PrivatAir and Lufthansa have ironed out their differences and reached a new partnership agreement. Thus, Lufthansa’s plan to fly an Airbus A319 between Frankfurt and Pune, India will now merely be a stopgap.
Over the last week, I have poked fun at Lufthansa for charging ridiculous premiums to fly an A319 in business class on this route. You see, the A319 does not feature real business class seats, only economy class seats. Even worse, these are some of the most uncomfortable slimline seats on the market. At first, Lufthansa planned to only block the middle seat, service a nicer meal, and call it “business” class.
> Read More – Lufthansa: From Incredible To Outrageous
Earlier this week, Lufthansa changed the seat map on the flight. Instead of just blocking a middle seat, every business class passenger would have her own row. While a “poor man’s business class” was better than nothing at all, a business class fare was still more expensive than three economy class seats. Why not just buy three in economy?
> Read More – Lufthansa Puts Lipstick On A Pig
But now it appears that as of 01 February 2019, PrivatAir will once again take over the route using a Boeing 737-700BBJ. At least through the end of March…Beyond 31 March, no flight is currently loaded into the system.
On 31 January:
On 01 February:
The PrivatAir aircraft offers the following configuration:
Rather than making a refueling stop in Baku, Azerbaijan in both directions, PrivatAir will make a stop in Bucharest, Romania for fuel only on the return.
- LH768 Frankfurt (FRA) 11:50–00:40 Pune (PNQ)
- LH769 Pune (PNQ) 02:10–06:35 Bucharest (OTP)
- LH769 Bucharest (OTP) 07:05–08:45 Frankfurt (FRA)
In case you are wondering, LH769 is not bookable only from Bucharest to Frankfurt.
CONCLUSION
I’d say Lufthansa’s old business class seat is better than three seats in economy class any day of the week. But questions still remain. What happens after March? And is it possible that PrivatAir may resume the route prior to February? We will see.
(H/T: Live from a Lounge)
So the flight from FRA to PNQ is possible non-stop on a 737? Impressive.
Yes, the plane even operated FRA-NBO a while back.
I think that in the long run, Lufthansa would be wise to deploy a A321LR (they could surely convert some of their A321Neo orders) that is configured with fully flat business class seats. A small subfleet to serve such routes.