The Future of Lufthansa First Class

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • Delta will offer direct aisle access in business class New York – Los Angeles starting in November. Don’t get too excited, that’s just means they’ll fly all Boeing 767s on the route, their aircraft I desperately would want to avoid long haul. I’d definitely choose JetBlue Mint or American’s first class over Delta business on the route.

  • Lufthansa sees first class as crucial to their brand positioning they don’t want it on all flights, but struggle because they want the flexibility to deploy the same aircraft across a variety of routes. They may revisit the idea of seats with doors, and could imagine offering just one row of first on certain aircraft.

  • American AAdvantage launched the ability to redeem miles for China Southern flights in March but only coach and business class at that time. China Southern first class can now be booked using American miles over the phone (but not at AA.com). You can search space yourself at Expertflyer.com.

    China Southern’s US routes include Guangzhou–Los Angeles; Guangzhou–New York JFK; Wuhan–San Francisco; Guangzhou–San Francisco; Wuhan–New York JFK.

  • Extreme Piloting: Landing a Boeing 737 in Skardu, Pakistan

    Skardu located at an altitude of close to 8000 feet is surrounded by high mountains making it a complicated approach to be flown only by Captain who are qualified for the airport and only in good visual weather and during daylight hours only.

    Pakistan International is the only airline to operate into this airport with service to Islamabad which is the roundtrip flight JustPlanes filmed on the Boeing 737-300.

  • United pilot paid to fly a stranded passenger Seattle – Portland (HT: Matthew)

  • Outkast member Andre 3000 just playing flute at LAX. It’s probably the most interesting airport in the country, celebrities in their natural habitat.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. On the Delta forum you’ll find travelers who prefer the 757 seat on transcons to the worn 11 year old Vantage seat and miniature screen on the 767s they’re calling an upgrade.

    I’m agnostic but it’s not a slam dunk upgrade.

  2. Regarding Lufthansa (and Swiss?) retaining First Class – along with other Airlines, I cannot understand why they are all reducing capacity.
    What they need to do is entice more business users to step up and to push out more A class fares. Why? Because once you’ve entered the world of First you will not want to go back to stripped back Business Class offerings that airlines are rushing into.
    Purchasers like me will pay (a sensible amount) more to get back to proper service.

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