A passenger shares a disturbing story about trying to standby for an earlier flight on Lufthansa. Ticket counter agents purportedly mocked his request, belittled him, and called the police at Frankfurt Airport. Was the passenger justified in being upset?
Lufthansa Ticket Counter Frankfurt – Standby Request Turns Ugly
Hawaiian resident Juergen Steinmetz was traveling from Honolulu to Berlin via San Francisco and Frankfurt. He’s a lifetime 1K 3 million miler with United Airlines and arrived into Frankfurt with a five hour connection to Berlin.
He approached a Lufthansa ticket counter in the Z gate area (where US-bound flights depart from) and approached an agent. Steinmetz claims he presented his owned boarding pass to Berlin and told the agent (in German):
“I am an old tired man arriving after two nights on a plane. Can you please help me to get on an earlier connecting flight to Berlin?”
The conversation deteriorated from there, according to Steinmetz, with the agent saying:
“As you can see this is a Lufthansa transit counter, and not a United Airlines ticket office. We only assist our own passengers. Since you are showing me a United Airlines boarding pass, you have to contact your airline for any changes. We cannot help you, we don’t even make money on your ticket.”
Steinmetz explained that he was asking about a Lufthansa-operated segment, not a United one. But the agent still refused to even take a look:
“I don’t have to, because I see your United Airlines boarding pass. If you were a member of Miles and More and if you had a Lufthansa ticket we get revenue for, may be there was something I could do, but in this case I can’t.”
Flummoxed, Steinmetz asked her the agent’s name. She allegedly turned her name tag over and refused to provide it. Steinmetz then asked for a supervisor, whom she declined to summon.
He tried to speak to the agent next to her, but she “whispered something into his hear. They both laughed at each other.” The other agent said:
“As my colleague already told you, no one at this counter will help you or talk to you any further. Have a good day.”
He asked for his name and was met with silence.
At this point, Steinmetz took out his phone and took a picture of the agents. They immediately called the police, who showed up within minutes and forced Steinmetz to delete images from his phone. He was lectured for not understanding European privacy laws.
A more helpful agent (the real supervisor) showed up and offered to help, but Steinmetz purportedly refused and retreated to the lounge to wait for his originally-scheduled flight.
My Thoughts On The Incident
This incident piqued my interest because I can picture it happening. I’m not saying the story above happened precisely as described, but I lived in Frankfurt and had many experiences with the very ticket counter in question and with the Lufthansa customer service agents who worked there.
The story is very plausible to me. Why? I’ve experienced similar conversations.
There are some horrible Lufthansa agents who work in Frankfurt. I’ve also had standby requested condescendingly denied.
But there are also may wonderful agents in Frankfurt. I’ve had many standby requested accommodated as well. Some love their jobs and go out of their way to help.
Many know that United and Lufthansa are joint venture partners, not just Star Alliance partners, so that revenue is indeed shared between the two on transatlantic tickets. Keeping customers happy with reasonable requests actually helps the bottom line, not hurts it.
I do think Lufthansa has more “bad apples” than other airlines. We saw that with the Jews who were denied boarding in Frankfurt based upon their appearance. While no means the majority, there is a disturbing minority of agents who are just mean and rigid in such a (typically German but) unhelpful way.
I don’t think Steinmetz was entitled to standby on an earlier flight (and he probably did not book a tighter connection because it bumped his ticket to a higher fare class). Nevertheless, the customer service is simply indefensible. Even if United and Lufthansa had no relationship, that is simply not the way to speak to a customer.
CONCLUSION
A pair of Lufthansa agent purportedly mocked a passenger at a ticket counter in Frankfurt who simply asked about standing by for an earlier flight, refusing to help. When he asked for their names, they refused to give it to him and when he pulled out his camera, they called the police. Ultimately, he was left with a horrible impression of Lufthansa.
Is anyone willing to defend the Lufthansa agents here?
The passenger was lucky he was in a conversation instead of being told “that is forbidden”.
