GVAIKA

Before deciding whether to write to LH, I would appreciate your appraisal of what happened to me, a few days ago on LH 779 from SIN to LH sitting in Y in the middle of a full plane.


Had been on the road for a couple of weeks for work. Since I knew I was tired, I tried to upgrade at the airport to Y out of my own pocket. Was told it was too late, should have called before. I do these long flights at least once a month, and told myself I would survive this one too.


First 4 hours normal, event slept quite ok. Suddenly I wake up and feel extremely nauseous. Push the button and a crew member appears. I explain the situation, reiterate my request to pay (I never insinuated to receive it for free) for Y. Person re-emerges after a few minutes with an unidentified pill which I was told to take. Since I had no clue what it was, nor whether I could actually take it (incompatibilities with other medication?), I decided not to take it.


Situation deteriorates and my body screams to lie down 100%, alone without being surrounded by so many people. I push the button again, same person appears but no immediate solution offered. Only question was whether I need to see a doctor. I said no, I just need to lie down to have the nausea disappear, and my condition is not an emergency that will require you to go to the pilot to ask whether he wants to put the plane down, don't worry I even said.


Since no relief came, after a few minutes, I stand up and ask another cabin crew for a pillow and search for what my body screams for = a place to lie down, which I find (of my own initiative) at the very back of the plane, in front of a door, near the stairs going to the upper cabin.


What then follows is outright bizarre. Twice a crew member appears tells me I can only sit there, not lie down. I say I fully understand , for safety reasons, but right now my body needs to lie down. I reiterate my request to pay for C (at that point I would have paid through the nose for a regular bed), and am told it's full. Fair enough. So what are my options? "Go back to your seat, this is a very full plane with some 500 people and many of them in Y also want to lie down like you". At that point , and only point, I raise my voice: "with all due respect in the some 70+flights I take yearly I have never done with I am doing now, but I have no choice". Person disappears.


I was left lying there on the floor, with a pillow, and only gesture: at some point a cabin crew drops me a blanket. Other than that one gesture NOBODY checked on me during the - by my own estimate - slightly over 4 hours I was lying there, in and out of sleep. It was the time of the flight most cabin crew bar a few are asleep themselves, and it felt like they didn't want to be bothered. I felt like a pariah, even slightly embarrassed about my own condition.


After some 4 hours I feel quite better again, so go back to my seat since comfortable the rest of the flight will be ok again there. And so I was until landing in FRA.


Surprisingly, NO ONE ever enquired after that how I felt.


Your views would be greatly appreciated.


Is this standard treatment one should expect? Shouldn't the cabin manager at least have assigned, as a precautionary measure, one crew member to check in on me say every 30 or so minutes until I would have signaled to be fine again? After all, my condition could have deteriorated...and they wouldn't have known it!


Thanks for letting me know whether I should raise this with LH, and what to ask them. The least I want is that if ever the same happens to other fellow passengers, they get a more humane response, since what I received what so indifferent it's outright worrisome...