I finally had the chance to fly Lufthansa’s new Allegris first class on the Airbus A350-900! In a previous post, I covered how that didn’t exactly go as planned, due to a downgrade situation. In the comments section of that post (goodness, y’all had some opinions!), there were endless question about Lufthansa’s utterly confusing Allegris…
Continue reading: Lufthansa’s Mystifying A350 Allegris First Class Suite Plus Concept
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I guess they thought they could match the Singapore A380 Suites concept somehow, but with less real estate. Except it completely flopped in execution.
Even the QSuites double bed is better
the fact it took them 8+ years or whatever and they still messed this up is truly the gift that keeps on giving
What surprises me at this point, is that on the wider planes (B747-8 and 777x & A380) they are still sticking with this 3-4 seats cabin. I would have expected them to simply introduce 4 Suites with the possibility of the middle seats being turned to a double suite or sth.
Yes, the middle seat tends to go out empty from what an LH insider tells me.
I would venture to guess that the seat was originally designed for the 777X with four suites across, and they never thought through other aircraft types. Because the 777 has so much room forward of the #1 doors, there is limited fuselage tapering aft of the #1 doors. The A350 has not reached its maximum width at that point, so they did not have the width to put four suites across, and they ended up with this mess of a configuration.
„goodness, y’all had some opinions“ Haha! I appreciate the humor. Sorry that some folks were so harsh in their feedback.
This is so convoluted it's honestly hilarious at this point. What the hell is the market for this double seat? Absolutely nonsensical. So you pay for a first class seat, and then have to pay thousands more to get this seat as a solo traveler? I can't see 99% of couples wanting to sit in that arrangement. Like Ben says, you're better off just not selecting a seat and getting it for free if you're solo, which is a laughable strategy.
Add in the really weird J cabin variation, having to pay for seat selection there too after already paying J fares/miles, and the long delays in this product getting off the ground, and this has to be by far the worst premium rollout ever.
I must say, Lufthansa totally screwed up. Just a simple 1-1-1 or 1-2-1 config would've been fine.
LH has always been about the hype rather than the substance. I can't believe there are people paying the $10k to $20k to sit in those completely exposed, dated cabins in First Class, simply because they have some caviar service.
In 2025, they are by far the largest airline to still feature 2-2-2 business class on 80 to 90% of their widebody fleet. Absolutely disgusting.
There is a huge market for this. Only German ingenuity could have figured it out.
1) Asian and African males with very submissive wives.
2) Wealthy single parents with kids not old enough to be trusted in their own seat.
I honestly believe that being in business is more comfortable and pleasant than squeezing into that one-and-a-half suite with someone else. (Damn, with the lack of armrest or individual IFE screens, it looks even cozier than economy.)
This product would make sense only if the second person in the suite was there at a very deep discount. Paying full fare for two people when they really get business class plus experience at best (and probably not even that since soft product at LH is absolute rubbish) is nonsensical and LHG must be delusional if they think they'll be able to sell that.
@ Chris -- I wonder as well, though oddly, Lufthansa doesn't plan to offer first class on its 777-9s (or at least that was the case before the seven years of delays for the 777X). I really don't know what they were thinking.
@ Max -- Hah, thanks! I've been doing this a long time, so I'm used to it. And when posts get as much interest as that one did, it's bound to happen. 🙂
Must say, even as a solo traveller, I like the looks of the single suites more than the double suite. Sure, the double has more real estate but with two separate chairs with a slight gap between them, it makes the second seat pretty unusable. I’d much prefer the single larger seat with the windows.
why not require passengers to request it by fax?
Since LH can't afford tea or black coffee for passengers, it wouldn't be able to afford thermal fax paper either.
Exactly my thoughts too. To make things worse, there's not even a fake window (like in EK's GC middle suite).
Can HON assign this seat for free in advance before check-in? If so that would be a significant ($2700) perceived benefit.
The most confusing thing to me is that they can just have 2 suites who has a divider that can be stored so they can make a double bed.
"Man, I wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall when this concept was first pitched in the board room. I really wonder how that interaction went, and if everyone was like “yep, this makes perfect sense, let’s do it.”
Maybe it went along the lines of "we can't fit four seats across so this is the only option." To which the response was "go with it then. We won't worry about the pricing but figure it out once we see how people book."