Once, a LH agent insisted that “this line is for First Class only”. Later, she apologized after seeing I had a paid First Class ticket, not an award or upgrade.
German/Austrian customer service as a whole can be a bizarre mixed-bag of experiences. On one hand, if your request is one that fits into the handbook of the norm in their routine/training everything is handled with precision, courtesy and professionalism. However, if one simple minor thing is out of step with that routine/training (but still quite practical) everything becomes difficult and you are often met with not only refusal but sometimes a rude and callous mocking as to “rules” and “Not possible.” Much of this stems from a culture of “Verboten”, but mix in the difficulty with releasing employees from jobs there and it combines for some strange, of often rude, reactions.
Not to say the rest of the world is exempt from issues. In America it’s pure laziness that often that gets in the way. We all have our cultural issues. Even Japan at times can be frustrating (though they are never rude about their rigidity, mostly just perplexed as to what to do.)
Aren’t they in a JV with United….
Yes, they are.
Dear Mr. MATTHEW KLINT,
I just read your story on Lufthansa regarding the horrible attitude of the customers service who mocked and called the police for a united Airline passenger. I have my story to share with you as well about similar behaviour of the airline’s assistants and hopefully you could publish it.
Let me first introduce myself, my name is George and I’m a Ghanaian Netherlands (Amsterdam) based Entrepreneur.
on January 4, 2021 I had a similar experience with Lufthansa operator and sub venture airline Air Dolomiti in Italy, Milan. I was boarding a Lufthansa Cityline as a return flight from Italy to Munich, Germany.
I was told my details could not be found in their system. I was denied boarding for this reason though clearly I had valid ticket. I was threatened with police for not for refusing to leave the check-in counter when I insisted that my ticket was good and could be a possible glitch. I was told to go get a new ticket rather if I want to board the plane. I went to the ticket service company (Not Lufthansa) and was lucky the ticket service company’s worker (inside the airport) only charged me for a consultation fee when they succeeded verifying that my ticket was valid and that indeed I’m on that flight. I was given a print copy of the same itinerary that I presented for check-in and was denied by Lufthansa initially. I went back with to board and was told my luggage is not included and I can’t board without my luggage. Eventually the police was called and I ended being interrogated in front of about 100+ crowd.
I reported this to Lufthansa customer relations office later on received response that was not tailored to the complaints I raised. Unsatisfied I took the matter to ADR with the help / assistance of the European commission (European Consumer Center). Arbitration took 9 months long. Lufthansa produced a falsified information to defend themselves. First they said I was a business class customer which is a big lie, this was a deliberate move by Lufthansa to deny me access to the ADR proceedings which is a free mediation service for as natural person. Meaning as business traveller I would not qualify to participate in the proceedings. Then when that move was not successful they produced further documentations making it look like I had the wrong Itinerary in hand at the time of boarding/check-in. The lowest excuse I have ever heard from an airline as huge as Lufthansa; denying that Lufthansa assistant’s resolved the issue on site (that day) and that I didn’t pay any consultation fee to a third party airline. Horrible liars!
I have taken the case to court to proof to Lufthansa that they have been lying to their customers fabricating stupid excuses. I was recently introduced to another passenger who is going through similar legal fight with Lufthansa. His name is Mr. Ieuan Davies, his story was published by BBC news few days ago (you may look it up by his name next to Lufthansa) Like in the case of Mr. Davies, if he does not succeed producing evidence that he took the outbound flight and completed that trip, in fact Lufthansa would continue to deny that he didn’t show up at all for his journey at all. That’s how messy Lufthansa airline has become. I have been on LH’s frequent Flyer programme for 10 years and I was treated like they have no records of who I am as a loyal customer.
The length of this comment is an affront to the baby Jesus.
Is quite common at Lufthansa Ticket counter in Frankfurt, last year in transit for a flight to Ord with LH metal and then to Hnd with NH in first class, got unfortunately covid test positive and requested for new reservation 5 days later , guy in very rude manner told me no space available for next 2 weeks, so at that time told him to cancel my flights so in order give seats to someone else and again abruptly answered that doesn’t care at all if my seat gone lost or not, what shame staff to represent them. In end called Lifemiles that in a 30 seconds provided cancel my flights and process refund. So really sure story genuinely true.
