A Lufthansa jet operating a routine flight to Africa had a very unusual route, adding nearly three hours to the standard flight time. What happened, exactly?
Continue reading: Mix-Up Causes Lufthansa A350 To Operate Circuitous Route Around Africa
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Many African counties only grant overflight rights to premium airlines without FA unions and therefore no PDB and other service standards. If this were a premium airline it wouldn't have been an issue.
No worries, LH is currently in the process to pull all administrative responsibility to Germany, so only the very qualified people around Carsten Spohr will manage such issues. You can lean back, relax and just enjoy the next fuck-up in style. (propably not in Alegris J though)
I bet that even its fault of LH you will need a lawyer to get the EU 261/2004 compensation you are entitled for.
Do you know of any airline where 3 more hours on a 10 hour flight are not abysmal?
It's an overnight flight, as most flights EU–SA are (with the notorious exception of KLM southbound flights). There's nothing scenic about any route provided it's dark outside.
Well, yes! Qatar Airways, Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific, and Singapore Airlines! I’d say Air France but only in LP
The winter season permits were valid from midnight UTC onwards but the routing had them entering some FIRs prior to midnight, so the choice was made instead to fly an oceanic routing for the first sector southbound. The return later in the day operated just normally. The actual permits were issued in advance as normal.
I love EU261, and wish we had an equivalent in the USA. However, because this route was over 3,500km, they may have needed to be over 4 hours late for compensation to apply. Either way, incredibly frustrating to be late, and if passengers can recover, I hope they do. This is also why travel insurance is still prudent; say this delay caused you to miss your connection to an expensive safari, losing $2500+ in prepaid expenses; well, the EU261 compensation won’t do much, so it’s good to have a policy that’d cover your losses (be sure to read the fine print, because some limit coverage to delays in excess of 72 hours or 50% of your trip, which is absurd.)
Another factor: The German airports have restrictions after certain hours (noise reduction, etc.) so sometimes they gotta get in the air before like 11PM, or flight gets cancelled. Many of these Europe-Africa flights are redeyes, departure southbound in the evening.
Have taken KLM to NBO and JRO. Beautiful views of the Alps from their 787 on the way down. And, if you can manage J, your selection of Delft Blue Houses!
So this route was planned instead of the computer selecting the apartheid/Nazi route without human intervention. The old South African Airways from the 1980's took a similar route except stopped for fuel in Cape Verde Islands.
It has to be more than 3 hours delay at the destination. The actual delay according to the article was was 2 hrs 18 minutes. It means no compensation and no lawyer will help.
Your theory makes sense. During apartheid days that was the route South African Airways took when flying to Europe.
Germans don't make mistakes. if you don't believe me, ask any German. they will confirm.
This flight was operated with the new Allegris cabins, so at least the people in First Class got an extra three hours for the flight. I wish thay would happen to me in Emirates First 🙂
I swear this isn't even the first time something like this has happened with Lufthansa with flying over African countries...
When they got 747 SPs they could go from Europe round the 'bulge' non stop. I flew it many times and SAA first and economy was so good in the seventies I willingly travelled the extra 3 hours compared to the other carriers now. I worked for them part-time as a doctor. I knew so many of the crew that if they recognized me on the flight they upgraded me.
Different days and we have a different airline now.
At the airline I used to work for, the computer changed the routing for a flight at the last minute due to weather to overfly a country for which rights had been neither requested nor granted. I’d rather not say which country but it was a controversial one. No one caught the mistake until the flight was in the airspace of the country that had not granted permission. In the end, they were mainly concerned with getting paid their overflight charges, not with the lack of prior approval. Kudos to LH for catching this before the flight departed.
Wonder if this was caught early enough to load additional catering (3+ hours extra makes for a lot more demand in those front cabins!)
Ordinarily, it often takes a little under 11 hours in the air, if you look at this week’s flights. And this one was in the air 13 hours and 4 minutes. So, closer to another two hours of flying time, for a detour of about 1400 miles. It left Munich an hour late, but still arrived only two and a half hours late.