This is my review of the Lufthansa First Class terminal in Frankfurt.
Head for Points is not, in general, a site about trip reports. I will write about stuff which is noteworthy, but otherwise I will save you the trouble of reading the gory details of my life! That is why you now find me in the Lufthansa First Class lounge in Frankfurt, with no mention of:
- A BA Club Europe flight to Dusseldorf (notable primarily for the extreme grumpiness of other passengers – this was a midweek flight to a business destination – to the antics of my 2 year old and 5 year old, plus what happened we when we realised, whilst loading the taxi, that we’d not collected our baby buggy ….)
- The InterContinental Dusseldorf (a very impressive hotel, in general, but photos of a suite where every spare inch of space is filled with childrens beds or discarded toys are not hugely interesting!)
- A BA economy flight back to London and then, 6 hours later, back to Frankfurt (see yesterdays posts for the rationale for that one!)
My night at the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport was covered yesterday. I then did the very unglamorous walk through the taxi marshalling area over to the First Class Terminal.
I did a long post explaining how the First Class Terminal works back in February, so I won’t repeat myself. I got in using the small print, which says that you get access if you have a same day First Class flight on Lufthansa or Swiss – even though the Swiss flight will be departing from Zurich!
The First Class Terminal was a lot busier today than it was in February, and service didn’t seem quite as sharp. There were even three of us heading for the Zurich flight, which I was pretty certain I would be driven to on my own.
(One benefit of going to Zurich is that it was a longer drive to the plane than usual, so I got an excellent view of the airport. The view driving across the tarmac from the front passenger seat of a car is totally different from seeing it from an aircraft window or even a transfer bus.)
Here are a few food pictures from today:
Lufthansa Business Class inside Europe is pretty unmemorable, especially on a 35 minute flight to Zurich. Leg room seems the same as Economy and, whilst the middle seat is left empty, it is still 3×3 so the seats are no wider either. BA definitely wins out here with Club Europe.
Next stop will see me in the Swiss First Class Lounge!
About Head for Points
I am afraid BA has started to adopt the smaller – non-convertible seats with the middle seat empty – a la Lufthansa. Just have to be lucky not to get them.
aren’t these only on ex-BMI planes?
No, they are on a handful of new Airbus planes that BA received 18 months or so ago.
The risk is that they roll it out to the whole fleet. They might, as they are ‘space saver’ thin seats which let an extra row or two be squeezed in.
The Lufty seats were not ‘space saver’, though. I did experience it recently on Little Red. In economy, they were ok.
Be grateful for what you have and be thankful you are not in the BA First Lounge at Gatwick..! My first time here and I am (not quite sure what word to use here but I’ll take a stab at) shocked by the quality of the lounge and food. Your pictures show no resemblance to what I have here. No amount of sparking white or Champagne dulls the pain particularly as the plane has “Gone Tech”, I believe that’s what they call it. Normal 4 class 777 to Bermuda has been replaced with a 3 class plane so we’ve been down-graded to Business.
The only up-side so far is the compensation. At check-in we were issued with a Visa card with £1000 pounds of compensation on it for down grading two people. Not sure if this is supposed to cover me for the delay only (flight was supposed to be 15:10 but next information is at 18:00 doesn’t sound good) or whether I’ll be able to get a refund on my Avios spend. Anyone with similar experience…
You are due 75 per cent of your ticket price under EU 261 regulations. The law is badly written and it is not clear if that applies to 75 per cent of the RETURN cost or 75 per cent of a one way.
Assuming this is an Avios redemption, I would probably take the 1k and leave it at that, but you might want to look at the Flyertalk BA baord thread on EU 261 compensation for more details – it is an excellent reference thread.
Thanks for the information, I’ll have a browse. It is an Avios 2-4-1 redemption. Seems enough to buy back the missing avios. Flight delayed further until 20:00 but we are not holding our breath for that time either as the Gatwick – Orlando flight has just been cancelled and so people in the First Lounge have just been shipped off to the Hilton for the night.
I was at the LGW F lounge in the afternoon and I thought there was an adequate selection of salad items, cakes and sandwiches. Fine for the time of day – and there was very good hot soup as well. Its not massive – granted – but its the same furniture as LHR.
Why were you ‘Shocked’ by the quality? you might have been disappointed by the selection, but its very similar to the cold salad selection offered at the Lufthansa F lounge (at Munich anyway).
Granted, not a full menu – but I don’t see LGW needs more. The Frankfurt lounge and those at LHR have extended facilities because there are many more flights, many more long connections and many more genuine F passengers. LGW has a handful of F passengers, mostly going on holiday, and will undoubtably enjoy the service and a very full on meal as soon as they take off. Unless of course you are serious beach goer and insist on maximum sleep on the way to get to the sunbed ‘ready to do business’…
oops I relied to the wrong person
Looks lovely in that lounge and I do believe Lufty SH business is much worse than Club Europe.
Lufty crew tend to serve business and then leave the cabin to assist in economy, on BA the crew generally offer top-ups and at least one member seems dedicated to the cabin.
The Lufty seats are paper thin.
Please note the current Lufty seats are not the ones you’ll find on the ex-bmi fleet. The new Lufty seats are very thin and aren’t adjustable at all, the bmi ones have arm rests that adjust to make the seats wider and the pull down table. Some LH aircraft have tables fixed in the place of middle seats but that’s just to take some seats out of service for staffing reasons.