Any credible journalist would know that Hawaiian is not used as a term for those living in Hawaii. It is a term that defines the natives of the Hawaiian Islands.
Mahalo Nui Loa for your opinion on this. Good thing I’m not a journalist. How about your opinion concerning the Lufthansa incident?
To be fair, Leilani is right, and the AP agrees with her. The correct term is “Hawaii Resident.” shorturl.at/fnFS9
Leilani makes as assumption based upon the man’s German name.
Touche! Though he does mention in the article that he was born in Germany, so it’s probably not a wild assumption to make. While the gentleman in question is certainly a Hawaii Resident, I suppose we can’t say with certainty that he isn’t Hawaiian as well.
Come on now, she is right. He’s a German dude, not Hawaiian. End of story. In Europe, it’s the exact same way. Someone who migrated to France or Germany or Switzerland will never be a German, a French or a Swiss, even if he has acquired that passport. It’s an identity that was created over thousands of years. If you move to France permanently that does make you French?
Transiting FRA from VIE on my way to IAD, I changed my ticket to a later flight from FRA to IAD. several days before my flight When I arrived in FRA I saw that my bag had been tagged to IAD on the earlier flight to IAD that had already departed. I asked if they could put my bag on the later flight that I was actually traveling on. “No” I was told. I insisted they make an effort since I was on $7,000 business ticket, had a two hour connection and my arriving flight and departing flights were at adjoining gates. the agent responded by calling the police at which point I was taken to an interrogation room and asked repeated why I did NOT want to travel with my luggage? after an hour they let me board the flight but they sent my luggage to a “security facility”. I received it a week later with the chocolate I had purchased in Vienna melted all over the inside of the my suitcase. I avoided LH/UA for a number of years but living at IAD it is virtually impossible not to fly UA occasionally.
This article showed up on my feed a few days ago. I struggled to sympathize with the guy, especially after I read on and heard him complain about his Malta story…
The agent may not have been polite, but I’m going to guess his telling of the story was fairly one-sided. He seemed a little DYKWIA to me. I also don’t understand why he refused to work with the supervisor once they offered, yet complained of watching all the flights to BER depart from the lounge. For being a 3MM lifetime 1K, he doesn’t really seem all that knowledgeable about travel. Surely he could have asked for help at the Senator Lounge, or gone to the gate.
Agree in theory – I do believe the LH agent was rude, but he may have embellished story and should have accepted the help of the more gracious supervisor.
German women acting like…German women. Sadly stereotypes exist for a reason. How unfortunate for Lufthansa. Training can only solve so much. (And as a woman I am happy to call out cattiness when I see it amongst my own gender, and it is always inexcusable.)
Rude LH agents are not just at FRA. I had one in AMS tell me that I couldn’t go on an earlier flight to FRA (with my full-fare business class ticket) when my inbound UA was really early.
She told me the same thing “call United. We don’t touch their tickets.” Her attitude was “get out of my face.” So, I waited 3 hours for my original (delayed LH flight.)
The irony of the whole situation is that my checked bag took the earlier LH flight. It arrived before me.
Pathetic customer service.
Sorry, but this is not possible, as there is no LH staff anymore at AMS Airport
That’s not true. LH has does not only use contractors in AMS.
I had similar incidents with Lufthansa agents, very cold and commanding, and really mean sounding. So I stopped flying them since 2014. And I am quite happy that I don’t fly them anymore because I rarely get that kinda attitude from other airlines. At least they say no in a polite way, not a condescending way. I feel sad for this old man. As just a normal human being, couldn’t she just have a look or at least pretend to check on her computer and say it is not possible, sorry.its like max 2,3 min of her time…they don’t have to explain so many irrelevant things to make him feel bad, which is very common in Germany…
My limited experiences with Frankfurt airport is that the locals (tended!) to be curt, cold, and uncaring but nonetheless efficient. I observed that one woman who had a cold face warmed up when one of her colleagues stopped by. As Americans and in other cultures where “customer service” is expected, we may find it surprising that people are merely “doing their jobs” without concern for pleasing the customer or of a cold, public culture in general. IMO, the USA has become colder since I came of age 40 years ago.
