No individual air conditioning vents, and it gets hot as blazes in addition to breathing that recycled air.
Other stuff:
Arm-rest sound systems are not maintained. I was only able to hear stereo if I pushed and held in that two-pronged plug. Asked to be moved, no seat available.
Luckily, I had my MP3 player, but I really like some of the programming they have onboard.
Having to go outside (in Frankfurt) to board. First, you sit in a stifling hot waiting lounge area, then they bus you to your plane and then you board.
No seat-back entertainment. it’s all overhead on those monitors. I think Germany’s Number One Airline could modernize a bit.
Have you written them a letter of complaint? They might offer some form of compensation.
Lufthansa (with KLM) is one of my favorite airlines and I have always received good service. Since I avoid American carriers I get to fly with them relatively often.
Which reminds me that I need to write a letter of complaint to KLM because they put me on a tiny Delta airplane on a transatlantic flight and the service was horrendous. If I wanted to fly Delta you’d think I’d buy a ticket with Delta. The reason I bought a ticket with KLM is that I wanted to fly with KLM. This code-sharing shit is just bait and switch. Sine KLM were bought by Air France I think they’re going downhill.
I guess I could have worded that a little better, huh?
What I meant was you wait inside the airport in the international departure lounge,* then* instead of walking down a jetway directly into the plane, they ask you to walk down some stairs to a bus which then takes you to the tarmac where your plane is waiting, and you board the plane by walking up those motorized stairs.
It’s a bit of an aggravation, because they crowd you into those buses like sardines and then you have to hold on for dear life as they take you to the plane.
My problem with Lufthansa’s A340s is the seats. First time I flew on one of those things, my ass and back were screaming less than an hour into the ten-hour flight. I thought maybe I’d done something to hurt myself. About a year later I flew them again and same thing happened. Coach seats on long flights are not all that comfortable to begin with, but these were an order of magnitude worse than anything I’d ever experienced. I’ve had to ask the company to avoid putting me on Lufthansa for transatlantic trips. Too bad, because I like their service, and collecting the postcards they set out in the cabin.
After being based and working in the Far East for many years, I have just started again flying inter-europe. If 9-11 took away the enjoyment of air travel on the ground, Iberia, KLM, BA and Austrian Airlines have killed any minute pleasure previously available in the air. Business class? Now its all one class but they just dont sit anyone next to you. Refreshments? Oh regardless of the class of travel they will sell you something wrapped in plastic or served in a plastic cup. Don’t use the call attendant button as she/he is busy trying to hawk overpriced trash!
National carriers? Cheap and very nasty !
Christmas day am flying back to phils by Emirates airlines. Now these dudes know how to treat passengers! My absolute favorite airline!
The OP wasn’t clear as to whether this was an overseas flight or if it was within Europe. There are no flights in Europe that last more than an hour, in my experience. Being inconvenienced for that short a period is hardly worth mentioning. If it was a flight over the pond, different story. KLM used to have one of the best business/1st class sections going. Even United had decent tourist cabin amenities on their 777. It’s been ten years since I few overseas, though, and I imagine things have degraded substantially.
I’ve flown Lufthansa once for a domestic flight. We lost power to the plane while on the tarmac and had to wait for about a half an hour without air conditioning to restore it. And we did indeed have to go outside to board, although I can’t say that necessarily bothers me.
I guess Europe’s grown a whole lot then
My main peeve lately is that the space between the rows seems to have shrunk to nothing. I’m not that big, but I seem to almost always have my knees squeezed up against the seat in front. Last week I got really lucky and landed an emergency exit seat, only to get an extremely ‘large’ gentleman beside me, whose folds spilled across onto me for three hours. No way to complain to the airline about that one…
I flew Lufthansa in November 2006. I was hugely pregnant and they made us exit at one point and walk down a steep stair carrying our carry-ons and across the tarmac in November. It was miserable, and I was sick as well, although at the time I did not understand how sick I was. The flight attendants were impatient, and unhelpful. On the flight, they were impatient with my requests for more water. Normally I would travel with my own water, but that was not allowed. They were accommodating about moving my seat closer to the lavatory after I began vomiting repeatedly, but still acted like it was an imposition to get me more water. I can’t say if the seats were abnormally uncomfortable, as there was no way I was going to be comfortable, but they were wide enough, though barely.
My bug is more about all the smoking in the airport. It added an asthma attack to the vomiting and it did seem unseemly hot in the airport.
Really? I guess I’ve been lucky lately. Probably they do not have enough jetways (Is that what they are called now? I used to call them “fingers”).
The last time it happened to me it was in Madrid, many years ago. It was raining and I was carrying a lot of stuff and had to run in the rain from the plane to the bus on the tarmac and slipped as I was getting on and hit my shin quite badly with the metal step which hurt like hell and bled a lot and I just had to keep going until I was through customs. I bear the scar to this day. One thing I frankly hate about traveling in Europe and Asia is that people do not keep any distance from you. It’s crowded and they just crowd you. Everywhere. Fuck that!
