Lufthansa will soon charge for seat selection in business class

Lufthansa has just announced that from now on the choice of certain seats in business will be charged.

No sooner had Emirates begun to get the backlash from its customers with an “unbundled” business class offer, than Lufthansa found itself under criticism from customers with the upcoming evolution of its business offer.

Unlike Emirates, Lufthansa will not offer a downgraded product for a discounted price, but will charge an additional fee to select certain seats.

777X to arrive soon

All this is happening in the context of the upcoming arrival of the 777X in the airline’s fleet with, at last, a cabin configuration that abandons the current totally outdated 2-2-2 for a configuration that alternates 1-2-1 and 1-1-1.

The future business class cabin of the Lufthansa 777X.

According to a recent announcement, the free seat choice will be limited to certain seats, with passengers having the option to pay for a premium experience!

I really like the figure of speech that explains that having to pay for certain seats is not a regression but an improvement of the customer experience!

Pay for a seat, but which one?

With an alternating 1-2-1 and 1-1-1 configuration, it’s easy to imagine that you’ll have to pay for the center seat of the 1-1-1 rows, also called the “throne seat” (the picture above should easily explain why it’s called that.

What other seats? I can’t imagine that the seats in the windows without a neighbor would be systematically paid, leaving only the 2 central seats in every other row as “free” seats.

It remains to be seen how much it will cost! Today Swiss charges for its choice of throne seats but leaves them free for Senator members of the Miles&More loyalty program.

A not so isolated practice

Unfortunately this practice is not so new.

We have already seen it with its “sister” Swiss. The trone seats are charged to all but Senator members until check-in opens, when they become available to all.

British Airways also charges for the choice of business seats…more than 100€ for long distance flights!

At the very least, if the free service is maintained (as it is at Swiss) for Senators, it can be disguised as a benefit of the loyalty program, but otherwise it is really stingy.

The only good news is that the airline reassures us that its business fares (which we find very attractive out of Paris) will remain unchanged. Well, for anyone who doesn’t want a “good” seat.