Lufthansa finally reveals a good Business Class seat ….. coming from 2020

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Ah, Lufthansa. If you ever need an example of how lack of competition makes an airline lazy, look at Lufthansa. With the German government regulating – and in many cases blocking – access to Lufthansa’s airports for the Middle Eastern carriers amongst others, it has been free to carry on regardless.

Lufthansa held on to a business class seat which was ‘angled, lie flat’ (ie sloping to the ground, AKA the wedgie seat) for longer than most. Grief, they even ordered an expensive pile of A380 aircraft and installed previous generation angled seats on them.

Lufthansa 747-8 new livery narrow

When even Lufthansa realised this game was up, it found a new novelty. It introduced a fully flat business class seat where the 2 x 2 x 2 seating is angled in a V shape. This means that your feet are weirdly close to the feet of the person next to you. Unless you are sitting in the middle pair, you don’t have direct aisle access and / or the certainty that your seat mate won’t climb over you.

Anyway …. those days are over. Sort of.

Lufthansa has released pictures of the new Business Class seat that will appear on its Boeing 777-9 fleet. And it looks very impressive indeed.

20 Boeing 777-9 aircraft will arrive between 2020 and 2025. Lufthansa is the launch customer for this model.

Look at what you will get:

and

We are talking:

direct aisle access for all passengers
1-2-1 or 1-1-1 seat layout
“large” monitors

It still isn’t clear what British Airways is planning for their A350 Club World seat, beyond the promise of ‘direct aisle access’, which may or may not be rolled out on the Boeing 777 fleet. If they fall behind Lufthansa then things really are bad.

Virgin Atlantic is also planning something new for the A350 although I doubt that will be much of a departure from the herringbone layout used elsewhere.

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Category

Lufthansa and Miles & More

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Mohammed says:

25 Nov25 November 06:43

OT

I cancelled my Amex gold card more than 6 months ago. However, a credit refund was made after closure and so I’ve got £60 credit on the account for which I’ve been receiving statements. Does this mean I can’t churn even thought it’s been more than 6 months or will the fact that I’m still receiving statements be irrelevant?
- Genghis says:
  
  25 Nov25 November 07:38
  
  No effect IME
  - JamesB says:
    
    25 Nov25 November 08:04
    
    +1, Mohammed, you can get them to transfer that credit to another card or have them send you a cheque.
JamesB says:

25 Nov25 November 08:12

Great looking cabin. The solo middle seat is interesting, I wonder how it will feel. To best of my recollection I only saw a solo middle seat on TG 744 first cabin but did not get to try it.
Rob says:

25 Nov25 November 08:38

Sorry OT

If looking to book Hotels this coming February will the prices be significantly more expensive after the new year? I’m hoping to catch the new hotel promos than booking now.

Thanks
- Rob says:
  
  25 Nov25 November 09:55
  
  I would wait until the new Jan promos are live, if you are brand neutral.
Darren says:

25 Nov25 November 09:35

The middle seat config looks similar to the JetBlue mint first with a double then a single, saw this recently (online rather than in the air) and thought how disproportionate the experience would be in the same cabin.
Cat says:

25 Nov25 November 10:27

OT, sorry!
Looking at the Antalya Crowne Plaza for Feb half term, as a Gold Ambassador . My reservation page still shows that “Your rate” under “Your world sale” includes an extra person supplement of 20 euros per night. How do I make the double occupancy rate disappear?
- johnny_c-l says:
  
  25 Nov25 November 19:59
  
  Sorry no idea how to fix this, but just wanted to say this is a decent hotel with great staff, hope you enjoy it!
  - Cat says:
    
    26 Nov26 November 11:43
    
    I think that the problem is that the Gold Ambassador privileges only apply at Intercontinental hotels, not the Crowne Plaza.
    C’est la vie. It looks like a spectacular place to spend half term, with 2 spas, and lots of hiking trips into the hills and around the coast! It’s dirt cheap too. I can’t wait!
Andrew says:

25 Nov25 November 10:37

OT Has anyone had success with getting Amex to process a referral retrospectively if the link hasn’t worked? (They may or may not have actually used the link…)
- Nick says:
  
  25 Nov25 November 12:25
  
  You can’t, unless you can prove they used the link. This part of their IT actually does normally work so they would be suspicious.
- Titus Adduxas says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 09:20
  
  I didn’t appear to have the link when I got a Gold card recently so my wife applied on her own. Before her card had arrived though I did get the ‘refer a friend’ link. We telephoned Amex to cancel her application and reapply using my link and they just kept her application going through and credited my referral points instantly. I was most impressed.
Simon J says:

25 Nov25 November 11:19

OT Lloyds Avios CC. Received a cheque today for £75 and apologising that they cannot fix the avios not posting within the 26 week time frame. Have already received £150.00. Thing is they started posting 2 months after i complained and they manually posted the avios i was due so received double the amount. Their IT is truly shocking not that im complaining.
- Richard G says:
  
  25 Nov25 November 11:26
  
  I’d be happy to go in as a consultant if you’re reading this Lloyds. I’ll write a synchronisation layer for 10% of what you’re currently paying out as compensation.
  
  (Can’t hurt to try!)
  - the_real_a says:
    
    25 Nov25 November 20:03
    
    You might regret that when you see the mainframe and the “team”…
- Anna says:
  
  25 Nov25 November 21:05
  
  +1 but not had any extra avios
  - Anon says:
    
    26 Nov26 November 18:51
    
    +1 not sure whether to cash the cheque
Pangolin says:

25 Nov25 November 11:28

Lufthansa always gets given carte blanche by the German government (and hence the EU) to swallow up any local/regional competition. As well as Eurowings (set up to stop FR from getting enough airport slots to compete in the domestic market) they now control Austrian, Swiss and Brussels Airlines. They’ve even made attempts to devour LOT Polish Airlines but with the current nationalist government in Poland such plans will have to be put in the deep freeze for a while.

So when Air Berlin folded it was no surprise that LH would be allowed to take over the bulk of its operations with no questions asked. The German authorities once again found no competition issues (presumably they never regularly attempt to fly non-LH controlled airlines from Germany and CEE).

It’s also no coincidence that LH’s Miles and More program is by far the worst in Star Alliance for both mileage accrual, surcharges, expiry policies, ability to earn miles by secondary means and recognition of *A benefits. One of the stated benefits of *A Gold is getting +1 checked baggage, which means you can book a cheap HBO fare and still check 23kg of luggage in. Unless of course you fly on LH or one of its minions (LX, OS, SN), where they specifically deny this benefit to Gold status pax from Alliance partners unless you stump up extra for one of the fares that allows bags anyway!