Lufthansa

Trapped in London as a result of a pilot’s strike. Lufthansa’s desk is understaffed and not equipped to deal with the stranded passengers. What’s most frustrating is that the strike was planned, and much of the confusion and inconvenience could have been avoided. Lufthansa’s executives purposely failed to make accommodations for their customers, and purposely understaffed their reservations desks.
Moreover, they lost our luggage and have no plans to return it in a timely manner. Airport staff and Lufthansa staff in particular that we encountered today have a «not my job» attitude. Airport employees are little more than button pushing zombies.

I appreciate Lufthansa, they changed my ticket so it could be scanned easily at the boarding area before the flight. Flight staff was friendly an bilingual so I could understand as I am not fluent in my German speaking. Food was the catch, Best airplane food to date. I had a tomato pizza Italian lunch which was tasty. Better than the usual bland stuff! Sehr Gut, Danke to Lufthansa!

For short haul within Europe:
The planes are new and recently they seem to be even newer. Always clean and with a simple and modern interior design.
On board procedures are to the point and with minimal hassle. They also don’t go on and on berating you with safety messages like some other airlines (you know, most of us have been on a plane before).
–Staff on board are always very polite, courteous, efficient and tidy.
— Decent coffee on board too and I like the small snacks and sandwiches.
— Prices usually quite competitive.
–Given the choice of BA or Lufthansa, I would usually go for Lufthansa.
Lufthansa Italia is also my airline of choice to Italy.
The Lufthansa website for check in sometimes works for me and sometimes it doesn’t.

I appreciate that this review is pretty ancient bearing in mind I flew Lufthansa once in 2001 from London City Airport to Berlin return.
Definitely 5 stars as on the Avro/​BAE-​146 aircraft the seat configuration was only 5 abreast* in Economy Class. Every other time I’ve flown on the same aircraft there have been 6 seats abreast so I found Lufthansa generous and roomy.
I remember the crew being pleasant and the aircraft being clean. Very nice flight and no complaints.
*Not the case now though I’ve checked their website.

It’s easy to lump Lufthansa in with the operations at their hubs and I shall endeavor to avoid it. I have had seven flights on the flag carrier of Germany and in each case, I have been pleased. (FRA-​LHR, LHR-​MUC-​LHR, and LHR-​FRA-​FCO-​FRA-​LHR if you’re curious.)
In coach (three of the seven), the seats are reasonably comfortable. The width is the standard for an A319/​A320, so if there isn’t a middle seat then you’re good. Legroom is tight for a six foot tall American, so be wary. Surprisingly, there is food. On my one hour flights, a half sandwich and a small can of Coke. It’s not a meal, but it’s something!
In business (four of the seven), the legroom and width are exactly the same as in coach. The only advantage is that the middle seat is reserved empty. On some aircraft, there is a table present and a fixed armrest, which is a little annoying to have the same seat width. Meals are excellent, even on the one hour flights. And the FA attention is excellent.
I haven’t had the opportunity to try them on a longer flight.

The ticket agent was courteous and efficient even had a sense of humour.
In flight, On a short hop from LHR to Frankfurt. They served a decent little meal In business when I know that their american counterparts would hardly serve a bag of nuts. Granted, in an hour’s time I’m not there to eat but it’s nice to have the option. It’s always about the little things. The small touches like the tiny menu that was tucked on the tray to explain their offerings.
Our pilot was great at letting us know how the weather had delayed us and number we were for take off. Their fight attendants bothered to learn and address me by name throughout the entire flight and even took care to say a personal goodbye when I hadn’t said a peep beyond my request for water.
Courteous, and efficient. I appreciated the consistency from ticketing to the plane. I hope to find more flights like this in the future. =)

Efficient when it works — but an absolute disgrace when anything goes wrong. Their notion of customer service is non-​existent, for example in the case of the recent snow chaos at Heathrow where lots of flights were canceled.
As a comment to the previous review: They now seem to have taken the comment about the tasteless cheese sandwiches on board… and are now serving ham sandwiches (rather tasty actually!). Unfortunately, that many people (like my partner) don’t eat ham doesn’t seem a consideration, and they don’t carry any alternatives. So if you are vegetarian/​Muslim/​Jewish then you will not get anything else. Having flown to Germany on pretty much any other airline that flies, I’d recommend to avoid Lufthansa unless their price is seriously worth it.

I have a love-​hate relationship with Lufthansa. I have travelled with them six times … and my rating of it keeps changing every time. Its at about 3.5 now … so its good for them … they will get a good rating :)
First of all the positives. The planes have a very generous leg space … much more than most other airlines i have travelled on. I don’t feel cramped here at all. Lufthansa is reasonably good at maintaining its schedule. They build in a generous buffer into the timings they publish. So although the flights i have been on have almost always departed late, they somehow seem to reach the destination on time. Their real time scheduling system deserves praise too … as when a flight to Düsseldorf that i was supposed to board was delayed, it quickly rerouted me to Munich so that i could reach London as early as possible.
However i cannot be so effusive in my praise for its services. The in-​flight service levels leave a lot to be desired. I was once travelling from Frankfurt to Moscow and i needed to use the restroom. The food trolley was about 5 – 6 rows in front of the restroom. It was a single aisle plane and so i had to go past it. On other airlines that i have travelled with, the steward would move the trolley to the end and would let me pass through. But here that did not happen. In-​spite of a passenger asking her to allow me to go through, she did not budge until all the drinks were served, making me wait there for more than 10 minutes. This was very annoying.
However they made up for it later. I had to board a flight to Heathrow from Munich and i noticed after going through security that an earlier flight to London City from Munch had been delayed and that it would now fly at almost the same time as the flight i was supposed to be on. At my request, they transferred me to the flight to London City … and this saved me a few hours … something anybody living in Zone 1 would appreciate.
I have found Lufthansa’s pricing to be very competitive in its short haul European routes … but not so much for inter-​continental travel. This review is based totally on flights lasting less than 3 hours. I hope to update this after using its long-​haul services sometime.

My recent change of job role means I fly to Germany most weeks and as such have had to use Lufthansa to get there (There are surprisngly few airlines that fly from London to Hamburg!) In the main I have found them to be fairly efficient, the flights are generally on time and both the ground staff and the cabin crew are helpful.
2 reasons make me score this as a 3 and that is the cost of the flights; it takes an hour to get there but on average it csts around £300 per return flight. And secondly the catering on board leaves a lot to be desired. To be honest catering is not how it should be described! No matter what time of the day you fly you are always presented with a very small (hard) roll filled with cheese. I can only liken chewing the roll to eating cardboard; unpleasant and tasteless! At least the seats are quite roomy!