Some airlines around the world cover chauffeur service to and from the airport for business and first class passengers. One of the best used to be Etihad, which – in order to compete against Emirates based an hour away in Dubai – offered to take you anywhere in the U.A.E. when you arrived. They’d drive you to Dubai or Sharjah, and pick you back up there as well. And this even used to be available to passengers traveling on award tickets.
Other airlines will offer tarmac transfers from the lounge to the plane and back. Air France does this for La Premiere at Paris Charles de Gaulle. Once clearing dedicated passport control, you drive from Lufthansa’s first class terminal to the plane. After all, you’re in a different terminal from everyone else that’s boarding the aircraft!
Even United, Delta, and American have tarmac transfers as a surprise and delight for their best customers making very tight connections.
Emirates will do in-home check-in where they come to you to issue boarding passes and collect your checked bags.
Lufthansa is working on something that combines all of these: limousine pickup at home, and driving straight to the aircraft. You’ll skip all of the formalities of the airport entirely if this comes to fruition for HON Circle and first class customers.
[A]ccording to a Lufthansa spokesperson, the details are still being examined and “no decision has yet been made,” the board has announced a promising test phase. As part of a new service, First Class passengers and those with HON Circle status will be picked up from their homes or offices in a limousine and taken directly to their flight. There is no time spent in the terminal and the guests are brought back again after landing.
It’s not clear how this will work in practice, especially with passport control. It seems like you’d need to a make a stop in the car, at least, at the First Class Terminal’s passport control in Frankfurt for immigration formalities (that they wouldn’t be able to arrange this in the vehicle). The same goes for security screening.
And it will be also interesting to see how they time traffic to and from the airport. If they’re setting this up to take you straight to the aircraft, that’s cutting it very close with boarding and passengers might miss flights? But if they build in a buffer, it seems like passengers would still kill time in the lounge?
Nonetheless, at least they’re trying to think different with premium services and counter the fact that modern airports have become a huge time suck and inconvenience factor – especially considering that the very purpose of air travel is time efficiency.
Absolutely brilliant innovation. As to formalities, for passengers of enough socioeconomic capital to peruse such services, it may be arranged with the relevant authorities that formalities are skipped.
In an era where ‘en-shitification’ seems to be the new normal, at least Lufthansa is *trying* to offer its premium customers more. Like, for once, it would be swell to not have to set low expectations.
I was also pleased to read Gary’s recent post of LH bringing its a380s back to the US (and with reasonable awards). Still, the big deal is their ‘Project Allegris’ upgrades to their long-haul cabins, whenever that finally goes live.
On airline chauffeur services, I have only used Emirates. While it is ‘nice’ that they include it as a benefit for First/Business, it’s not all that different from a premium rideshare (Lyft/Uber Black).
Nice article Gary, I too was thinking about Immigration and Security Screening. Depending upon the local Authorities, it’s conceivable that they could have a Trailer with those things inside (like the Blood-Mobiles), which would allow them to move those around to different gates. As such, it theory it could be plane-side.
My dad used to be a senior government official. He had this type of service, and I would too when I traveled with him. Passports and bags picked up from the house in advance. Driven directly to the plane, and carry-on baggage even pre-placed into the bins over our seats. Sometimes, if there was a bit of airport time to kill, we would be taken to a lounge. Not sure how the passport thing worked in practice, but they would be stamped in advance and handed to us with boarding passes once we arrived at the airport. We were always the last to board. As soon as we boarded, they would shut the door and depart. I’m guessing there is a way to do this on relatively larger scale for commercial passengers who are known i.e. HON Circle, and F class.
This would be fantastic. Sure first class is expensive but far cheaper than private jet service. You should be able to bypass security and have a private security area (think FBO). Charter flights do this. You give your passport to an airline employee (purser) and they take care of the details. You get your passport back on the plane.
Interesting concept. They could do baggage/security/immigration screening in a drive through like setup at a special entry to the airport, then straight to the gate.
However, it obviously doesn’t get rid of the need for airports. You think a 777 will take off from your street?
It’s also a much more expensive process, so it’s not going to be rolled out to the unwashed masses.
How does this eliminate an airport? Aren’t you just being driven to one? Isn’t this just eliminating the commute, not the airport?
@HS, Gary means eliminating the terminal. Think, buddy, think.
Gary, two potential problems. First, it appears that the new first class is cash only and not award bookable . . . and we’ll assume the old first class will be retrofitted to the new first class. Second, to receive this service, you’d have to fly Lufthansa. :-}
I’ve got it! What they REALLY need to do to improve First Class service is provide the same meal as Business Class, but ***add a soup***
I think this could be a category killer- Currently, the price gap between 1st class commercial and private charter is ridiculous, about a 10x spread (I.E., 1 way 1st from PHL to ORD is about $600, one way private about $6k), and WAYYYY more on international flights (because you need a Gulfstream G550+)
Remove the hassles and time sink of going through security, I will happily pay double the going 1st class rate- maybe even $2k. Why? Because I can’t control TSA, I can’t control parking (sometimes there is no local parking at PHL and you are screwed), and it’s a shorter distance (not for me, but my parents and some friends are elderly and the wheelchair access is suspect at best), but this way, I get to the tarmac within minutes of getting to PHL?
SIGN ME UP.
-Jon
ps – AA, I hope someone there reads these posts, I’m EP, and I know there are others just like me out there. If you build it, people will come Ray, people will come. (“Field of Dreams” baseball reference!)