Each week, my Meal of the Week feature examines an airline meal from my travels over the years. This may be a meal from earlier in the week or it may be a meal served over a decade ago.
This Meal of the Week installment is going to be tongue in cheek. But Lufthansa should really start marketing its pre-arrival breakfasts as a trendy new diet.
I pummeled Lufthansa this week for its rapid degradation in economy class, especially in the catering category. You can read the full review here.
Today, I’m going to focus simply on the pre-arrival breakfast. My point is not to beat a dead horse but to make as many people as possible aware of why you need to bring your own food if you are traveling in Lufthansa economy class…or just embrace the “Lufthansa Diet”.
Los Angeles to Frankfurt is 10.5 hours. I was quite hungry before landing. But this was served:
You think it looks bad? You should have smelled it…
Lukewarm egg salad on a plane with a slice of unidentified cheese and a soggy cucumber?
No thanks…I’d rather not spend all day on the toilet.
Seriously, no one ate it. No one my row, no one across from me, no one in front of me. It was pure waste.
That left a Nature Valley Oats ‘n Honey granola bar (95 calories) and a thimble of fruit about the size of my thumb. Eat that every day as one of your meals and you will lose weight.
As a point of reference, this is what Lufthansa served as little as two months ago in economy class on the same route:
Now I know that doesn’t look all that great either, but it was immensely better than the current offering.
Lufthansa cut this (and cut water runs and headphones) so it could cut a flight attendant onboard. When will this race to the bottom end?
> Read More: Lufthansa Slashes Meal Service In Economy + Premium Economy (As Competition Improves)
CONCLUSION
Lufthansa deserves more shaming on this. Maybe the sandwiches are tastier out of Frankfurt and Munich. But dear Lufthansa, Americans cannot make good bread. Remember that before you put all of us on an involuntary diet! And to you traveler: bring your own food.
I wonder if the one who calls the shots on LH catering would be able to get this through his throat himself.
It is utterly disgusting. And an absolute shame for whoever dares to serve this rubbish.
‘Disgusting’ is strong but fully justified in this case.
I take my own snacks for just this eventuality. Some Y ‘meals’ are gross but this one takes the cake
Well, definitely shock and disappointment, I was flying in November with LH amd they served hot tasty breakfast, on the way back in December, cold shower in the morning, when they served similar food… I mean for the price of the ticket, I do expect better! Sad to see LH loosing it’s original way.
Have you tried United?
Croissants served directly out of a big plastic bag where they were warmed up. It looks like they are feeding animals
It’s not just the food, LH also saves on fuel. On a flight from Venice to Frankfurt the plane could not stay longer than 30 minutes in the air when the airport was temporarily closed. The captain had to fly to Nuremberg instead and to refuel for a distance of 180 km. I could give some more examples like significant cutdowns on the miles&more program. Hope LH will get the results of Mr. Spohrs policy soon!!
Where does the race to the bottom end? Have you not seen the stranding “seats” for airplane? Think about it. Lufhansa diet like this with Lufhansa exercise regime. I am surprised they have not gotten doctor’s endorsement! “9/10 doctors recommended travelling with Lufhansa for weight loss.”
Lol
After an 11 hour night flight in economy one doesn’t have the best breath. So serving a stinky egg sandwich to exacerbate the already stinky breath scenario is a no no. Which bright spark at Lufthansa gave that the thumbs up? Straight to a business meeting or kissing a loved one upon arrival with eggy breath? NICE. Not. Come on Lufthansa you can do better surely?
How about brushing your teeth?
“My point is not to beat a dead horse”
Too late…
Wonder what they are serving on the way to the US…
I had the same experience on FRA-LAX outbound and SFO-FRA return. Lufthansa on European destinations also serve similar “garbage”. Add to that extremely rude behaviour from attendants when you request one more glass of wine on a 10 hour flight. In flight entertainment is a joke. Lufthansa is just another budget airline now and out of the quality league.
I left Lufthansa along with its partner united long time ago and I am so happy I did. It’s been more than 5 years. They have mediocre business and economy class and I can’t fly first all the time. Mostly business but their business class seat is just uncompetitive. Then the service on board is so robotic and cabin crew is very unfriendly. Now they missed up my parents flight so badly yet their customer service was really bad. Took 6 months to respond but the response was just sorry, that’s all. So I decided to leave and not spend my money on a company that mistreated my parents. I used to pay 5ó00 usd for business class multiple times a year for work travel but never for this company. I am just so happy I left them and I still don’t understand why people still fly Lufthansa
We flew two flights on Lufthansa yesterday. Breakfast from Abuja, Nigeria to Frankfurt and the snack from Frankfurt to Philly was a disgusting pre-made, cold, very soggy, multigrain roll with sliced cheese and an unidentifiable sauce. I took one bite of it on the first flight, declined it on the second. Lunch and dinner were pastas and edible, but not great.
That sandwich is so disgusting. Why not just provide a packaged pastry or croissant? No European would eat that — maybe a British person, but not a European.
Might be worth noting that this could be an effect to the fact that Lufthansa are offloading their catering division LSG and as such many flights are having reduced catering due to, understandably, workforce objection to the sale and various points of action being taken.
This ‘may’ not necessarily be the norm!
This change and strikes has impacted most of the European flights originating from Munich And Frankfurt hubs. However, they seem to deliver the same or even worse level of quality on flights from US. There is no excuse for this.
It is not only about quality, it is also about respect to customers. Lufthansa is missing this long time now.
Wow that looks terrible. It makes me not want to fly Lufthansa across the Atlantic.
Indeed, these sandwiches are horrible. My first hand experience was on LH510/LH511 to Buenos Aires and back, and they were consistently bad. Torture by design made by Lufthansa.
Geez, relax. I had this sandwich from LAX-FRA, it was nice and cold and I enjoyed it. Everyone else near me had at least half of it. The only issue I had was that theres too much bread to chew through. I didnt eat the crust. Sure the menu could be better, but you’re being too harsh. My breath afterwards was fine and I had no stomach issues.
Same sandwich on LA to Munich flight 2 weeks ago
Economy to Steerage! When does the potato soup serving commence?
Correction: potato peel soup.
I actually beg to differ on this. You’re an hour or two away from an embarrassment of real food choices. Why would you even contemplate touchimg the tepid, dodgy mess that is Y catering? In fact they should just drop the sandwich too, and leave it at the fun-size bar. In fact, BA did exactly that – good on them for saving waste!
Obviously inspired by another stellar Star Alliance member, Air Canada. This is the sort of food you would find on Air Canada flights. As you say, the race towards the bottom spirals further in the airline industry.