How Does Lufthansa Fill So Many First Class Seats?
 

Number of aircraft with F-seats were reduced dramatically in the last years, as

1. A330 and A340-300 lost F,
2. Number of A340-600 was reduced,
3. A350 have not got F.

In addition LH aircraft have only 8 seats.

Also keep in mind that there are not many airlines with F. Their product is pretty good. Especially across the atlantic your choices are limited. LX, AF and SQ (one flight) are also good, BA F is more like business class. AA is subpar. LH does not upgrade freely and the cabin oftehn is sold out.

well, they do not aim to fill up their F cabin at any price.... So they do not always fill them up!

You can sometimes get last minute award seats and I mean T-72 so not much good for planning but if you're flexible they are excellent value. In retirement I can be flexible!

It's also very reasonably priced in my opinion. I'm flying with them in 1st for £2800 return to Singapore from Bristol via Frankfurt, plus I get a chauffeur drive from home to Bristol. A pretty good deal I'd say.

On TATL routes, UA has or is eliminating its F product and replacing it with a single J cabin (Polaris). As a JV product, those who would have booked UA F are pushed to LH. In a JV revenue-sharing model, it does not matter to LH or UA, but the service is operated by UA.

Yes, especially coming from South Asia. Many of my friends from that part of the world prefer transiting in Europe over the ME3 as they have less concern of negative treatment, and because it breaks up the journey more equally.

The marginal cost of Lufthansa F over J is relatively low. For example, on some dates in October, a SFO-FRA round trip is ~$7600 if F and ~$5900 in J.

My company allows us to purchase discount F as long as it is cheaper than full J. There are a non-negligible number of companies with similar policies, so Lufthansa's F cabins

I don't believe Lufthansa employees upgrade often because they are charged income tax on the fare difference.

I'm not sure why you think only Germans or Europeans would buy First Class tickets. Last time I checked, Americans and Asians are not banned from buying First Class tickets on LH.

And it has already been pointed out that LH planes feature 8 First Class seats -- if they are equipped with First Class seats in the first place.

HTB.

They have less than BA. BA has 14 seats in First on all B747, all A380, all B777 (except some at LGW), and 8 seats on all the B787-9. They also have 86J seats on half of the 747 with 52J on the others. They have a far more premium configuration than LH generally speaking. Also for both LH and BA some of them might be transferring from parts of Asia/Middle East to America or vice versa and not European at all.