Thursday, April 9, 2009

lufthansa us to germany First class review

Recently traveled business class with Lufthansa on a number of flights which included North America to Europe and 2 segments within the EU. Was pleasantly surprised by all the service from crew members as we found everyone friendly and helpful in all instances.
FRA-BOS First. F-Class Terminal at FRA is very good, with an extensive range of food & drink. Personalised pax reception and handling perfect. Transfer by luxury car to the aircraft is nice. Once onboard, however, the story changes. No words of welcome, no helping with coat or hand-luggage etc, overhead bins full of C-class hand-luggage. When told about the zero space, instead of making space be removing said baggage to the owners' cabin, my bag was just taken away somewhere with the words "you won't be needing this during the flight"! Hardly a F class attitude, I thought. The seats on their A340's are not overly-comfortable. Welcome drink was pink Champagne, no white available. I thought this would be rectified later but it wasn't to be : no white Champagne was available at all. When I questioned the wisdom of this, I was told "it clearly states in the menu that Champagne will be white or pink". After I and other pax suggested the Fa's have a look in C-class to see if there was anything there, a bottle of mediocre white was produced. Food quite poor. Service not much better (including a wonderful moment when the FA had problems arranging my salad on the plate and, without a second thought, proceeded to finish it off by using her hands – retrieving leaves that had fallen off the plate and then putting them back on the plate! For any cabin class, I find this behaviour appalling. It makes one wonder what happens behind the scenes. Portions small. I'm pleased I ate a small meal in the lounge before departure, otherwise I would have been hungry by the time we arrived in Boston. Wine selection very small indeed, hardly a "selection" and arguably F- class. The main item in the miniature amenity-bag was an ad trying to get pax to purchase the matching suitcases. Overall, the experience for me was more akin to a long-haul charter business- class product. Quite honestly, it amazes me how LH can get away with calling it F-class. In my view, the only really good thing about the product, is the First Terminal at Frankfurt but even this cannot possibly warrant paying the difference between C and F