I read that when McDonald’s opened in Moscow back 30 years ago, there was a culture clash to teach the Russian workers to smile when taking orders and dealing with customers. My Ukrainian born wife chuckled that Russian culture has an expression that only idiots smile because they don’t know what’s going on. (In my own case, I suppose there’s some truth to that!)
That being said, reading the account, I can appreciate the older gentleman may have been exhausted by the incident and then didn’t take the helpful offer from the (real) manager when it was finally offered. I personally had a puschfrau (as my Swiss friend calls them) deny me help in getting better seats on a flight with my family and merely quietly went a gate over and engaged a helpful looking young German gentleman who was helpful. I also would have taken her advice and considered going to the United counter and getting it done there. Yes, he was a 1K flyer with United, but that’s not Lufthansa.
After they flipped their nametags over, I’d, again, have quietly walked away and waited an hour and asked someone else to go up and ask some stupid question and then surreptitiously note their names for a formal complaint later. The fact that they flipped them over is an admission of guilt.
As it turns out, the puschfrau was correct: you cannot take direct photos of people in the EU without their consent.
Lufthansa has been doing a huge hiring push on LinkedIn for CSAs in FRA. Seems a bit desperate and would not be surprised if their standards have lowered. My general feeling is that Lufthansa quality has suffered a LOT since Covid.
It kind of speaks for every airline – Dumbing it down to anyone who breaths and all the “woke” stuff they feel they must comply with. It was bad ten years ago (when I retired from my airline job). I can only imagine how bad it is now. ……. No standards, no propriety, come as you are…. “You’re hired”.
This sucks. However, I’ve noticed in Europe it’s rare to get complimentary standby unless you have a fully flex ticket.
I had an issue with them years ago. The problem was that they broke the handle of the suitcase which had the baggage ticket on it. The lady kept saying we aren’t responsible for the breakage while ignoring the issue that we needed a new baggage ticket in order to get it to the final destination.
A real mess. We did get some compensation after I wrote a letter about the issue but the whole thing was frustrating because she didn’t want to listen to the big issue.
This is why Josh Cahill who is German himself does not like LH. He’s mentioned several times in YT channel about the poor service LH offers.
There’s absolutely no way he would have gotten on the earlier flight, but equally there’s no reason for the agents to be rude. Lufthansa service is consistently underwhelming and I avoid their intercontinental flights, but they don’t really have any competition for travel within Europe so I end up flying them more often than I should.
Those things occured because in US there is a usual practice to change same day flights and standbys . This is not in other parts of the world and Americans think that they have a right to demand it all over the world. Getting denials makes them dissatisfied and there is no other way than claim about lack of behaviour.
Oh please, Dimitri. He asked and was met with derision. It’s one thing to politely say no. It’s quite another to be so rude and dismissive.
Lufthansa is really an airline to avoid. The in flight service is mediocre at best, Frankfurt is a total disaster of an airport to connect through, and then when anything goes wrong you have to deal with this kind of “service”.
When the Germans try, they can beat anyone in the world in sneering officious condescension. When I was around 20 I had my airplane ticket home to the U.S. fall out of my bag on a train. I discovered the loss in Munich and headed for the train station to see about Lost & Found. I walked up to the counter and asked the attendant in German if he spoke English. After all, this is a major international train station so the staff must be required to be multilingual, right? The Lost & Found man responded with “Sprechen ze Deutsch?” along with a literal sneer. Now it seems painfully obvious that if I had spoken German I wouldn’t have bothered asking him if he spoke English so I tried French and got “Sprechen ze Deutsch?”. Spanish got me “Sprechen ze Deutsch?” as well. That illustrated to me how some Germans could be and that lesson has stuck with me over time.
