For the return portion of our Good Morning Milan, Goodnight Moon trip, my dad and I flew Lufthansa’s Airbus A340-600 first class from Frankfurt to Boston. Before I talk about the flight as such, I’d like to talk about my very bad luck with Lufthansa first class seats actually functioning.
Individually this wasn’t a huge deal, but this was the second (or by some metrics third) flight in a row where something similar has happened. It sure makes you wonder if I’m just really unlucky, or what…
In this post:
Lufthansa called me a day before my first class flight
I redeemed Air Canada Aeroplan points at the last minute for our Lufthansa first class tickets from Frankfurt to Boston. The cabin consists of eight seats, and based on the seats that were still available at the time of booking, I decided to select 2G and 2K — my dad wanted a window seat, so I selected seat 2K for him, while I wanted to sit as close to him as possible, so I selected the center aisle seat across from him, 2G.
The afternoon before departure, I got a call from Lufthansa… ruh-roh! That’s usually not a good sign. The friendly agent explained that the seat I had assigned was broken, and wanted to give me the choice of the remaining vacant seats. At this point picking were slim, so I was assigned seat 2D, the center aisle seat on the other side. Okay, that’s not exactly ideal, but whatever.
Fortunately once onboard, I discovered that seat 2G could actually be occupied, but it just had no electrical power, and couldn’t be used for takeoff and landing. That meant it could still be used inflight (so I could sit across from my dad while dining), while I could use the other seat when I wanted to recline.
Seat 1A was also broken, so the person who reserved that seat had to move across the aisle, to seat 1D. It’s kind of embarrassing that two of eight first class seats weren’t functioning.
What makes this worse is that the plane had actually been grounded for much of the two weeks prior to the flight, which makes you wonder for how long they had known about these issues. We were flying on December 16, 2025, on the plane with the registration code D-AIHW:
- On December 1, the plane flew from Boston to Frankfurt, landing on December 2
- After 11 days on the ground, on December 13, the plane flew from Frankfurt to Boston to Frankfurt
- On December 14, the plane was scheduled to fly to New York, but it diverted to Shannon due to a medical issue, and then returned to Frankfurt, where it sat for two days
So I don’t know when the seats actually broke, but for a plane that successfully operated a grand total of two flights in the past two weeks (minus the diversion), you’d think that there would be time for cabin maintenance, especially if they knew of the issue well before departure.
I wouldn’t think much of this situation, except…
While having two of eight first class seats broken sounds bad, I wouldn’t necessarily draw many conclusions from that. However, for my dad’s booked travel in Lufthansa first class, this was the third “strike” in a row.
Over the summer, my dad and I were booked to fly Lufthansa Allegris first class, though at the airport we found out that one of the three first class seats was fully broken, meaning one person had to be downgraded (and I’d say the handling of the situation was really bad, in terms of communication and attitude).
My dad’s last booked Lufthansa first class flight prior to that was in the summer of 2024, from Boston to Munich. The night before, he was informed that there was an aircraft swap, and that first class was no longer available. Fortunately we made the best of the situation, and managed to rebook him in SWISS first class, which I’d consider to be a win.
I suspect we’ve just had really bad luck, but I think we can all agree that it’s not a great situation when you have three flights in a row where first class seats don’t function as planned.
Bottom line
My dad I flew Lufthansa first class from Frankfurt to Boston, and the seat I reserved ended up being broken, along with one other seat in the cabin. Okay, that’s not ideal, but also not that bad, except for the fact that this felt like deja vu.
On the previous Lufthansa first class trip I took with my dad, a seat was also broken, and that situation was worse, since someone had to be downgraded, as it was the new Allegris cabin, with just three seats. And on the Lufthansa first class flight I had booked my dad on before that, he ended up being rebooked on another flight, because there was a plane swap that meant first class wouldn’t be available at all.
Are we just really unlucky, or does Lufthansa have a first class seat maintenance issue?
There’s a whole FT thread about this which has been going since Covid.
None of this is surprising. But probably better than their old First Class seats where you had to sleep on your back as there was a metal bar right as the knee level - only a German could design a seat like this and be OK with the concept.
Ben, it's not bad luck but the Lufthansa attitude and current culture where broken seats, indifferent business class etc.are par for the course. Of the two LH long haul F sectors I've flown in recent years there was a broken seat on one and the pax was only told on boarding with his wife and grandson.
I've never seen seat issues in SQ first.
I don't want to sound sarcastic, but it looks to me like a strategy of deliberate neglect in case of F class on A340S. They may take a gamble the class is never sold out. If it happens, they would simply downgrade you pronto. In the end, that still saves LH money. I bet they see maintaining and fixing old seats as a loss-making endeavour on planes that don't have much future left with the...
