No new first class in Lufthansa 747, 380 and 787 (yet)

The publication of the first photos of Lufthansa’s future business and first class cabins has generated a lot of interest, but we will have to wait a long time before we can enjoy them, since for the moment only the airline’s future A350s are concerned.

Lufthansa’s front cabin revamp is desperately needed. While the airline had unveiled a promising seat for its business class in 2017 which had, unusually, earned it a 5th Skytrax star on a promise, this seat has so far not been deployed in any aircraft and strangely the 5th star has just been lost.

Last October the German airline presented not one but three new cabins with the promise that this time it would become a reality for passengers this summer.

And indeed it will arrive this summer as Lufthansa receives its future A350s (today it operates A350s with its old outdated business cabin and others inherited from Philippine Airlines with the latter’s cabins). And it will be accompanied by the stunning First Class Suite introduced this fall.

But the good news ends there, as the airline has specified that to date only these A350s will receive this suite.

Which cabins on Lufthansa aircrafts after 2023?

Such an announcement leaves one incredulous as we know that the German airline is beginning to lag seriously behind its competitors in terms of cabins.

The Head of Product Management Cabin, Paul Estoppey, recently clarified some things.

A350

All future A350s in the fleet will have this new cabin, named Allegris, including the first class suites.

B787

Nothing has been decided yet, which does not mean that the presence of a first class is impossible. But it is conceivable that the narrower width of this aircraft could be a problem.

B747-8

Nothing has been decided for the 747-8 either, but the first class cabin being in the nose of the aircraft (as you can see here) it poses fitting problems.

However, a future retrofit of the business class cannot be excluded.

A380

Nothing has been decided either and the fate of the aircraft in the fleet remains uncertain. There may be no retrofit, or just the business class or the entire cabin.

B777-9

It is the long-awaited aircraft that was supposed to welcome the new business class first, but its delivery delays decided otherwise. If it will have the new cabin one thing is certain, it will be without first class. Very surprising given the size of the aircraft, which, like the A350, is well suited to this.

Bottom line

The only certainty we have today is that the new Lufthansa cabin (First, Business, Premium Economy and Economy) will first be available in its entirety on the A350s delivered from summer 2023 (10 aircrafts by the end of the year).

The existing B747-8, B787, A350 will be retrofitted one day without it being decided when and without knowing if they will have a first class or not. The 777-9s will have the Allegris cabin without first class.

The A380 is not currently concerned by a possible retrofit.

For the record, we are talking about a total of 30,000 seats to be changed with the arrival of Allegris

In fact this is not so much new information as confirmation that no agenda has been set.

This cabin will also be rolled out at Swiss from 2025 onwards, and it is likely that given its positioning the Swiss airline will have a higher proportion of aircraft equipped with first class than its German cousin.