Feeling peckish towards the end of a long flight? On most airlines a second meal typically shows up an hour or two before landing. For economy and premium economy class passengers on Lufthansa, however, the hot meal will no longer be provided as of the end of November. It is being replaced with a cold veggie option. As a small give back those passengers will also now receive a 0.5 liter bottle of water on board. The news was first noted on a German frequent flyer message board this week.
Lufthansa will also change the headsets it distributes to passengers, opting for a lighter, disposable offering. The company expects to save 175 tons of fuel, which translates to 500 tons of CO2 emissions as a result of the shift. No word on the impact of manufacturing and disposing of the new headsets, however, to offset those emissions gains.
Delivering on the 5 Star promise??
The changes come as Lufthansa’s 777X deliveries are delayed, owing to production troubles at Boeing. The new planes were a large part of the carrier being awarded a 5 Star ranking from SkyTrax. Putting aside the part where those rankings are generally meaningless in terms of objective review of the product, the fact that Lufthansa will further delay introduction of the award-winning cabins and trim other services while waiting is not a good look.
That the cuts are also affecting the premium economy cabin is particularly unfortunate for Lufthansa passengers. Yes, the meals are the same for the two cabins so it would be difficult to not have the spillover impact in this way. But the cuts serve to highlight a focus only on the extra space as a justification for buying premium economy now. Given that other carriers Lufthansa competes with do vary the premium economy service offerings as well, the ability for the carrier to attract discretionary passengers into the premium – and best yielding per on board space – cabin could prove more difficult going forward.
Any way you slice it, cutting the on board service is a poor development for passengers. Trying to offset it with a water bottle (presumably heavier than the headsets being dropped) doesn’t solve that problem.
A favor to ask while you're here...
Did you enjoy the content? Or learn something useful? Or generally just think this is the type of story you'd like to see more of? Consider supporting the site through a donation (any amount helps). It helps keep me independent and avoiding the credit card schlock.
Walt Beeken says
I was just going to book a Lufthansa flight from Florida to Frankfurt. Now I need to re-think that! It is ridiculous. They charge a lot of money and then cut back on service…….
Oliver says
Hmmm. I haven’t flown in coach on United across the Atlantic in a while, but I don’t recall a second warm meal on United. Don’t they toss some sort of plastic-wrapped cold soggy sandwich at you? So is LH dropping to that standard?
Surprised LH doesn’t serve better food in Premium Econ.
Alan says
Little late reading this but what stretch of fantasy creates 500 tons of CO2 from 175 tons of fuel?
Conservation of matter says this is more global warming ‘science’
Seth Miller says
While your snark is impressive, the facts do not support your position. “The combustion of 1 kilogramme (kg) of jet fuel in an aircraft engine produces 3.15 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2).” That’s from the IATA White Paper on the issue: https://www.iata.org/whatwedo/environment/PublishingImages/ICOP%20FAQ%20general%20for%20airline%20participants%20jan%202016.pdf.
Global warming is very real and its impact will be massive. Choosing to ignore that reality is an unfortunate choice on your part.
Azamaraal says
Totally correct. My bad. My excuse was just thinking about the carbon,. forgot C combines with two O thus tripling the tonnage.
Limited space and time prevents a full discussion of the climate change ‘group think’ concensus ‘science’.
‘IF’ human created CO2 is the culprit then the exploding population (2 Billion to 8 Billion) is the indirect cause. (if population quadruples then consumption quadruples). But the real problem is how energy is created from fuel. Just converting the coal-fired generators to oil-fired would cut immediately the CO2 by 33%. Converting to natural gas would cut it by 50%.
It’s ironic how the fads of the week come and go.
After Chernobyl Germany shut down all their CLEAN (no CO2) Nuclear electrical generation power stations. I haven’t checked but for sure coal became the replacement fuel in some form. So more warming?
Replacing all generation with natural gas would cut CO2 by 50% immediately but would put a lot of coal miners out of work.
Oh well – got a plane to catch.
Cheers