If they almost never are seeing more than three bookings then there's no lost revenue and whoever gets the center feels like they got an upgrade. Better to start with absurd pricing then offer deals if necessary later than to offer deals up front when it's not clear whether that's going to be necessary and if so what the price should be.
It comes down to whether there was an alternative seating plan that would have clearly been better that they didn't choose to go with. Was there?
Does the centre suit have a bigger TV? Is that what the $2760 is for? If you’re travelling alone you can’t use the extra seat space because of the seatbelt situation, you have to pick one of the 2 seats to sit in! If you’re a couple you have 1 less armrest and have to watch the same shows on the one TV, and climb over one of you to get out, which is clearly a downgrade not an upgrade. It makes no sense from any angle!
For people who drive modern German cars, this kind of over complication and over engineering to the point of constraint seems entirely predictable. The fact that people need to call and do this manually is just icing on the cake.
@ Nikojas -- The center suite has a 43" TV, while the window suites have 32" TVs. So it is an impressive entertainment screen, no doubt.
How can a couple purchase 2 seats in the center when 1A and 1K are already taken by other pax?
The LH website/GDS will restrict F availability to 1 seat in that case, so even impossible to purchase 2 tickets online before calling in for the 1D/E assignment.
Questionable if their phone agents are even trained to manually open additional F inventory in such cases.
It's completely bewildering. I sat in the cabin mock-up at ITB earlier this year and just thought "why would you ever do this?", as everyone else seemed to think it was amazing.
Also, what I've not seen mentioned by anyone, and I suppose it's possible that the actual product has been improved since the mock-up, is how poor the "doors" - they're closer to curtains.
Their phone agents are among the least competent I’ve ever experienced, so I doubt they would be able to do it.
Very odd.
Could make sense by selling 1A inclusive of both the window and center suite, so you have a dedicated seat and a dedicated bedroom, similar to the Etihad residence concept. That is, have a real bed in there and not two seats
The seat on its own doesn't look special.
It's too much space for one person, but not enough for two. Even traveling with my husband I wouldn't want to be seated in the middle, because he watches movies the whole time whereas I turn my screen off for most of the flight, and having it on and in my face would drive me nuts.
It's just not a good idea :-[
Well SIA plans to fit 4 suites…so that probably means poor designing on LH side.
In 2023 LH went on a tour of Allegris and invited travel agents as well as some corporate guest and frequent flyers. I was there in Munich. They showcased the middle suite and the biggest question asked was...how do we sell this?!
I'm not big as i wear a size 29-31 jeans which is about 46-48 or small to medium. An equally slim lady sat next to me and it was tight.
When Ben wrote that he couldn't even seat there with his boo he's absolutely right. Those seats are tiny.
Wouldn't have been simply easier to go with a 1-1-1 and maybe sell the middle suite for 1-2 hundred Euros more?! Then again, the business suite commands a cool extra €600 one way! No one i know is paying that! LH, yo be trippin!
It's like someone was so insistent on the width of the two window seats, that they had blinders on and didn't care about the issue that it would create in the middle. If the plane isn't wide enough, just narrow the damn seats so there are 4. It really doesn't need to be this complicated.
You’ll probably cover this in your formal review, but can you upgrade to Allegris first class only from a revenue ticket for a business class seat or also from an LH award ticket, but presumably only booked with the LH Miles & More currency?
I’m guessing if you booked an LH business class seat with partner miles like Aeroplan, you wouldn’t be able to cash upgrade in advance on the LH website like you did.
it seems to me if they charged $2,700 to pre-assign to one pax or *or* pre-assign it with a +1 (e.g. the second “buddy” ticket is $2,700), then it could generate some extra revenue and keep the two normal seats open. I could see someone with a child or partner willing to do this and it makes some sense.
However, this takes an awful lot of customer education, and I have no clue how you’d educate the affluent public about how this works, how to book over the phone, which planes and route have it, etc.
Maybe they planned it 9 years ago.
When uh... 777X was expected to be delivered in 2020.
They have this issue to a lesser degree in business class in terms of monetizing seat assignments (though at least you will likely get some folks consistently paying for the business suite).
I flew Allegris in July - upgraded using United PlusPoints. At check in, all 8 business suites were available (ostensibly no one wanted to pay the incremental seat selection fee) so we were able to select business suites. So for an upgraded ticket we got the best seats in the cabin while folks who paid cash for business class were mostly sitting in worse seats. Maybe not a problem for Lufthansa if they sometimes monetize the seats but a counter intuitive incentive.
