Lufthansa is in the midst of a fight for survival, so this criticism will be more tempered than it would in boom years. Nevertheless, the whole Dr. Jeckyl – Mr. Hyde approach to being a “premium” airline is simply nothing but double-talk. Lufthansa can and should do better.
Lufthansa Thinks “Premium” Means Eliminating Free Drinks?
Earlier this week Lufthansa (in fact, the entire Lufthansa Group of airlines) announced that complimentary snacks, meals, and beverages on shorthaul and midhaul flights would no longer be offered next year. A new buy-on-board program will be offered in its place, which will offer additional choice, but further level the playing field with budget carriers.
I found it quite ironic that Simply Flying caught up with Bjoern Becker, Lufthansa’s Senior Director of Product Management for Ground and Digital Services a day or two this news broke and he promised Lufthansa would remain a premium airline:
“Lufthansa will stay in the Lufthansa Group. Airlines like Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, they will stay premium airlines. Definitely, we will stick to our strategy here because the strategy is not wrong because of a pandemic. That has nothing to do with each other.”
Nice, except that Lufthansa, SWISS, and Austrian all announced they would cut free food and drinks. Becker had to know about this news…yet he insisted that Lufthansa would remain premium with a straight face?
To be sure, Becker made clear that premium cabin service would remain premium:
“The hypothesis is, let’s say, this way, that the leisure travel demand will pick up earlier than the business travel demand, so we are also looking into this. But also, here, the general positioning of the Lufthansa brand will be a premium airline with the services we offer; so we still have lounges, we still have first class services, we still have priority lanes, limousine services, personal assistants. We will keep these premium aspects in our services, definitely.”
There’s no doubt, as I personally witnessed earlier this month, that Lufthansa is still a premium airline in first class…an amazing airline that I love.
But when you say you are a premium airline, people tend to assume you mean for all customers…especially those in the majority of real estate onboard. And shouldn’t customers who pay a premium to fly Lufthansa expect something as simple as a drink and sandwich onboard?
Becker told Simply Flying that one thing Lufthansa has learned during this pandemic is to listen to customers “more than ever before.”
Ok…I’d really like to know which customers told Lufthansa they hated getting free drinks onboard.
CONCLUSION
My point of this story is to highlight Lufthansa talking out of both sides of its mouth, annoyed in a sense that Becker would even give lip service to customer service and the word “premium” to describe the entire Lufthansa Group (versus simply premium cabins). Lufthansa will move ahead with its cutbacks in economy class aligning it closer to the easyJets and Ryanairs of the world in terms of onboard experience. Whatever strategy is behind that move, it certainly is not premium…
image: Lufthansa
While I agree with the underlying sentiment, the reality is BA’s BelowAverage service cut deeper, delivered less and charged more for the last 5years… Not even including bottled water for their customers, failing to load catering for BoB and delivering subpar meals where they are included. As one of LH’s main competitors, perhaps they started and won the race to the bottom but the reality is LH have to compete and these changes are part of that.
Maybe he’s been spending too much time with Willie Walsh.
Lufthansa is no premium airline. Family members and I have been trying to get refunds from a canceled July 2020 flight – canceled due to Covid – and have not received anything after several requests.
As we all know, real premium airlines like LH don’t offer lounge access to premium customers. ‘We still have lounges’, but good luck to those flying from an outstation without a Star Alliance lounge, or even WITH a Star lounge (e.g. LCA -https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/lufthansa-austrian-swiss-brussels-lot-other-partners-miles-more/2020063-contract-lounge-access-suspended-4.html ). Once schedules start getting beefed up, I can see myself starting to use A3 and TK intra-Europe even where it involves backtracking).
Disappointing stuff, you would have thought that they would use this opportunity to distinguish themselves from the likes of BA. These cuts won’t make any real difference to their cost base, but are certainly going to annoy a few people, some of whom will inevitably be frequent/high yield flyers.
…and here’s a whole new charity enterprise ready to boom (i got this idea from my university years…at the uni all these food outlets will charge an arm and a leg for simple food like a bagel and creamcheese which you yourself have to spread….i almost got expelled when i dared to offer a student kitchen for a 50 cents a cup 3 variety of soups) ditto this soup/sandwitch etc biz can florish under some Religious banner charge the pax right at the gate …wait dont charge them….do this way back online on mobile app like uber eats a buck and the pax gets it fresh right at the gate but it has to be NON-PROFIT otherwise good luck fighting the expensive retail outlets at the airport and obtaining permits and licensing from the Airport authority itself…
re:Legacy PREMIUM airlines
the thing with all these Airline Executives is….all they fly is…PREMIUM they’ve never stepped foot in Economy they have no clue, and frankly why would they care they fly premium they socialize with premium pax . Recently i posted on LinkedIN the true: accusing LH that their CURRENT First but especially Biz class is SHABBY one of LHs Million Milers accused me-how would I know, because i very rarely fly Biz or First.
My point was exactly what Matt discusses here the Premium the Industry Forefront the Exceptional part…which am sorry but LH biz class is shabby its Ok its mediocre …it’s not an exptional like the EKs or QRs….or innovative like DLs Delta One or UAs Polaris, but i refused to engage in lenghty pointless discussion …
Their short-haul business class meals are also pretty disappointing, and so is their refusal to grant any miles to members of other *A FFPs on cheap business class tickets. I think that a lot of their German flyers are tied to corporate contracts and/or just don’t know any better. LX and OS seem to make more of an effort with that sort of thing, as they know they have to rely on connecting traffic.
I mean, what is a “premium” airline? Most economy classes are meh anyways, and Euro business class hard product is just like flying Delta, an economy seat with a blocked middle seat.
The closest to “premium” coach I’ve been in is a Korean Airlines A380, with good bibimbap and a 34″ pitch/decent recline.
The convertible seats (usually the ones in front of the exit row) typically do have around 34″ of pitch- though BA are too cheap for that. That makes a difference even in the shorter flights. A3, TK, and SU used to have good catering/soft product in Y- obviously nobody knows what’s going to happen after the pandemic is over.
Will try to avoid Lufthansa in the future. They took away a portion of my trip while I was in Europe this summer, saying that the airport were I was supposed to fly from is closed . It was a lie. The airport was not closed. They flew me out from another city, I had to buy another ticket to get there, leave one day earlier, stay in a hotel overnight, all paid by me . They refused to refund anything. Disgusting!!!!