As an Italian immigrant, I can forcibly state that this has nothing to do with Lufthansa, and everything to do with the fact that in Europe, the concept of “serving the customer” is still non existent.
I have flown Lufthansa many many times and have had several good and bad experiences. But one that took the cake involved what turned out to be an IT issue where Lufthansa IT did not count the number of coupons for my daughter correctly so on the return journey the check-in agent refused to allow us on the flight as they were looking for her twin who shared the same name (I kid you not!). We were in business class if that makes a difference.
I asked for the station manager but was told that wouldn’t make a difference. We were ignored for a further 20 minutes before I requested again at which point the station manager was finally called. He looked at the issue, called IT and they resolved the issue in 15 minutes.
The original agent refused to even acknowledge us. No apology or even a smile (though the station manager was quite nice). We arrived 3 hours prior to our flight and barely made it on time after a 1.5 hour delay at the check-in desk.
I am a frequent traveler and know a few tricks learned over the years but shudder to think what would have happened had my wife and daughter been traveling alone.
I was expecting something truly outrageous vs normal transit counter whoppers
Reading his first hand account, it literally went from agent saying ‘no can’t help’ to his first request to him saying ‘show me your name.’ No back and forth in between, no asking further questions.
He escalated it to a personal matter over policy from 0 to 60 in about 1 second.
I’ve had lh gate agents angrily tell my wife and I to move out of the way for boarding in first class without enquiring whether we had a first class ticket (we did).
They must assume us Americans/Aussies are all flying on LifeMiles and therefore not really customers (we were using LifeMiles 🙂
Incidentally doesn’t seem like a “horror” story at all. Dude was denied service that probably wasn’t owed to him and he made some bad decisions in escalating it.
Exactly. Talk about clickbait. Zero horror
The police carry machine guns at Frankfurt Airport. I’d call it a horror story if two ran up to me!
Well now that you mention that, ok. I didn’t see that in the piece
I fly a ton for work and specifically avoid Lufthansa and FRA. I’ve found their ability to resolve even routine situations appalling. I do think United has stepped up their game the past few years and does a great job now. It’s so unfortunate that United is partnered with a third world country airline (referring to the airline, not Germany). PS, I hold both German and US passports and can say the Germans do have some real and negative stereotypes, but Lufthansa helps enable these.
Well, that brings an important point missed here. United!! Is that what United expects of a partnership? Maybe that is the problem since LH does not respect United. KLM treats me like a king when my tickets are Delta issued. No questions asked. Maybe that proves what we already know that United if very far away from being a good airline.
Has anyone considered this could be retribution by the Lufthansa agents for the consequences of the 2022 incident:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/11/us/lufthansa-jewish-passengers-denied-boarding/index.html
The last time I flew on Lufthansa (in Business class) I came home with food poisoning. That was 25 years ago and note that it was the “last time” flew them!
In general avoid LH. In specific avoid LH. Pay a premium price and discover that you get treated better by Spirit. The “old man” may have many miles under his belt but little vommon sense. The LH staff were rude but he was the one who escalated the situation. And ftom my understanding of the ticket rules he was in effect asking for the forbidden.
This isn’t a Frankfurt Airport thing at all, even though I acknowledge that the typical German customer service is unflinchingly rules-based.
I’ve been able to get put on earlier departures from FRA-LHR by the BA gate agents without much of a fuss (I’m no super elite either that travels in paid business class). SQ also has terrific staff at FRA – to give you an example, even as only an SQ Gold in PE, I was recently paged to the gate (by the seemingly native German supervisor?) and offered an Exit Row seat so I could travel more comfortably from FRA-SIN because the exit row was otherwise empty. If people are encountering these issues more frequently with LH staff, it’s really them and not everyone at FRA.
