The introduction of Lufthansa’s new Allegris cabin concept hasn’t been without drama, to put it mildly. Over the past several months, Lufthansa’s biggest issue has been with its new Boeing 787s, as the airline has struggled to get its new business class seats certified.
In October 2025, we saw the new Dreamliners enter commercial service, though with most business class seats blocked. Lufthansa has been trying to get these seats certified ASAP, and while the airline was expecting they would be certified soon, there’s now a big, positive update!
Most of Lufthansa’s new 787 Allegris business class seats are now officially certified, and are available for flights effective immediately. Let’s cover all the details, including some background. This is huge news for the airline.
In this post:
Lufthansa’s 787 business class seat certification issues
In 2024, we saw Lufthansa introduce its new Allegris concept, with the most exciting development being the debut of the new Allegris business class, finally offering direct aisle access from all seats.
This product was launched on the Airbus A350-900, but that wasn’t without its challenges. First there were supply chain issues with getting the new seats. But even when the new business class, premium economy, and economy, were ready to go, the new first class wasn’t. So Lufthansa started flying these planes with the space of the first class cabin empty. Fortunately that has since been resolved, and the new first class has been in service for some time.
However, for much of 2025, Lufthansa was facing a much bigger issue with its Boeing 787s, which also feature the new Allegris cabins (though without first class). Lufthansa currently has 10 brand new Dreamliners, with 19 more expected to be delivered by the end of 2027. The catch is that up until now, most of the business class seats on these planes couldn’t be occupied.
What was the issue? Well, the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) didn’t certify some of the new business class seats. You might be thinking “wait, aren’t these the same seats as on the A350?” Sort of. Lufthansa’s Allegris business class seats are actually produced by three different seating manufacturers (yeah… don’t ask), and certification is required for each seat type on each aircraft type. Initially, only one of those three types of seats had been certified on the 787.
25 of 28 business class seats can finally be occupied
In October 2025, Lufthansa began flying its new Boeing 787s, though only four of the 28 business class seats could be occupied up until now. Since Lufthansa has so many different seating types in Allegris, what’s going on here is that only the business class suites in the first row were initially certified, while all the other seat types weren’t.
So there’s now a positive development — many additional seats are now certified, so Lufthansa is able to sell 25 of its 28 Allegris business class seats on the 787 for flights effective immediately. Interestingly, the three seats that aren’t bookable for the time being are all in row two.
For what it’s worth, the Dreamliner with the registration code D-ABPM operated the first flight with 25 of the 28 seats for sale, on March 15. For the remainder of the winter season (through late March 2026), the planes will fly from Frankfurt (FRA) to Austin (AUS), Bogota (BOG), Hyderabad (HYD), Mumbai (BOM), Rio de Janeiro (GIG), and Toronto (YYZ). Then for the start of the summer season (as of late March 2026), we’ll also see them fly to Cape Town (CPT), Hong Kong (HKG), and Shanghai (PVG).
Bottom line
Lufthansa has had serious issues with getting its new Boeing 787s into service, due to lack of certification with the new business class seats. The airline already has 10 of these new Dreamliners, but up until recently, only four of the 28 business class seats have been on sale.
So there’s finally some good news, as Lufthansa has managed to get 25 of the 28 business class seats certified, and they’re for sale for flights effective immediately. This is fantastic, and it’s good for both the company any for passengers.
This Allegris rollout really hasn’t been very smooth, to put it mildly. First the airline had to fly A350s with the space of the first class cabin empty. Then Lufthansa parked brand new 787s for many months due to not getting the seats certified. Never mind that SWISS has introduced the same product, and will have to install a 1.5 ton weight in the back of A330s, because first class is too heavy.
What do you make of Lufthansa’s Dreamliner certification milestone?
Meh
Is this really "News"?
I think the message that they now can sell 25 instead of 4 business seats is a few weeks old. To me it seems to be a repeat of what was mentioned some weeks ago.
When I read the headline I first thought that now also the 3 seats which are still not certified had received approval. Hope dies last, it seems.
@ Scio_nescio -- It is news, as the timeline has been pushed forward. Several weeks ago, 25 of the 28 seats did become bookable, but then Lufthansa moved forward that timeline.
Thank you, got it.
It's really hard to keep track of the endless Allegris saga.
Can I book one of these seats using my Aeroplan points? That’s what I want to know.
@ Northern Flyer -- Yes, there is often availability with partner points currencies.
Time to introduce a new business class hard product
Yup, 100% correct, they've had this one for almost 10 years now. Innovation never sleeps!
Maybe the newest business class offering can be announced this December, and pass FAA certification by 2042, earning Lufthansa a 15-star SKYTRAX award next year.
Ben, respectfully, do you really think these seats are good enough hard product wise to justify the segmentation nightmare that Lufthansa puts their passengers through? Adding to it, as you’ve discovered, not even first class is immune from the absolute metric ton of unnecessary friction that they seem to want to involve in every cabin on the plane.
Don’t mean to front load with my opinion too much, I really am curious.
@ All Due Respect -- I'm with you, I don't think this whole Allegris concept was a good investment for the airline. Then again, when it comes to segmentation, the general trend is that more airlines are charging for seats in business class on select fares.
So I guess the idea is that if people are going to be charged for seats, there's nothing wrong with a few tiers of pricing. I also think it's way too complicated, and that this setup is terrible for families.
Ben - I recently saw that LH is rolling out its new a380 J product across several routes starting in April--but based on one of your posts back in January, I was under the impression they would be retrofitting only one plane at a time and only one plane would be debuting in April. Any insights on how they were able to complete so many retrofits on multiple planes relatively quickly?
They will retrofit the A380 one by one, the 789 were delivered with Allegris already, no retrofit.
Nevertheless, Allegirs is for me a disaster.....
Where can we read about the actual certification issues and how they were overcome?