I am sympathetic with the OP's plight the same way I am sympathetic with those caught by a cop going 58 in a 55mph zone. Yes, technically you are breaking the law/rules. But come on. It is a lame way of enforcing the rules.

Planes don't take sufficient responsibility for your checked in luggage. I just find it amzing that in these days of overdone security theater that they would allow luggage to not be monitored long enough for it to be lost or stolen.


Anyway, I do wonder why the OP did not huddle back away from the gate with his 7 friends and redistribute the gear among their hand luggage to a point where he could go back and challenge the GA on the weight issue since he was confident that his luggage met the size issue. All he had to do was immediately go to another Lufthansa counterm, show his handluggage, demand a size measurement, tell them that there are others in the line as he speaks that have bigger luggage, so it's not even consistent discretionary judgement. And if they are prepared to insure his handluggage on the spot.

By the OP's own admission, he was there early. So I am assuming he had this time to come up with a different tack.

Also regarding NYCDude's post, I am on his side. He talked to a Lufthansa agent on the phone and they promised him 3 seats side by side. I dont give a damn if the fine print talks about seat assignments not guaranteed. The phone operator should have told him explicitly that this tactic of buying an extra seat for the infant is not guaranteed to get him 3 in a row and I highly doubt she told him that. uWhat is NYCDude supposed to do? It's not like he can wait until boarding to see if he can get 3 seats in a row to decide if he wants to spend on an extra ticket at which point the price would be prohibitive.

As far as my Lufthansa experience, I took a roundtrip from ATL-BOM once a decade ago. My flight from ATL-FRA was fine, but the flight from FRA-BOM was second rate and quite honestly found it discriminatory of Indians being the majority on that segment. It's like they assigned their worst crew, worst food, and worst attitudes for that segment. I didn't even receive a meal on the whole segment because they ran out of meals(they had some fish thing left and I don't normally eat most fish and certainly not the remaining decrepit looking one they offered me). But they attitude was kind of annoying as they didn't seem concerned at all. Having said that, my experience from ATL- FRA and on the return was good. What I don't like is how the airline handled a bad experience. When I complained on the ground in BOM, the staff seemed indifferent. So I haven't taken Lufthansa again. But I won't rule it out in case I have no other options as that kind of experience is very possible on at least half of the world's airlines.