A few years ago my friend and I were flying non-rev standby from FRA to Zagreb. We held non-rev tickets on both Lufthansa and Air Croatia. Our inbound from the U.S. was a little late but we had a lot of time for the LH connection and not quite enough to run to the Air Croatia gate but run we did, not realizing how huge FRA airport was, all the twists and turns and another security check point. We missed the Air Croatia by just minutes but their agents were gracious and even tried to see if there was a way to still check us in but they had just closed the door. So we went back to the LH gate. I took one look at the LH agent, unsmiling and stiff and asked my friend who could carry off the “dumb” routine to ask “how does the flight look”. The LH agent was stiff and blunt …”impossible” , (absolutely no word of encouragement or information) was all she said but we smiled and said “well, we will just wait anyway”. (We dared not ask twice).
She called us at the very last minute, last chance to board the bus (the aircraft was at a remote stand). Apparently there were no-shows so that is why we got on. She was so abrupt at this point, barking at us to “hurry” !! etc. Well, in my haste, I handed her the Croatia Air Ticket !!!, We quickly exited for the bus and blithely rode away from the gate. One can only hope that she was brought up front and center and the end of the day for taking the wrong (off-line) ticket !!!
There is simply no need for any agent to be so blunt to any passenger. It is sheer laziness and lack of knowledge how to exchange a ticket, especially if it is a partner/ Star Alliance carrier. It does vary by airline though, I get it. I recently tried with my award mileage ticket (issued by United) to take an earlier flight from Zurich to Lisbon on Swiss. We were directed back to the customer service counter (long walk from the gates), and I didn’t expect them at all to honor my request for any earlier flight; I was not disappointed but at least the agent was polite and nicely explained any tickets issued by United would have to be re-issued even if for an earlier flight. I do know it’s not an exact “even exchange” because the computers are computing based on current day prices, taxes, etc. and probably no agent in the world today is trained or able to do such an exchange. Basically they are not taught, not encouraged to spend time doing it, flummoxed all the way. Sad that people are treated like disobedient school children just for asking a question.
I don’t know if Matt is following comments, but I’ll take this as an opportunity to share a story of Poles trolling the Germans.
They bought a used VW in Bavaria and were planning to drive it to Poland (cars migrate east from Germany) and the owner didn’t have any temporary plates so they gave them some old plates they had and they were on their way. They were stopped by a drunk drinking checkpoint by German police who ran their plate through the computer and saw it was for a different car. They tried to play dumb.
“Do you speak German?”
“Keine sprechen sie Deutsche!”
“Do you know this plate is for a mercedes not your car?”
“Kiene sprechen sie Deutsche! Keine sprechen sie Angli!”
So the police hauled them to the station and they were going to call in a Polish translator from Munich to sort it all out, at their (my friend’s) expense and suddenly, the friend who actually is a trained instructor said in perfect German: “Ok, I understand you.”
THAT PISSED THEM OFF!!!!
After they got over it, the cops were laughing pretty hard and it turned out their fine for driving the vehicle unregistered was a mere 80 Euros. That was less than the hotel they were driving to.
A Polish policeman, back then, would have taken 60 Euros in cash and sent them on their way…
I’ve got zero experience in LH but a fair bit on AF/KLM (woo SkyTeam), and as an anecdote I’ve never experienced anything near the horror stories that the post, and the commenters, are saying as far as customer service goes. In fact, AF has been consistently pleasant to deal with, which turns the French stereotype upside down, and that’s saying something since I haven’t done J on AF but have on KLM/DL). Maybe I need to experience bigger problems with them to really test that out, but I’d rather not.
Scratch that, I’ve done AF Euro J but not widebody J
file updated
I was transferring in Frankfurt to a Lufthansa international flight. As I was waiting to board I was told my soft carry-on was too large. I protested and demonstrated that it fit in the size “jig” located next to her. She refused to even turn and look, insisted it was too large and made me check it. Very disappointing!
