The information came out discreetly last week and did not surprise many people: Lufthansa lost its 5th star in the Skytrax ranking, supposedly the “Michelin of airlines”.
Lufthansa loses its 5th Skytrax star
The Skytrax ranking assigns a rating of 1 to 5 stars to airlines, with 5 signifying the highest possible level of excellence. Lufthansa was so farthe only European airline to obtain 5 stars(Air France being 4* for example). There are now no longer a single European airline (or American) in this very closed club which only has airlines from Asia and the Middle-East : ANA All Nippon Airways, Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways, EVA Air, Garuda Indonesia, Hainan Airlines, Japan Airlines, Korean Air, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines.
A surprise? Not at all.
German style hold-up
It was in 2017 that Lufthansa was surprisingly awarded its 5th star, which made us laugh by the way. Why ? We can’t say that Lufthansa’s product is bad but in all objectivity its Economy product is not better or worse than the competition, its First product is not bad in spite of a cabin that shows its age (and far from Air France’s product) and its business product, in long haul, is simply unworthy with a 2-2-2 configuration without any privacy.
What justified this ranking? During our numerous flights with the German airline we tried to understand. Maybe it was the service? Good without reaching summits we recognized two things: sympathetic crews and especially a great regularity. We were never surprised for good or bad, we knew what to expect.
And then there was also the consistency of the cabins: you know exactly which seat to expect without it being a lottery like on some airlines where depending on the line and the aircraft you can go from heaven to hell.
But that doesn’t justify 5*. To be honest, what we noticed was not a sign of superior quality on the part of Lufthansa, which “does the job”, but above all a difference, at the time, with Air France, which we also frequented a lot and which had accustomed us to incessant ups and downs in terms of service and a remarkable inconsistency in terms of the cabins.
But doing better than an imperfect competitor is not being excellent, it’s just doing your job.
No, what saved Lufthansa was its new long-haul business seat. Such an excellent seat? No one can tell: presented in 2017 as a photo and to be deployed in 2020 on the airline’s new B777Xs…today it remains only a photo and will only see the light of day in 2023, hoping that the B777X program will not suffer further delays.
That Lufthansa won its 5th star on a promise was already surprising, that it kept it when the promise was not kept was just as surprising, to say the least. One can think that the COVID helped the airline to buy time, making some delays excusable, but the penalty had to come.
And all the more so as this a priori attractive (but not exceptional given the standards of the moment) seat in 2017 will be outdated by the time it is rolled out in 2023. As the first B777X has not yet been delivered, we can wonder if Lufthansa should not throw their plans in the bin and work on a product at the level of the standards of the moment as it has just done Air France with its new Business Class and as many other airlines have done before them with products that are widely based on the codes of the first classes(even if it means making them obsolete?)
Do not trust Skytrax with your eyes closed
Today, seeing Lufthansa rated 4* seems to us more like a return to normal and we can even wonder if, given the efforts undertaken recently, the next European airline that can aim for 5* is not Air France which has improved its product even if the irregularity of the quality of service of the person (and its attitude) remain a real problem.
However, as usual, we advise you to take these rankings with a grain of salt. Seeing Air France crowned best European airline in 2021 had left us as skeptical as the 5* received by Roissy airport a short time ago. And we are not the only ones.
Bottom line
Lufthansa loses its 5th Skytrax star, which is more of a return to normal than a real surprise, the obtaining of this star being more than questionable. There are only Asian and Middle Eastern airlines among the 5* airlines, but this is only logical.
Photo : Lufthansa fleeta by Markus Mainka via Shutterstock
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