Lufthansa Business Class DFW-FRA-DEL (broken seat fun and footsie)

We started off our journey at the Capital One Lounge at DFW (which I have reviewed here). For what it’s worth, the lounge has gotten progressively crowded and unless you are there early it becomes nigh impossible to find a seat outside the table area.

As usual the boarding line was a chaotic process with people being absolutely confused about which lane was for family boarding and which one was for business class boarding. I was in no real rush, but I still don’t understand how business class goes after or at the same time as family boarding on Lufthansa. Anyway, we slowly waited our turn and were surprisingly one of the first to board. My sister and I had seats 3A and 3C, while our parents had 4A and 4C right behind us.

After a brief skirmish over who gets the window seat, I took my rightful place in 3A. The image below is of 5K and H because I couldn’t bother taking even more images of this dull product. I’ve been on it a couple of times and reviewed it here.

Waiting at the seat were a basic amenity kit by Porsche design, a water bottle, a pajama top, and a mattress pad. I love that Lufthansa now has pajama tops on long haul flights, but I wish they provided the entire outfit.

However, I knew within a matter of seconds that the seat was unfortunately broken. It was completely upright at a 90 degree angle with the lumbar support completely jutting out into the middle of my back. And of course the controls did not work:

And so the first 2 hours of the flight consisted of the FAs coming by one after the other and resetting my seat. This was some good entertainment as each FA asked what was wrong, patiently heard the story, and did the same reset. Meanwhile menus were handed out and dinner service was conducted. The menu read as follows:

After reading the menu, I decided that I was completely fine with my roasted veggie sandwich and beetroot salad that I picked up at the Capital One Lounge alongside some “Texas banana pudding. ”

 

Anyway after much effort, my seat was still not working. So the purser came by and offered to seat me in a middle seat: 3G. Deciding that I needed some sleep, I went over after the dinner service was finished and the lights had been dimmed.

Unfortunatley I didn’t get much sleep that night because of just how restless my seat mate was during the flight. She kept tossing, turning, and snoring as well as invading my space because of the poor separation near the leg rests. My one true savior was the onboard Wi-Fi which allowed me to catch up with some work as well as message some friends. I have to say time flew quickly because I had internet. Otherwise I would be stuck playing footsie with the person sitting next to me and rewatching some movie I had already seen. Lufthansa can’t roll out those new seats soon enough!

After chilling out in the lie flat position for a couple of hours, I headed back to my seat for sunrise just as we made our way over Ireland. You can actually see Dublin in this image I took with my Sony A7SIII:

And then we made our way slowly over the Irish Sea to Wales where the clouds really started turning red/pink hues.

And then the sun started poking its head over the horizon to the East.

And then the tips of the clouds of the clouds turned a beautiful shade of orange:

And then there were all sorts of textures and subtle patterns within the clouds:

Before we knew it, we were making our way across the English channel over to France and of course Germany.

And of course just before landing in Frankfurt, we saw the beautiful German countryside bordered by the black lanes of the Autobahn.

Through the clouds we went with the sunlight shining in spots.

And of course there were the iconic red roofs of the town alongside the Main River

After touching down in Franfkurt, we made a rather quick taxi to the gate with an airbridge to let us off.

The beauty of Frankfurt if you do get the chance to get an actual gate with an airbridge is you don’t have far to walk to your next departure gate. Our flight to Delhi was departing right across the corridor so we made our way straight to the lounge next door, which I wrote about here.

Frankfurt – Delhi 

Anyway the second flight was on an Airbus A340 on which my sister and I chose seats 1K and 1H, I of course again opted for the window only to find that this seat was also broken. Except this time the flight was full and there was nowhere to move for a good seat.

When I explained the situation to the purser, she seemed to want to accuse me of breaking the seat. That’s great customer service for you, blame the passenger instead of the aging aircraft and product. Of course a couple of hours and resets later, we were still struggling to get the situation rectified. Atleast this seat wasn’t stuck at an unusual 90 degree angle. It’s important to note here that no compensation was offered to me for my trouble. And not even a mention was made again throughout the flight or at the end.

Having had a bit of cereal at the LH lounge in Frankfurt, I skipped lunch service. You can see why given that it featured “rape blossoms.”  Someone didn’t “proofread” the menu since this was a flight to India 🙂 The bright side about flights to India are that they always have a vegetarian entree loaded.

Again the Wi-Fi on this plane came to my rescue as I couldn’t sleep in that weird position, the seat was stuck in. I surfed a bit and then realized that LH has live tv on their flights which included FIFA. Certainly enjoyed watching the Portugal vs Morocco match live.

Clocking in at just under 8 hours, this flight wasn’t bad at all. After a couple of hours of rest, my sister agreed to switch seats with me so that I could catch some shut eye. Of course I just ended up reclining my seat and enjoyed watching more soccer.

Before we knew it we were on the ground in Delhi and I was again being greeted by the hand mudras in the arrival hall.

Bottom Line:

Lufthansa business class has certainly taken a turn for the worse over the pandemic. Service standards and seat condition are average at best on A330s and A340s. Two straight flights where the seat wouldn’t recline into a fully flat position was completely unacceptable, especially as a business class passenger.  There’s a reason why the Middle Eastern 3 are eating the European carriers alive in almost every market. The least Lufthansa could’ve done was offer some level of compensation in terms of miles for my troubles.

On the other hand, I do like that Germany is exactly halfway  between the U.S and India. This makes flights more manageable in economy or in broken business class. I was also pleased to hear that the Dallas route will soon feature the Lufhansa 787-9 with direct aisle access in business class. This will hopefully make sleeping easier.

Trip Report Index

Introduction: Xmas in India & NYE in Singapore

Lufthansa Business Class DFW-Frankfurt-Delhi

Lufthansa Business Class Lounge B @ Frankfurt

Andaz Delhi

The Leela Palace – New Delhi

Park Hyatt Hyderabad

Hyderabad to Madurai: A Pictorial Journey

Courtyard by Marriott Madurai

Focal Point: The Temples of Thanjavur & Madurai

Fragrant Nature Munnar

Singapore Airlines Regional Business Class Hyderabad – Singapore

Andaz Singapore

SilverKris Lounge Singapore

Singapore Airlines Long Haul Business Singapore – Los Angeles

Hyatt House LAX/Century Blvd