Perhaps it was five years ago I took my 92 year old father back to Greece (from Massachusetts), where he wanted to live his remaining years. The overnight flight on Lufthansa from Boston disoriented him, and he was quite tired, so I waited for almost everyone to get past us before I tried to take him off the plane. At that point, a female flight attendant came to my father, greeted him warmly, and gave him her arm to hold on to as she slowly and graciously helped him walk down the aisle, while another flight attendant graciously took his bag and carried it so that I wouldn’t have to. In the terminal, they arranged one of those electric carts for him to take us the very long distance to our connecting gate. When we arrived, I took out some money to offer the driver as a thank you. He graciously refused, multiple times, telling me that they do not accept tips there and that they are quite proud to be able to help us.
As a first generation Greek-American, what I have found when back in Greece is that the people in Greece who truly go out of their minds are the native born Greeks who have emigrated to and lived in the United States for years, but who now, for whatever reason, are back in Greece trying to get something done at some (fill in the blank) government ministry office, bank, or whatever. They go out of their minds over the endless requests for this or that paper, document, go to that office, go to this office, go to Athens, go back to the original place, etc. They have surprisingly gotten used to how things are done back in the United States, which perhaps says something. I try to tell myself it is what it is, and whenever I can I try to make the best of the situation, although I wonder if my hair is graying as a result.
That being said, while I am sorry to hear of this gentleman’s experience at the Frankfurt airport, I just wanted to share that I’ve enjoyed traveling with Lufthansa over the years and it is my preferred airline for going back to Greece (although a bit more comfortable padding on their economy seats would be greatly appreciated). I’ve enjoyed my trips through Frankfurt and Munich airport, although I’ve found Munich airport to be more confusing than Frankfurt’s for connections (such as to Aegean Air). However, they are both very clean, very pleasant, and have lots of food and beverage offerings that are quite desirable. In fact, I just booked a ticket on Lufthansa (using my United miles) for a trip back in two weeks to see if I can help with some issues that have been taking over three years to resolve. The only time I had status was when I was a very frequently traveling young engineer some thirty or so years ago when I would routinely be upgraded to first class (that’s what it was called back then). So just a regular ticket this time, although I’ve heard that Lufthansa’s business class offering and access to the business class lounge in Frankfurt is very nice.
In summary, a quick thanks to Lufthansa for my much better and humbling (to me) experience years ago and the other very nice travel experiences I’ve had with them.
By the way, Matthew, I enjoyed your weekend in Zurich article.
People are people and this has nothing to do with being Germans,any non white group similarly accused is unimaginable in today’s world.You pays your money and you takes your chances!
I can see this happening. Star Alliance is only really a concept. In reality it is often meaningless.
I had a similar issue with Air New Zealand after they cancelled my NZ operated UA coded flight……
Franfurt, Zurich, and sometimes Vienna seem to be notorious for uncaring agents and I’ve had several unpleasant encounters and witnessed more than a few shouting matches. Outside of these cities I’ve had cheerful exchanges with Lufthansa staff including Munich (my preferred Lufthansa hub).
If you are interested in finding out more about Lufthansa‘s absolutely unacceptable procedures worldwide, you should join the Facebook group ‘Lufthansa Complaints’.
I hate to say it, but I worst experiences I’ve had with locals were in Germany and Austria. I don’t use the words racist lightly, but I can say that the most racism I’ve faced were in these countries. In Austria my family and I were once made to stand around for almost an hour! I believe the place was called the Black Dog. There were plenty of tables open l, but they were apparently “reserved”. The servers neither gave us an estimate or told us to leave, they just said “maybe just a bit longer” and made us feel like we were intruding. I have also been kicked out of an elevator by two German women at a hotel. Like wtf… what made you entitled to a private elevator? Both beautiful countries, but I can’t help but feel the bias
Confusing, as these countries should be the most open-minded and welcoming, considering their recent histories. Should being the key word, as fear is currently the dominating thought system on this planet. We’ve resorted back to tribes, due to the fear everyone is sensing. There will either be the great reset or the great awakening. There cannot be both. No one really knows how things will end up, but my intuition does tell me the silent majority is winning. Despite it being hard to do, and despite everyone one of us failing at it on the regular if we do try, the key to pray for these people, to vibrate higher, and to be the change you want to see. There are mountains beyond mountains. Vibrate higher.
