It’s an exciting day for Lufthansa, as the Star Alliance carrier is taking delivery of its first Boeing 787-9 with its new Allegris cabins. It remains to be seen when most of the business class seats can actually be used, though.
Continue reading: Lufthansa Takes Delivery Of First Allegris Boeing 787-9, With Unusable Seats
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
At least you’ll have more privacy if you’re flying business class on it…I think.
In a masterclass of corporate foresight, Lufthansa — under the ever-audacious Carsten Spohr — has taken delivery of a flagship aircraft whose crown-jewel business class is about as functional as a chocolate teapot.
When your obsession with slicing, dicing, and monetizing every inch of the cabin results in 24 out of 28 seats being legally unusable, you’ve rather spectacularly outsmarted yourself.
But no matter — passengers can still admire the Allegris seats they can’t sit in. A fitting metaphor for Lufthansa’s premium strategy: all hat, no cattle.
What a waste of fuel and money and general slap in the face to the environment to be flying these planes around with empty seats because something so lacking in foresight and preparation by the airline.
I saw this one in the air a week ago as it was on its way to land at PAE.... I'm guessing it was finishing one of its last test flights....
Airbus and Boeing have both been incredibly patient with seat certification issues but there is only so much time that they are willing to wait to get paid for aircraft that are finished from their perspectives. Seats are a customer choice even though the seat manufacturers have to work w/ the airplane manufacturers.
It will be interesting how much LH will lose flying these in the winter when there is much less leisure demand making having premium seats all the more important.
Hm. Not sure I'm ready to take "Lufthansa's next-gen cabins" off of my Great Pumpkin list just yet.
I remember when CX took delivery of their first A350, one of the rows of the mini cabin couldn't be sold or occupied inflight due to certification issues for quite some time; the issue was with Zodiac (taken over by Safran).
So the issue here most likely lies with the OEM which in this case happens to be apparently 3 manufacturers! Yes, 3 manufacturers for one business class seat!
https://www.lufthansagroup.com/media/themen/lufthansa-allegris/LHG_Allegris_Factsheet_220426_EN.pdf
They deserve 8 skytrax stars for creating the most spacious business class ever.
In other news that I am certain Ben will want to cover is that Spirit has filed chapter 22 - or its 2nd chapter 11
Wow. I cannot wait to see the results of the new 'centralised' LH group management.
The same people that managed to commission a new J seat for dozens of widebodies that they hadn't the faintest hint might ever be certified, and who chose a first class seat for SWISS that requires a multi-tonne weight in the back of the plane, will now make all route and operational decisions.
What could possibly go wrong?
The seat manufacturers must ensure their own 'off the shelf' designs can be certified for each aircraft type. However, when an airline orders and oversees design on a 'custom' product it is that airline's responsibility to ensure the product can be certified - as you say, especially when using multiple manufacturers.
Obviously, this is ideally and normally done before aircraft actually start delivering...
It is also worth noting this will be the first 787 for Lufthansa with RR Trent engines as opposed to the GE GEnx engines.
LH should still go ahead and market these seats, albeit at a discount, to those J passengers who are willing to sign a biding waiver in case of any detrimental body injury/mishap... Call it a LH-prenup...
It’s easy to sharpshoot an issue as apparently simple as, “a seat.” Unfortunately, and unknown to most, certification of any aircraft seat is by far the most difficult of all certification requirements for a new aircraft. There are multiple issues to be considered in a seat but the requirement that is most likely to become the hurdle is, “the download lumbar maximum load test.” If this is the case, and Lufthansa is interested, I humbly offer our services as the only, albeit small seat manufacturer, to certify a non stroking (simple) pilot/passenger seat using our patented components and deep experience in dynamic seat design and testing using FAA approved test procedures and practices.
As well as certification, comfort should not be overlooked. Oregon Aero has designed and manufactured painless, crashworthy seats and cushions for both military and civilian applications for thirty-six years.
Thank you,
Mike Dennis CEO
Oregon Aero Inc
oregonaero.com
And yet United managed to have their custom Polaris seats certified before building 30+ planes with unusable seats. Perhaps Lufthansa took so long committing to the seats, everyone that thought they would ever be built have moved out by now.
Totally agree that "greed" often leads to downfall when the customer welfare is the least consideration.
Allegris is just a desaster……..i will never understand why LH didn’t order any of these nice standard seats, that are already certified ..
Lufty: My 'new' seats are here. But they're completely unusable.
ScamTrax: Here, have another two stars. One for your unusable seat, and one for your 'new' uniforms debuting next decade.
Lufty: Yay! Me a genuine 7 star airline now.
Maximum Respect! That was brilliantly hilarious!!
Hopefully the board of LH is reading so they can finally send Spohr packing. This “allegris project” should be a Harvard MBA case study of corporate failure.
Great article. Make me go elsewhere to learn why the seats are unable to be certified.
Who is throttling all this certification? It's every airline these days.
Can't we as a society decide to get rid of whatever lazy government employee is running that scam and do something ourselves?
I don't give a flying f* about what some they-them thinks about Lufthansa's seats. I just want to fly.
Me too. I hate this train of thought, but man it seems like they'll do anything to keep people from moving about freely. The same people flying private jets, mind you.
Remember: nobody owns the world. We all do. And we all deserve a chance to go see it.
Also if you're not some marketing-made, private-jet-flying pasty white girl singing about nail polish or whatever while scamming teenage girls out of every cent they have.
I will care about muh climate the day Taylor Swift stops flying private to wherever she's gyrating her sad late-30s pelvic floor next.
>Unfortunately, and unknown to most, certification of any aircraft seat is by far the most difficult of all certification requirements for a new aircraft.
Lol, Mikey, listen up: it's a miracle real engineers made us able to fly to places.
Getting government stamps on a ... chair ... is *not* the most difficult part of anything. I'll take my chances with people who actually produce things of value over whatever value you think you bring to the table.
My god.
The board of directors can now fly to their retirement destinations.
One way tickets.
AND START FRESH, LUFTY.
Industry leading passenger-to-lavatory ratio. Truly 5*. Lufthansa always leading and trailblazing.