I would have expected LH do to quite a bit of research to see if that entire concept makes sense for them financially and in the way terms of what the highest yielding passengers want.....if it does, only LH knows.....If I were to guess, I'd say that the middle seat in F is designed to approach the F they had on the 744 on the upper deck with the seat and the seperate bed, as many seemed to really have preferred that layout (AF is going down that route too, albeit a bit more intelligent).
I do get the sense that many (German) business travellers love the options the new C provides (privacy seats, workspace seats, long seats, couple seats) since it's long been an issue that a cabin that is great for one thing isn't necessarily great for others. That said, the new C negates the need for an F cabin entirely in my view.
To sell it is simple, very simple.
They just need to change it to 'beischlaf' fee and add some more cover.
Beischlaf is the key.
Beischlaf is the new novelty to replace showers on board.
Looks like two standard class seats on a train, that happen to recline into two narrow sun beds on a tiny ship’s balcony. $5.5k? Poke off!
Finally, finally a real and honest review of the LH F Allegris Suite!
To all the bloggers out there:
Read Ben's blog, he is a role model in independent and objective writing.
@Ben: I will print out your report, put it into an envelope and send it to Carsten Spohr, so that he can frame it his office.
(+ I will fax it, just to be safe 😉 )
Same here but at the launch event in NY. They only had a mock up of the double suite and it got huge applauses from everyone when they "revealed" it, meanwhile I'm standing there scratching my head. I sat in it with my colleague and it was quite tight for two people. So many logistical questions... Though of course their sales team will tell you they've only had great feedback about it. For sure not...
“It really doesn't need to be this complicated.“
Have you ever been to Germany? 🙂
@Max: You are the reason I never registered an account here. I figured if I register as Max, you won‘t be able to post under that name anymore. Best, the other Max
Haha XD Hi Max, and thanks. But go ahead if you want I only comment very sporadically here.
@Ben ", and it can’t even be booked by phone." I think you meant the opposite, right?
This is the only pricing scheme that makes any sense, in my opinion. I really don’t understand how they expect to make any incremental (beyond 3 person occupancy) revenue with the current model.
Should have just gone for 2 huge suites with separate bed & throne and charged €8k per seat. Compete with EK & AF properly.
Lucky,
Remember when LH introduced their seat & bed combo for the 747-400 and ended up ditching it a few years later? Do you think that will happen for this first class in a few years as well? Not saying they will get rid of first, but maybe realize they screwed up and reintroduce yet another “new” seat that actually allows 1-2-1 or a better 1-1-1 system…othwerwise it seems like they are doubling down on this inefficient seat.
My one big regret is that I never got to try out that product. It looked great.
A380 doesn’t get this seat, and I am not sure the 747-8 straightaway gets this or it’s only business class on the main deck that will be new?
This is the issue in a nutshell.
The space is too big for one and too small for two. I'm baffled as to why they only put a door on one side. It makes it such an unappealing product for couples.
It's a double suite not designed for couples...even my kids would rather be in J with their own TV than share the middle suite.
The entire Allegris concept is bugged, not only the double suite. Remember the numerous different types of J seats, each requiring a different status or surcharge to be paid. Or - arguably the worst - the 1 to 1.5 ton weight they need to install in the tail to balance the aircraft, consequently reducing payload and increasing fuel consumption and emissions.
My question is (not that I have the means to book it) but if 1 person books a First class ticket and selects a window suite and, a couple (or 2 friends/relatives/strangers for that matter regardless) book 2 tickets on Allegris First class without selecting a seat. Could another person book a ticket and select the remaining window seat? Will the previous 2 people get crammed in the middle suite?
Alternatively, if 2 people book separate tickets in F without selecting seats, could 2 people on the same ticket book a ticket in F and automatically get assigned the middle suite?
What I understand from Ben's current and previous posts on Allegris is that no 2 passengers can be forced into a middle suite unless they call LH and specifically request it.
Otherwise, only 3 tickets can be regularly booked. If there's already 2 passengers in F, only one more ticket could be sold through conventional channels.
@ Mamad -- hbilbao is exactly correct. So in first scenario, the people wouldn't get placed in the middle suite together. In the second scenario, it seems the current revenue management system doesn't allow that, since only one ticket would show as being for sale.
PS - For those who remember, this is like German auto designers not understanding why anyone would want a cup holder in a car.
😉 🙂 ha ha ha Lufthansa live!