While flying on an international business class trip a few months ago, I had a similar experience with a Luftansa counter rep. I was given a ticket with a priority 5 boarding and no lounge access from Marseille to Frankfurt. When I asked if it could be corrected, the agent would not. When I made a fuss about having a business class itinerary she reissued the ticket, told me it was corrected and that I would have lounge and priority 1 boarding. I went back through security for a second time, had no lounge access and was concerned that I would also be in the last priority to board the plane. I travel to Europe every month or so on business and never check my luggage, but I was concerned I wouldn’t get any overhead space, so I went back through security a third time and checked my luggage with the problem agent. Once the plane was boarding, she was also the gate agent and when I came up to her in group 1,she said, oh, you again. I said yes me, with a smile and asked her if she was going to let me on the flight as a priority 1 as she had said. She did. However, when I arrived at Frankfurt, no luggage! When I went to the lost luggage counter, the agent said that it had been checked to Washington DC. Well, she got the last laugh on that one. Furthermore, when I wrote Lufthansa about the situation seeking some sort of compensation for clothing and personal items, they wrote back a very curt email that said too bad for you. I will never fly Lufthansa again, ever.
Flying back from Hannover last year, they canceled my flight “because of weather”, even though there were several operators flying, just not Lufthansa. Turns out, they were having staff not showing up in Munich and Frankfurt causing the issue. This continues for another 3 days and finally was able to make it home. During the trip, I’m trying to rework bookings as they had me taking 3 flights across 3 different days when there was a direct I could be on. I tried calling customer support, left on hold for over 18hr and then the line hung up. Went to the airport, desk refused to help even with a Lufthansa ticket. Flight gets delayed on the way out of Hannover, but Lufthansa isn’t telling anyone. 3rd party apps are the only thing showing the delay. I asked the gate attendant if the flight was delayed, got met with “would you like to do my job” as a response. Asked for her name, she pulls her name tag off and immediately calls the cops. Cops came and basically said nothing wrong happened. At this point, there were ~10 other passengers defending me to the police. This upsets the gate attendant further after the police do nothing. She tracks me down 300m away from the gate to come and tell me she will tell the pilot I will not be flying today because of my attitude. Keep in mind, all I did was ask politely if the flight was delayed then asked for her name after an unprofessional response. Pilots show up, she goes and talks to him and is pointing at me. Pilot comes to talk to me and said he can clearly tell she was the problem and that I can board the flight. Have never given Lufthansa business since.
Also forgot to mention, they refused compensation provided by EU law because of the “weather” issue. Good luck ever getting a dime back out of them as well without taking them to court.
I’m chuckling about the story in a few ways. One is that if someone is wearing a nametag and you’ve having an altercation, casually get the name off the tag (best as you can) BEFORE asking for a name such as “Ursula, may I have your full name please?” So when she tries to turn her nametag over, you can chuckle: “Ursula, that’s not going to help!”
Next, if the pilot did the right thing I’d give them credit for that and chalk it up to a bad gate agent, report it along with the pilot’s name (carefully get that from the tag) and as Matt did, try to make the system better. Simply going to another airline without comment doesn’t do much to change things because businesses will always assume you took your “business elsewhere” for the wrong reasons (usually price) rather than lousy service.
Having experience in customer service issues from both sides in Business-To-Business, I believe firmly in “quietly get names, hang up, try with someone else, report the issue later to those that matter” Don’t argue with idiots or jerks but do try to identify them. And of course, I (try to) always give credit where it’s due and recognize helpful agents.
I suppose it helps that my glasses have pretty good correction capabilities I can see small print even from a good distance along with the lenses helping to defray viewers where they think my eyes are going (I look at people’s foreheads out of habit to show I’m listening without freaking them out with direct eye contact.)
Just take your originally scheduled flight or book for an optimal connection.