For those who travel economy and premium economy, there are little comforts we enjoy on long haul routes. However, it seems Lufthansa wants to do away with some of those comforts in the air
Five star service? Depends on your point of view – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
According to Vielfliegertreff, it seems the cuts ahead are going to be pretty tough (and if Google Translate has this right).
- Flights over 10 hours sue to have a small hot tray. That’s in the bin and will be replaced with a small box and cold vegetarian snack
- Flights that are in the shorter long-haul flights (such as India, Middle East) the warm/cold snack boxes will be replaced with… a cold vegetarian snack without choice.
- Economy Passengers will get one small uplift – a half-litre bottle of water each.
The airline is also stopping using its headphones, realising that no one wants to use the old recycled headphones that you have to attach earpads to switching to disposable headphones.
Well, at least these rubbish things are heading to be recycled – Image Economy Class and Beyond
Whilst the airline promises there will be a fuel and CO2 saving as they’re lighter, there’s a brand new waste mountain building up of single-use plastics and wires.
And of course – premium economy passengers don’t get decent headphones – they get lumped with the normal economy ones.
Cost-Cutting and Minimal Focus
Food and drink budgets have always been the easiest cut for an airline to make – and it’s possible to go too far (as one airline found out – and had to drag itself up after a year or so). Whilst the water bottle is… a nice touch – other airlines offer water bottles with meals already (even if they are the smaller sized ones).
Whilst they “enhancements” may save the airline a few coins along the path, the passenger experience is degraded – as food and drink is one thing a lot of people remember after a flight.
Combined with the matching the exact change to Premium Economy – especially in the premium economy cabins where there is an expectation of a service “above economy”.
Then again – if we look at my Lufthansa flights a year ago, I should knock that expectation down a peg anyway.
Lufthansa Premium Economy “breakfast” in 2018 – Image, Economy Class and Beyond.
I struggled then with Premium Economy and where it sat in the Lufthansa stack- the only benefits were a larger seat, more space and maybe some more “Miles and More” Points.
I struggle even more after this today.
Hat tip: Vielfliegertreff
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“A little tarnished” eh? I like that. A succinct description. My big question is why? If they want to become more like Norwegian, don’t they have subsidiaries to handle that while leaving the Lufthansa name to stand for a premium product? You know, that whole market segmentation thing.
Perhaps because BA, I their biggest competition has gone far far further… I Not bothering to clean or service their cabins and not even staffing customer services enough to be able to answer the phone. I am not sure They also regularly fail to load adequate catering for all onboard.
Lufthansa have clearly seen that they can slash their service and remain significantly better than what BA actually deliver (vs their overhyped marketing)
That was the best part of flying Lufthansa from Denver to Copenhagen in May. If this downgrade happens by next summer I will find another airline as that is a very important part of breaking up a long-haul flight with a little comfort.