I think the term racism is thrown around far too flippantly, but in a letter entitled “Dear Lufthansa, are your racist?” a Korean writer questions Lufthansa’s treatment of a group of Korean reporters who missed their flight to Seoul–
Dear Lufthansa, are your racist?
Probably not, but this was the question that first popped into my mind when I heard about a bunch of unfortunate reporters who missed their Lufthansa flight out of Europe a few days ago.
This group of journalists flew Lufthansa to and from Germany last week to cover an international conference.
They were lucky enough to fly business, but on their way back, they mistook the time of their flight ― they had confused the boarding time and the time the plane actually took off ― and had to buy tickets for another flight out of the country the following day.
When I first encountered the story, I remember thinking that it wasn’t the most intelligent thing for them to do, especially since they probably had tons of time to gab and laugh in the lounge. Anything that happened, they deserve.
However, when I chanced upon a more detailed account of the day, I couldn’t help wondering what was wrong with this airliner ― which is a member of the prestigious Star Alliance.
When the reporters clamored to get out of the business lounge ― making a lot of noise, I’m sure, as Asians usually seem to do when they get together abroad ― the employees at the counter told them, “You better run, but you’re probably going to be late anyway.”
So they had already known that this boisterous group of loud and probably less-than-attractive Asian reporters (compared to their blond, long-legged European counterparts anyway) were on the verge of missing their flight but saw no point in informing them.
The employees then scolded the reporters, saying that since they were adults, they should be responsible for their own schedules.
Right. But when in another country, it would be nice if the staff could help out, even with adults.
Furthermore, it turns out if the lounge people had known that some of the passengers were going to be late, they have the option of paging the plane to let them know of the fact.
The employees, however, decided not to take advantage of this option for unknown reasons.
Lufthansa also said they don’t make public announcements in the business lounge in order not to disturb the other guests. Well, guess what: Korean Air and Asiana all page flyers if they realize they are missing guests. And this time, it wasn’t just one, but 10 people together, so they were pretty hard to miss.
Another thing that bothered me was that once Lufthansa decided not to help the reporters, they had to take all of their bags out of the plane. This process took more than 10 minutes, so to Koreans who are used to putting efficiency above all else, they could not understand why they could not take that 10 minutes to board, which would have made everyone happy.
All in all, it was the Korean reporters who made a mess of things, since everything started when they mistook their flight time. But when you think about Korean Air and Asiana, and the pains they take to be nice to patrons, one can’t help but think, why fly anything else?
-Kim Ji-hyun
Note the bolding, which is mine. There’s a couple points to unpack here.
First, the racism charge is unfounded–which the authors seems to admit in the first line of the letter.
Second, I understand the norm of boarding announcements in lounges and the fact that in airports like Seoul Incheon, if 10 business class passengers are on a single flight, they would be tracked down: the lounge would be the logical place to check first.
Perhaps Lufthansa had a number of non-revs itching to get on the flight?
But the author makes an offhanded remark that this would not happen to “blond, long-legged European counterparts” yet the proposed solution only enforces the very stereotype the author complains of.
Say there was a group of 10 Asian men sitting around talking. Would it be proper for a Lufthansa agent to scrutinize them, try to figure out their nationality, then walk over and remind them that “their” flight is late–because if they are Koreans they must be going to Korea, right?
I like the policy of no lounge announcements and asking passengers to monitor the departure boards themselves. I do think a search party is warranted when 10 (presumably paid) business class passengers are missing and the point is well taken that spending 15 minutes removing bags in front of the passengers when they could have simply boarded the flight seems like salt in the wound.
But racism? Not here and I live here and see Frankfurt Airport a lot more than most.
I have the feeling that the letter doesn’t tell the full story. If they got to the gate and LH was still in the process of offloading the bags, I would have expected that LH would have boarded them at that point. Also at FRA the walk from the LH lounge to the widebody gates (A/Z) is not all that long.
In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if these passengers hadn’t been paged but didn’t hear the page or listen to it, or had gotten otherwise distracted.
And among 10 people, not one of them looked at the flight monitors in the lounge and saw the flashing green dots and Boarding mention? You have some responsibility to monitor your flight status when you are traveling.
Germany does have a culture of personal responsibility and accepting the consequences.
I couldn’t agree more, Matt. It really bugs me when the race card is played unnecessarily. If it’s a legitimate claim of racism, sure go for it. But this is clearly an inappropriate cry for personal attention and immature “news” reporting.
