chris63

Yes, if only LO would fly to MAN 🤞

IAN-UK

It's barmy to be so categorical. A rational traveller will choose the connection/carrier that suits his/her pocket, schedule and maybe FFP: you're playing Canute by telling them they're wrong.

I frequently travel from Manchester, sometimes Birmingham or London.
From MAN connections via LH or other *A carriers (lots of them!) very often make most sense: simple as that. Also Qatar and Cathay, but that another story
Clearly, from BHX here's no argument.
From LHR BA wins, except to quirkier destinations.

I don't follow this, maybe I'm being dense. I'm concerned with clock times only at the origin and destination.


So until 2022 I'll have less than 50% probability of getting the new seats? In practical terms that will range between 0% and 100%, depending on the route Faint praise, etc...

hugolover

Remember, in D Class, HON is "only" 30 RT via FRA, MUC, BRU, WAW, VIE in Europe per year (as long as no domestic C). Quite a lot of people get it that way.

That's certainly how MEP's end up with it and you (got) a lot more for HON that you do by forcing BArb on your itinerary via LHR.

Comatose.Captain

First, I did not tell anyone that s/he is wrong. Second, from reading FT, I get the impression few travellers are making rational choices. Third, I think it's not a matter of judgement but a factual question who has more coverage. I agree with you that your flying profile matters a lot, though. Certainly, AA/BA has more flights going to North America. Instead, LHG has better coverage towards parts of Asia or Eastern Europe.

I'd take a 30-40 per cent chance (as of today, it will be closer to 60 per cent come 2022) over a zero chance of a new J product with LHG any day of the week.

Let me give you a few examples. Say you wanna go from MAN to NYC on Nov 1. (I ignore connections with total travel time over 13h in what follows as you wrote you are concerned about clock times.)

With AA/BA, you can

- leave at 06:25 and arrive at 13:55 for a duration of 11h30m
- leave at 08:55 and arrive at 15:25 for a duration of 10h30m
- leave at 12:45 and arrive at 20:40 for a duration of 11h45m
- leave at 14:45 and arrive at 22:10 for a duration of 11h25m
- leave at 17:10 and arrive at 23:40 for a duration of 10h30m

With LH/OS/LX, you

- leave at 06:45 and arrive at 14:40 for a duration of 12h05m
- leave at 08:40 and arrive at 17:05 for a duration of 12h25m
- leave at 09:20 and arrive at 17:15 for a duration of 11h55m
- leave at 12:25 and arrive at 21:30 for a duration of 12h55m

By every reasonable metric, BA/AA has better coverage. It has flights within 30 min of each of the LHG departures. BA/AA has additional time slots where LHG has got nothing. Finally, it takes an hour less to arrive in NYC if you go the AA/BA route rather than choose LHG.

The same picture emerges for the vast majority of other destinations within North America.

The above search is in economy. BUT: This is the F thread. So let's restrict the cabin to F. Then, the difference becomes even more striking. LHG provides just 3 itineraries in F, the last one departing as early as 9:20 in the morning. Instead, with AA/BA, all five options listed above are bookable in F. So BA/AA is killing LHG even more in terms of the breadth of its offer.

hugolover

The problem with this is that you get spread very thin across mid-tier or slightly high-tier in the FFPs. That's why loyalty exists. If chris63 switched enough of their trips to BArb, they'd probably fall to SEN and all those EU trips via FRA would become extremely painful and CCR, with its minimal benefits would not be a satisfactory replacement.

If you're such a premium pax you fly F all the time, you'd be HON, CCR doesn't come close. If you're a Tesco Clubcard member or using one of her many upgrade instruments, you'd fly BArb, but if you wanted a true F experience you'd fly LH/LX. Plus, typically, fares ex-UK are a lot more competitive on LH/LX than on BA (her various fare dumps from INV excluded).

I'm afraid nothing will persuade me that BA has better or equivalent F to LH/LX. I think thats madness.

Now, no one can predict the future of F for the time being, nor the FCT and all the FCL's. With Helga's captive market, perhaps she can get rid of HON altogether.

IAN-UK

I'm pretty sure there was an LO MAN WAW service ... maybe not long-lived, and quite a few years' back.

Went the way of Egyptair's even shorter-lived Cairo flight from Manchester

chris63

Yes, there was, here’s hoping for a return of the LO flight that is

FlyerTalker324193

Proper F service on 76 seats in the entire AF fleet. They had quite a few more before retiring the A380 during the pandemic. They had even more before they went to 8 -> 4 seats per aircraft.

Similar story with Lufty: Permanent retirement of no less than 14 F-equipped A380 and 24 F-equipped A340-600. Just within the last 15 months, LH has scrapped 65% of its F seats.

So we can talk about "proper" F service, sure. If people really care about the skeleton service that remains. The bulk is gone. FOREVER. ATM, it looks a little better at BA and LX. But LX is also talking about reducing the size of its F cabin by 50%, too.

nufnuf77

Yes I am hoping DE soons restores services and restaurants and F lounges get restored thusly

FlyerLX

I ask myself what would happen to FCT/FCL if the F cabin disappears completely or the number of seats across the fleet stays small. Would FCT/FCL close, or would they be re-branded as HON lounge..?

HKG1111

I know LH is using the government regulations to keep their lounges closed. You will see once the regulations get lifted they will not open the lounge so quickly. This is not about regulation - this is about saving money! I had the discussion with a Station Manager recently and they cut on everything; even on number of passenger busses to save money. In DXB they argue the FCL/HON service through immigration has stopped due to COVID. Truth is that LH group wants to save money and stopped it. You can still get it through the agent directly. Dont get me wrong I am ok that they save money but dont try to believe your customers are stupid; tell them the truth!

NYC1

Bingo!

Customers will either vote with their wallets or not. Since LH is fortunate to have a grip on the German market, it has made a calculated decision to save money at the expense of premium service. A rational business decision but sucks if you’re HON or F passenger.

oliver2002

In late Q3 when they closed down the limited FCL service the visitor numbers were 30-50 a day. Makes no business sense. Even now they have 15-20% of pax they used to have overall, I doubt the C/F bookings are any higher. The booking numbers for June were so bad they postponed the ramp to 30-40% to July.

nufnuf77

Granted - but with AF/BA/KL/ and god forbid IB it makes less and less sense to spend hours in SEN lounge at FRA... even if they just have 50 pax a day it would be nice to at least have a private lounge space with some extra snacks when things reopen in germany

Nick Art

Aerotelegraph reports that the next ten A350 that will be delivered will feature 4 First Class seats: https://www.aerotelegraph.com/luftha...in-airbus-a350

I'm a bit surprised by this. I knew LH were looking in to this very strongly and had already planned to do this, however, as far as I had heard those plans were put on ice for the time being.
If aerotelegraph is correct I'd be very happy to see F return to MUC I'm interested to see if those A350 will feature the old Business Class seats but the new F inspired by the LX F that was put on the A340s and B777s.

I also find it very surprising that they claim the next ten will be delivered with F as there are only 7 outstanding A350s on the current order...