It seems that Lufthansa’s short to mid-haul fleet is in line for a refresh as the airline announces a cabin refit.
The cabin interior refit aims to offer more space inside it to create a premium atmosphere.
Lufthansa will commence the refit in spring 2025, the company will successively equip 38 Airbus A320s already flying for Lufthansa with the new cabin.
The airline has pointed out the following improvements:
- More space for carry-on luggage: The airline will retrofit large overhead bins that can hold up to twice as many carry-on suitcases or bags as the current “bins” with bags to be stowed vertically in them, allowing for 40% more room. Economy Class and Beyond understands this is the first commercial deployment of the retrofit Airbus SpaceBin L, as revealed at APEX Expo this year.
- USB port: Understanding its customers want to charge their devices whilst on the move, Lufthansa will install a dedicated USB port in each seat. No rating on charging speed or type information has been provided – given that today, USB-A and USB-C deployments are being completed in the industry.
- Tablet/smartphone holder: It seems that the airline has realised that people don’t like having tray tables open on their laps to watch content on devices. Thus, as part of the new seat specification, a Tablet/Smartphone holder is being installed.
- More legroom: The new seats from the Italian manufacturer Geven also offer more legroom with the same seat spacing thanks to the ergonomic shaping of the backrests. Currently, the airline uses a variant of the Essezna seat announced in 2018 and has been featured in deployments.
Breaking down numbers
Lufthansa has 54 A320 aircraft in its fleet currently – so this represents a proportion of the A320 fleet that will get the refit. That means 16 are not going to be refitted – either due to age, or other commercial reasons.
However, there are many more aircraft in the short-haul fleet that don’t have larger overhead bins or onboard charging – including:
- 23 A319
- 28 A320neo
- 13 A321-100
- 35 A321-200
- 17 A321neo
That makes for a total of 146 aircraft that will not get upgrades.
It’s a start – but more will need to be done
It’s great to see the passenger experience improvements in the cabin – as passengers demand more facilities (especially when they are subject to odd fare structures), with premium airlines having to differentiate themselves somehow from Low-Cost Carriers.
However, as you can see from the numbers above – there’s a lot to be done still, with only a small amount of the fleet to be fitted out.
Hopefully, further refit programmes will come in due course to allow the rest of the short t0 medium-haul fleet to have the same quality of life improvements on the aircraft.
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