I’m Asian and this “cry wolf” behavior is absolutely unacceptable. I have never had any issues with Lufthansa.
And I agree with @Carl, Germany does have a culture of personal responsibility and consequences. I think more cultures should adopt it.
Echoing the other comments, this seems like a pretty clear case of differing cultural expectations. I can’t speak directly to how things are done in Korea, but if you’ve ever awaited a flight in India, you’ve probably noticed the multiple final calls paging stragglers. In particular, personnel will especially go the extra mile in this regard for business class passengers – for example, multiple personal announcements by the lounge attendant are made as boarding begins, and lounge personnel will personally walk around the lounge to find passengers when final call arrives. Much of this is due to the hierarchical society there; a business class passenger must be “important”, so due deference should be given. I can only speculate the same is true in other Asian nations, especially considering the overly attentive service I’ve typically received while flying Asian airlines.
My best guess is that these passengers just assumed the rest of the world works the same way. While I can understand that, especially if they don’t travel much, I find the relfexive “racism” charge unfair and uncalled for. The whole letter seems to read that they blame LH for not catering to the cultural norms of these passengers (thus making them “racist”), but that the passengers bear no responsibility in understanding the norms of the country they are visiting. That’s the thing that bothers me the most about this whole episode.
Ridiculous statement about racism but I believe Lufthansa dropped the ball here. It was a group of 10 Koreans flying together to the same destination on the same flight. I assume that as a group they all checked in together. Also by getting into the lounge Lufthansa knew they were there. Thus, someone should have noticed 10 business class passengers were missing and they had checked in and were in the lounge. C’mon!!! Nobody from the lounge could have talked to them? They screwed up but Lufthansa also did a terrible job. They just missed 10 paid business class customers for life.
In most European lounges flights are not paged – which is good thing, as it would be a zoo with announcements every 5 minutes. You got your boarding pass – be there or be square.
FRA is quite a big airport and Lufty has quite a few passangers – should they have employees running around trying to figure out where the late pax might be? This lounge or that? Or maybe just shopping somewhere? Or maybe just decided not to fly?
The whole racist card is just a pile of dung. It seems clear that the guys just boozed their time away in the lounge and missed the plane. Lesson learned (hopefully) and next time they won’t.
Today me and my family of four were connecting to Bangalore from Frankfurt. The Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt was delayed. We spoke to Lufthansa customer service on phone at the gate in Rome and also local Lufthansa reps. When the connecting flight landed in Frankfurt passengers to other connecting planes were shipped via custom transport except for us. We ended up missing the flight by less than a minute per Lufthansa gate manager. When asked why we were not transported like the other passengers to connecting flights, we were told that the rules are too complex to explain. Maybe I’m as dumb as the Korean journalist who didn’t know to read the flight timings on my boadring flight but could someone please explain to me what those complex rules are and why they don’t apply to me. Until then my mind is quite made up.
Do you feel Lufthansa discriminated against you on the basis of race? What is your race or nationality?
I feel it is discrimination based on the region associated with your travel.
I recently travelled with my family from India to USA via Frankfurt. We missed the connecting flight because Lufthansa delayed the first leg by more than 2 hours. The attendant at the terminal asked us to run to the gate even though he knew the plane had left. We checked the departure time on Flightaware. After that we received extremely rude customer service from the Lufthansa service center. I waited in line with my 2 kids aged 2 and 7 for more than 2 hours without water or food. I was given a connecting flight leaving next day. I was asked to come back again later for a hotel room for the night. When it was time to check-in online I tried to print the boarding pass, but the Lufthansa check-in kiosk did not recognize the booking reference. I stood again in line and was told that the previous “booking ” did not go through. After a lot of arguing we were given lodging to stay for the night and tickets to fly out 24 hours later. Some of the food vouchers given to us did not work. The rude tone and condescending talk from the service staff towards me and fellow Indians (especially making old people stand in line for hours and then shouting at them when they ask for clarification) was way out of line. We missed the connecting flight because of Lufthansa’s incompetence and not our mistake. I have travelled via London, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, Incheon and various airports in the USA and India. I have never been treated like this in any other country. Mistakes have happened but airline staff in those places have always been courteous and helpful. Some of them especially in Hong Kong and Singapore have gone out of their way to help us when they noticed we were traveling with children. I am never flying Lufthansa or through Frankfurt again in my life. Others would also do well to avoid this airline and airport.