Lucky at One Mile at a Time wrote about the new business class seats which will debut on the Lufthansa Boeing 747-8i, for which LH is the launch customer. I had a chance to visit the Boeing Customer Experience Centre in January 2012 as a part of the oneworld MegaDo, and I must say I was personally impressed with the 747-8i (more than the 787!) and I look forward to travelling on this bird sooner than later.
Now, it seems that my quest to travel on this new bird will come answered sooner than later. India seems to be one of the 2 countries slated to get the first bunch of Lufthansa 747-8i’s apart from the United States. While Lufthansa and its associate brands (Swiss and Austrian) anyways attract a fair share of traffic from India, LH has been trying to account for increased traffic from India, and hence wanted to bring the A380 to India. Too bad the initiative got lost in their tussle with Air India, where Star Alliance pulled the plug last minute for bringing AI in the *A fold and Lufthansa was sponsoring AI’s entry.
Bangalore Aviation has a post which also covers the new Business Class product, and states the loophole under which this new plan seems to be hatched. The agreement between Germany and India allows for the B747’s to fly to India, without mentioning the variant. However, I am not entirely convinced on the locations in India which will first get this plane. The author states Bangalore and Delhi, while I think Mumbai will be high up on that list as well since Mumbai almost always has a full plane to FRA and increasing capacity here surely will help.
What are your guesses on where is Lufthansa taking the new planes out first?
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Mumbai! However, I think the seat arrangements are an epic fail…they should have gone for a 1-2-1 arrangement as on other carriers. LH will regret this.
@Stephan, I’d personally love Aisle access for everyone as well, but I think LH wants to be stingy on the space as well and add as many seats as possible. Considering I fly Jet Premiere, I am used to the herringbone personally 😉