during my round trip. The 747–400 in 2013 was not retrofitted to have personal entertainment in economy, leaving passengers stuck with wall screens with programs selected by the crew or the radio as their only entertainment. On one of my flights that summer, I was a little bit more lucky to fly on one of their at brand new 747–8’s which had personal entertainment, though the 7 hours flight was a red eye from Delhi to Frankfurt.
When flying Lufthansa this summer, my experience was similar, boarding their A380 from Los Angeles to Munich and the other way around. The aircrafts did have Wifi, though at a very high price, something that most customers would not even think of paying for. Personal entertainment, though with a small screen that looked similar to that of a Delta airlines 767 from the early 2000s that would lag and struggle to function properly. The seat had god legroom, but lacked in seat power, other than a USB port and ethernet for some reason.
Both times I flew Lufthansa, the soft product was generally good, with excellent crew and decent food. Lufthansa does offer good service, I have never complained about bad crew members on my flight, they give snacks mid flight, and while they don’t offer the variety of beverages Qatar Airways and Emirates offer, or the high quality food of Cathay Pacific does, their foos service is far from terrible. Meanwhile, their hard product is generally outdated in almost every class. Their business class seats don’t have direct aisle access, unless it is one of the few aircrafts with the Allegris cabin. Furthermore, Lufthansa needs to improve consistent delivery for their hard products by retrofitting their cabins more often, to make the Allegris cabin something people can experience.
Lastly, when it comes to airports, the Munich airport is an excellent airport, though most of the airport is blocked with multiple passport check points, keeping you generally stuck within a small region near your boarding gate. Meanwhile, the Frankfurt airport has small gates and generally looks outdated and poorly maintained, though atleast they had a decent cafe with Wifi where I was able to get some work done, and even free coffee stations for passengers. Overall, the Frankfurt airport needs to fix their capacity problem as the airport is always over crowded and badly maintained. Meanwhile, the Munich airport stays good how it is, not being crowsed at all and looking more empty than even the Dubai airport.
Conclusion
All together I feel like Lufthansa is currently struggling to maintain a good hard product, and could put a lot of work into many areas in order to revive their luxury status. For a long time, they’ve been very inconsistent with the retro fitting their aircrafts, and therefore should look into ways to fix their operational problems, as investing money into retrofitting aircrafts will generally improve the perception of the airline. The new Allegris cabin is great, but Lufthansa should not simply keep it on their new aircrafts, but also rapidly retrofit their older aircrafts in order to have consistency within their fleet. On top of this, I feel like the Frankfurt airport would benefit with some kind of renovation of sorts, given the airport is old and needs to be upgraded for modern times. Lastly, it still confuses me how Lufthansa focuses on both Munich and Frankfurt as large-scale international hubs, rather than doubling down on one, given they generally do operate on the hub and spoke model that Qatar Airways and Emirates use.
The Sky Wire 