Lufthansa Two Class 747-400 Routes Announced

Last year I posted about Lufthansa’s plan to remove first class from ~20% of their longhaul fleet. At the time, 94 of their 100 longhaul aircraft featured a first class cabin, while by the end of 2014 they were hoping to reduce that number to 75.

Among the places where first class will be eliminated are some of their 747-400 aircraft. Fortunately most will continue to offer first class, though Lufthansa has now announced the initial routes for their two class 747-400s.

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Lufthansa’s new 747-400 first class

Via airlineroute.net, the following routes are set to operated by two class 747-400s as of next year, meaning first class will be eliminated:

• Frankfurt to Osaka Kansai as of March 29, 2015
• Frankfurt to Seoul Incheon as of March 29, 2015
• Frankfurt to Tokyo Narita as of March 29, 2015
• Frankfurt to Toronto as of March 8, 2015
• Frankfurt to Vancouver as of February 5, 2015

In looking at the seatmaps for these new two class 747s, some still show the old seatmap with a first class cabin.

For example, Frankfurt to Osaka Kansai shows the old configuration for next year, even though they won’t be selling first class:

Meanwhile other routes show a new seatmap altogether. For example, Frankfurt to Vancouver shows the following seatmap:

That’s a total of 67 business class seats by my math. I had assumed these reconfigured planes would feature Lufthansa’s new business class, though there are center seats in business class on the lower deck, and presently Lufthansa doesn’t have middle seats with their new business class. For example, business class on the 747-8 just has six seats per row. So I’m not sure what to make of that. Are they actually going to keep the old business class on these planes, and even install those seats on the upper deck?

Lufthansa’s new 747-8 business class

Interestingly Frankfurt to Denver isn’t one of the routes that Lufthansa is “officially” removing first class from, though between July 20 and October 25 they’re not selling first class on the route.

Here’s the seatmap:

As you can see, this is yet another seatmap. Based on the fact that the second two rows of the upper deck have four seats per row, I suspect this will simply be operated by one of Lufthansa’s 747s which hasn’t yet been reconfigured with the new first class. I’m not sure why they only have two seats per row in the first two rows of the upper deck, though.

Lufthansa’s old 747-400 first class

Bottom line

It makes me sad, though it looks like Lufthansa really is following through with their plans to remove first class from much of their fleet. I’m still not sure what product they’ll have on the reconfigured two cabin 747s, though in the meantime it looks like there will be some opportunities to book business class and sit in a first class seat, assuming you’re a Lufthansa elite member.