….. “why not require passengers to request it by fax?”
DON’T make LH too modern! 😉 they might pick up that idea, to promote it as modern technology and advance service from any competitor on the market!
I’m sure Carsten Spohr (CEO LH) & Co would find a way $$$$$ to get back a 5* Skytrax rating for such a brilliant thing!
Do these advanced paid upgrades book into A class so you get the status points in M&M? Or which class do they use?
…. simply because …
by a majority of people (i guess mostly US Americans) LH FIRST Class is still overrated and the entire LH-Group is lije a holy pig to them?!
To me, a total mystery and NOT understandable, simply because, NOTHING makes LH more interesting or valuable, then false expectations!
Hope more people do now learn from how miss-managed this entire Group is, only really survived because of their corrupt system!
e.g. airberlin, CONDOR, LTU, Eurowings Europe, Germanwings ….
LH simply is NOTHING special!
@ Peter -- The boarding pass shows as "A," but I believe you still earn miles based on your original class of service.
…. and i bet, somebody who had this brilliant idea, got a good and soft handshake from Carsten (Spohr) to finally have a ready to introduce project. 🙂 😉
Man, I wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall when this concept was first pitched in the board room. I really wonder how that interaction went, and if everyone was like “yep, this makes perfect sense, let’s do it.”
Lufthansa was ALWAYS good in copying from the better and more advanced Competition, but own ideas that really do work or thought all the way to the end …. are rare! At least since the 1990’s, it has been that way!
…. you probably never collected Miles, Points or ever had the chance to enjoy any Elite Benefit or lets assume ever try a real FIRST Class product, so you can just assume, what’s important to know in advance rather then calling it “problems”. Simple: …. “knowledge is King” 😉 @Iflyfar down the stairways could be “far” too.
Ben, I’ve been thinking about your Allegris experience. Had you composed your ticket order as a proper Meistersang following the traditional Nuremberg Töne, your troubles would have been avoided (and you could’ve booked that center suite gratis). Lufthansa's Allegris booking system only accepts properly metered verse from registered guild members.
They still bitter about losing those wars? Seems like they get a weird thrill out of torturing people through bureaucracy and over-engineering.
I think Lufthansa sees Allegris First as having only 3 seats in 1 row like EK 773 new first. The double suite is more for the “halo” effect and incremental revenue if a couple or mom w/ little kid actually chooses to book the double suite.
So 1E doesn't even have direct aisle access imagine locking in F and still having to step over your partner. Dual seat controls and two doors would've elevated this significantly.
I understood all paid in advance upgrades earn miles and points based on the new upgraded class. Only last minute upgrades at checking online or at airport earn per original booking. But specifically if you have an award ticket and pay up for the upgrade, do you get anything (miles for the revenue of the upgrade cost and surcharges and points for the new class)? Did you have your miles and more number on the booking, did you get a credit?
ZING! That snarky joke went over your head higher than a Blue Origin flight full of female Astronauts.
I had this situation this week, booked in J with LH Miles&More miles. Even as 2 F seats were available, I wasn't offered any upgrade option to First (neither in advance or at online check-in). However, at departure all F seats were taken - possibly upgrades from revenue fares.
Maybe it's because I'm German, but I can make up a storyline how they came up with this mess.
Let's assume they first discussed whether they can fit in four first class seats or only three. After much deliberation, they decided against four, since they would then have slimmer first class seats than their target competitors, so they grudgingly accepted that they can only fit three first class seats.
Ok, three seats it is. Now let's start with a proposal of three same sized first class seats, two by the windows and one same sized one in the middle without window.
@Ben Schlappig: You wrote some time ago that you like window seats. I do, too.
Now let's look at a scenario of a daytime flight or a mixed day/nighttime flight. Two seats in first class have windows, the one in the middle is the ugly duckling without.
Since we're talking first class, one should somehow compensate the passenger in the middle seat for having to forego a window, but how to compensate? Well, how about a wider seat and a wider screen than the window seats! Sounds nice and fair! And if it's a couple, then they can have one window seat, plus the wider middle one, where they can fall asleep together, if they so choose. Great, let's do it this way! Makes perfect sense from an engineering and customer perspective.
Now over to the pricing & marketing team. Let's combine the level of customer service creativity that Ben experienced on the same flight (i.e. none) with the logic of a monetization team that came up with the Allegris business class pricing strategy (price tailoring to the extreme where you pay extra for each and every real or imagined benefit). Then you'd end up with the current monetization strategy. Of course the suite should come with an additional reservation fee.