I don't want to sound sarcastic, but it looks to me like a strategy of deliberate neglect in case of F class on A340S. They may take a gamble the class is never sold out. If it happens, they would simply downgrade you pronto. In the end, that still saves LH money. I bet they see maintaining and fixing old seats as a loss-making endeavour on planes that don't have much future left with the airline, and may be simply a stop-gap measure while servicing "secondary" destinations
Get Delta into manage the situation Tim as they are A true Premium carrier for cabin maintenance and pilot scheduling
FYI: I am not THAT Tim.
I usually pledge temporary allegiance to the airline that would serve my current needs at the best price/value point...
We couldn't check in online for an Air France flight from CDG to PHX. Once we got to the airport they told us it was because my seat had a broken entertainment screen and we needed to pick new seats which we did.
I'm not sure if that was true or not since we had the row 1 middle 2 seats which I've heard are the best ones on that plane (no first class).
Anyhow it didn't bother us but I can see it being an issue in some cases.
So what if the seat was broken.
Are none of these airlines capable of making manual safety announcements? I can’t think of any other reason why a seat becomes dysfunctional because of entertainment system.
It’ll cost the airline thousands of points when the pax complains. Easier to move them.
A380 to Denver also had 3 broken First Class seats this summer... They were trying to sell me a $2k upgrade from $ Business to First, but then close to departure informed me the seats actually aren't available because they were all broken and don't reflect the correct seat inventory.. Weird.
@ Ben, I was on this flight in 2K a few months ago. The seat was barely functional - touching any button on the seat control panel would trigger a random seat movement. I think LH just gave up on maintaining the seats. Still a pretty good last-minute use of Aeroplan points.
Points might equal flights, however, taking a points flight on a known suspect air carrier has proven to be another recipe for disaster. One might well believe that this experience could well have been avoided, planning to fail is hardly advisable, yes?
GTFOH with that.
Symptomatic for Germany today. Things which used to be working excellent are going to be mediocre, at best.
It‘s absolutely not bad luck.
Multiple different aircrafts fly with broken First Class Seats
See my post
https://x.com/blatterjul8577/status/1986485115611193551?s=46
It‘s absolutely not bad luck.
Multiple different aircrafts fly with broken First Class Seats
I would avoid LH until they are able to hire a real CEO that knows how to run an airline. That includes, usually, dealing with maintenance on a >decade-old "premium" seat that commands a premium customer cost.
Carsten Spohr is too busy feathering his own nest - and trying to keep his wife out of jail in Italy after she killed a pedestrian with her car.
Well, at least in their newest cabins you'll have plenty of unfilled business class seats to choose from!
Ben - I had the same issue on the same route in September. I was fortunate enough to snag 2 seats in F and surprised my wife, only to find out once airborne that my seat wouldn’t recline. I was in 2D and my wife was in 2G. The purser ended up coming over after seeing me struggle and they wound up finding a 20 ounce plastic Coke bottle wedged under the seat. Once they removed it, my seat worked fortunately!
They're not "non-functioning"—they're obsolete. Why would you waste points on booking them in the first place?
@ Viraj -- If you're in Frankfurt and plan to meet your husband and son in Boston in the early afternoon as part of a previously planned trip, which route and product would you recommend flying with points?
Air France
@ Lee -- There was no saver award availability. So you'd redeem more points to connect through Paris, fly business class, and arrive later, than to fly nonstop in Lufthansa first class?
Honestly, I would do anything to avoid Lufthansa. I would have structured a different itinerary. I would have taken a train to Paris, stayed a day or two, then flown on. I understand that you might not have had that luxury. But, that's what I would have done. Reasonable people can disagree.
@ Lee -- To each their own, indeed! You must've had some very bad Lufthansa experiences to want to restructure a trip so that you don't even have to fly Lufthansa first class on miles!
@Ben at this stage, Lufthansa's old first class is on par or worse than today’s best business class products. Perhaps the catering is marginally better, but it isn’t fair to call the product “first class” without qualification.
Had the same issue on LH A380, both first class seats I selected were malfunctioning and received a new seat couple of hours before departure. Received 30K miles & more miles after writing LH about it.
If you were black you could claim racism.
If you were white, you could claim that the black guy who has a functioning F seat only has it because of DEI. In spite of paying cash.
David and Lee. Nice to see MAGA racists are alive and well and happy to show their racism in the open and as a badge of honor. Meanwhile on the topic at hand, LH just gets worse and worse and worse. Stolen points, terrible customer service, seats not working in 1st class. Wow, whats happening over there. How do they stay in business
Maybe this says something about the quality of the seats they're buying
What goes luck have to do with the plane being put in service after 10 days of maintenance with broken seats?
The issue is that they bought these seats >20 years ago. It’s absurd that they’re still flying.