Thanksgiving in Mumbai: LH F, UA F, the Grand Hyatt and city adventures
 

I spent Thanksgiving with mrs. gleff in Mumbai, and have begun posting the full trip report on my blog.

No exotic carriers, to be sure, the goal was one-stop from IAD to BOM on specific days and Lufthansa had award availability for 3 segments and I had to grab UA for the final segment home.

It featured the standard reasonably nice LH F product for 2 segments, the single worst F flight I've ever experienced on one LH F segment, and an interesting look at just how badly the UA F product is aging on the 777 and how little investment there is in the soft product as well.

The Grand Hyatt is certainly a lovely property as the photos will attest, and I really appreciate the insights I gained into Mumbai, some of which I'm still chewing on weeks later.

Hope y'all enjoy, for what it's worth.

And we'll do a trip report of my upcoming February Asia trip, with a return to the usual mix of airlines and hotel porn... NH F, TG F, SQ F.. a pool villa on the beach in Thailand, etc.

But for now a more pedestrian report awaits ;)

Part I: Washington Dulles and the Lufthansa Senator Lounge

Part II: Washington Dulles - Frankfurt, Lufthansa First Class

Good report so far! I love your biting comments about Dulles. Can't wait for the rest.

Gary, yet another entertaining and comprehensive post! Thanks so much for sharing this with us.

Looking forward to reading more....

p

I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but do you mind divulging which villa you are staying in?

Part III: Lufthansa's First Class Terminal in Frankfurt

Part IV: The Worst First Class Flight I’ve Ever Experienced, Frankfurt-Mumbai in Lufthansa First Class

Nice report!

Pretty scary! :eek: Where are all these people coming from?

SAS
South Africa
Austrian
Lufthansa

.. and the cheaters from UA (or US/CO) who swing by on domestic itineraries because it's a *A lounge ;)

i always enjoy reading trip reports about LH 1st class terminal :)

I would find that very hard to get used to. I'm quite paranoid about time and would feel uncomfortable with someone else controlling me.

Thanks for the excellent reports.

The service to Mumbai sounded ridiculous and certainly not the norm for LH F.

In fact, the FA seemed to be deliberately rude to you and your wife. Her response when you asked for an espresso (a basic request) was just plain discourteous. "We'll see"? In F, for that amount of dosh? I don't think so!:td:

I've never experienced German FAs on LH having any sort of language barrier - EVER. They speak perfect English, as do most Germans!

Do not listen to this "Tivoboy" person who told you not to "call her out" - of course you should call her out! She screwed up, not the entire FA brigade that day. Whenever we're given those surveys on LH we have several good things to say about the GOOD FAs. If you don't call her out you will move the blame to other FAs as well.
You did not get what you paid for, which in LH F is basically great service (let's face it, the hard product is not competitive at this stage).

She needs to be corrected of her errors or removed from the F cabin in the end.

I am actually quite surprised with your amount of travel and experience that you did not let the cabin manager know about it early on. I also did not see a rose on your table!

I have been on a few flights where the service is slow or poor but have never been spoken to the way this lady treated you - it seems quite purposeful. I would have been very upset had my own wife been treated this way. There is no excuse for some of her comments and complaints about having to move the cart (well, perhaps next time don't rush things), telling you to pick one starter (never had that happen), and handing you and your wife hot plates or anything else. If you wanted economy class service you could have saved yourselves about 10,000 US each!

Also, anyone flying on an award is to be treated the same as anyone paying with cash. Perhaps you got your miles to spend by flying with them in F on your past 4 trips? Or perhaps the service you get may determine which airline you choose to spend money with for your next flight. Good business would mean the FA should not make any assumptions about a passenger on an award ticket.

duplicate

Thanks for the great TR. I was appalled at the Mumbai service and absolutely think you should complain (though it appears the former LHRelate is going to take a stab at it for you from your comments). I have seen similar flight attendant behavior in domestic Y class on certain airlines, which I still don't think it is acceptable and in international F this should absolutely never happen.

Good luck with the remainder of the trip!

Terrible Flight attendant
 

You need to let Lufthansa know what happened on your Mumbai flight. First of all First Class is just that the flight attendant needs to comply with the requests of the passengers unless its some weird illegal request. I mean you were acting professional and it looked like she was discriminating against you.

You are owed another First Class trip on Lufthansa as a result of your terrible service. She had no right to treat you in this manner. I would have spoken to the pursuer just like at a hotel I have spoken to the head manager on duty and was given compensation. If you had asked why are you not giving me an espresso or why are you not filling up my ginger ale then you may have gotten what you wanted. In my opinion your requests were normal and you should have not even had to ask for more ginger ale thats the flight attendant's job.

She needs to be fired and I want her position with no questions asked as I would have went above the call of duty. The moment you told me you were part of Flyertalk I would have done everything within my power to give you special attention. I cannot imagine giving bad service to passengers since they have paid good cash or used a lot of miles to fly in first class on a longhaul flight. Lufthansa needs to know about your dissatisfaction. What a waste of your miles.