Should we also try to put ourselves in the shoes of the passenger and check whether it makes any sense from a passenger's perspective? Nah, why bother - we're the pricing team and our rule is that ancillaries and benefits are to be paid extra. It's the Allegris concept after all. Case closed.
And here we are - left with a product and monetization approach that doesn't make any sense.
Ben actually proposed a few ways how Lufthansa could create an incentive for passengers that would lead to higher total revenue. Like giving a discount (what?!) if two people decided to book a suite together (say two people in the suite for the price of 1.5 first class tickets) while selling the other two window seats at regular price. Then they'd get 3.5x the fare in total. Maybe they could even make that bookable online at one point. Maybe that's even in the IT development plan for the time when they merge the Miles & More app with the Lufthansa/Swiss/Austrian app.
So let's see, maybe they figure it out at one point while this seat configuration exists. Right now, Lufthansa managers are probably still busy with some other minor challenges they face with their innovative Allegris product, 787 and such.
The product looks so elegant and modern. I don’t know that I’d stand in line to sit there but I’d love to try the product. Perhaps, if successful, Lufthansa will add more 1st class seats in the future. For now, paying for a product and not receiving it or making that product seriously hard to reserve is pointless. Also, it is a new product and some teething issues may need working out. I’ll wait and see. Thanks for taking the trip so I don’t have to, yet.
What a silly statement. Germany is over those wars but you apparently are not. Focus on the subject.
As much as the Germans complain about the French, you gotta wonder why they don't at least look at how Air France manages it's F product so well.
you gotta wonder why they kept putting lipstick on this pig.... so bonkers....
Lufthansa should scrap Allegris first and business seats. Go with existing seats that don't have all these useless gimmicks.
I said "Asian."
Not "Asian-American."
I'm old enough to remember what Spiro Agnew said about an Asian-American.
(Not to mention, the anagram for Spiro Agnew.)
It's not just that Lufthansa sometimes fails to deliver. It's that they treat their clients with such contempt when it occurs
I would guess that was trying to use the same seat on the 777x 4 across. That way they save on seat variations as the main volume is the window seat and common to a350 and 777x. The suite was a fill in the gap rather than create a “non standard” window seat with 3 across which would make the 777 seat smaller.
@ Peter -- I credited to Aeroplan. The flight just posted, and actually, it posted as "A," so I guess it did post as discounted first class. Based on what I've heard (I could be wrong, though), award tickets that are upgraded don't typically credit, despite the updated fare class.
Allegris was initially designed for the 777x. At the front of the first class footprint, the 777x cabin is roughly 2 1/2 feet wider than the latest generation A350 cabin. I think we can all connect the dots, ending with someone at LH greenlighting a half-baked adaptation of the original layout for the airframe they could get their hands on.
@ Gregsdc -- Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Lufthansa's plan from early on to not install first class on the 777X? Otherwise that would make some sense...
Lufthansa's previous (and still most common) business class seats are utterly non-competitive compared to what Etihad or United already had about a decade ago.
I'm operating under the assumption (which could be wrong...would be neither the first time nor the last) that their long-haul fleet renewal strategy originally relied heavily the 777x, and that while the first deliveries would be in the 3-class configuration, the plan was to ultimately create a sub-fleet of these aircraft equipped with the F cabin. At least this scenario offers a semi-plausible explanation for the otherwise inexplicable layout. Perhaps I'm giving them too much credit...
@Ben - I've thought about this weird seat / pricing strategy a lot too. My best guess for why they even opted to make a seat like this as opposed to having say two separate seats in the middle that can easily convert to be shared with couples is that there simply is not enough space to do that effectively. It still doesn't explain the weird pricing but I think that's the reason for having this double suite in the first place. I've flown on it once and quite honestly, it has very poor design features for a couple sharing it (i.e. one screen, lack of storage etc.). Even because of the way the seats are seperate, it makes the bed less than ideal since there is a space in between the seats when the bed is made up. I feel like LH could have done a much better job in a few different areas here...
Hi Ben,
only 9 months after you wrote about these absurdities, LH finally understood. 🙂
Today (6 May 2026), in a newsletter to travel agents they published two notable changes, effective from July 2026:
Single travelers will be able to assign seating in the First Class Suite Plus Free of charge.
Couples traveling together get 50 % off the ticket price for the second passenger.