Lufthansa A380 Premium Economy to Frankfurt and Munich

[yflyer]

Beverage service began a few minutes, with the seatbelt signs turned off fairly quickly after take-off. This seemed to be very much in line with Lufthansa’s reputation of keeping the seatbelt sign on for the barest minimum amount of time throughout the flight. In fact the seatbelt sign almost never came on during this flight, or indeed on any of the other LH flights on my trip, even when things got a little bumpy to the point of almost causing cups of drinks to spill over…



The immaculately groomed and friendly cabin crew member in our section of the cabin addressed each passenger by name when he came by for the initial drink service…



I ordered a gin and tonic, as usual…



This was offered to me along with a packet of crackers, with what appeared to be advertising on the wrapper.



Another cabin crew member came round a few moments later with disposable hot towels…

[yflyer]

Not long after that, dinner service started, with cabin crew working in pairs: One serving the food trays, and the other right behind him/her serving beverages.



Here’s the interesting thing about LH Premium Economy: On some airlines, you get the economy tray with a premium main course (Like BA, which gives you a J main course for the main meal in PE). Others, like QF are practically business-lite with tableware and cuisine approaching J. In the case of LH, they have decided to mix and match, with premium appetizer and premium dessert served on real ceramic china, as well as a ceramic coffee cup, but with the main course looking to be fairly similar to the Y main, served in an aluminium casserole.



Very interesting approach.

You also had real metal cutlery and a glass goblet.

[yflyer]

I chose the Western-style chicken breast with barbeque sauce, accompanied with a glass of white wine.







The starter was smoked salmon with potato salad. This was quite delicious.



The chicken was very tasty as well, as were the slides.



Dessert was wonderful.



I declined coffee, as it was too late in the day for me to consume caffeine…



After dinner, the cabin crew came round with Bailey’s or Chantre German Brandy…



…and after that nightcap, I was ready to call it a night.

[yflyer]

The last row of the PE cabin is right in front of the bathrooms, but you don’t get people standing around waiting to use the bathrooms, as the doors open from the other side. So although you could occasionally hear the flushes in the restroom, the last row of PE was very quite and comfortable during the flight.



I slept fairly well in my PE seat, although I still think 3 (or 4) Y seats with armrests raised gives you a better flat bed than PE.

During the night, snacks and beverages were laid out in the galley for self service. This included instant noodles.





When I awoke less than 3 hours before arrival, I couldn’t resist heading to the galley to get a cup noodle for myself …

[yflyer]

While waiting for breakfast service, I also spent some time checking out the IFE.

The Flight Info function is snazzy, but not very useful, as it seemed to cycle through quite a few close-up views before actually cycling to a view which provided useful info, like where you were on the map, and remaining fight time.





The movie menu was a little laggy, which made it browsing a little slower than it could have been.



But picture and sound quality were both excellent once the programmes started.



There was also a live TV channel, streaming one channel of live sports programming.





Audio quality was superb too.



The selection of video and audio programmes was smaller than SQ or EK, but I think most folks would have found something interesting to watch.

In any case, inflight wifi was provided, for a very reasonable EUR 17 for the full flight, with unlimited data…



Based on one sign-up, you could login on multiple devices, but only one at a time.

Note that this service is not available when flying over India.

I used it to check my flight progress on FlightAware.com

[yflyer]

Just under 2 hours before landing, breakfast was served. There was no choice of breakfast: it was a selection of cold cuts and cheese, along with bread and butter pudding.



This actually tasted quite good…





Again there was this slightly weird juxtaposition of J and Y tableware. You had a ceramic bowl for the cold cuts, but the bread and butter pudding was served in disposable aluminium. You had a glass goblet for juice, but a paper cup for coffee.

I think the folks who design products and services on SQ would have thrown a fit if someone had proposed this service concept (“Neither here nor there…not refined lah…” I would imagine the debate going on somewhere in Airline House).

While I enjoyed the meals and service, I did find the occasional reminders of Y in the PE cabin a little incongruous…especially the paper cups for coffee, which again carried advertising. Would it have been so hard to complete the picture with a proper coffee mug, and a ceramic casserole for the main courses?

[yflyer]

As we prepared for landing, I took the opportunity to stroll to the front of the cabin to take a few cabin shots…



And just to compare the ambience of PE with Y, here is a shot of the Y cabin…the difference is very apparent!

[yflyer]

We landed on schedule, before 6am, with the entire flight flown in darkness…





Landing in FRA…







We were first off the plane from the main deck, and I emerged into FRA for my brief transit stop before heading to Munich for a few days then heading back to SIN on LH A380 Economy, just in time to cast my vote in the Singapore General Election.

More on that in the next installment of this TR.

[yflyer]

Overall impressions of LH Premium Economy?

The cabin hard product is very good. The seat was what you would expect from a decent PE offering. The PE cabin is ideally located in a the front of the A380 main deck – a very quiet and private part of the cabin.

Catering was good, although it was much closer to Y than to J catering, with a slightly incongruous mixture of Y and J tableware and cuisine.

Service was warm and gracious as well.

Comparing this to BA’s PE offering, I would say the LH offering is broadly similar in terms of seat comfort (My point of reference is BA 777 new PE), although many aspects of their catering approach differ. QF’s A380 is far superior on almost all counts, including catering and seat, almost business-lite, but I suspect QF’s pricing may be higher as well.

I’ve not tried SQ PE yet, but when I do, I think a comparison with LH would be quite interesting.

Would I pay SGD 350 to upgrade to PE one-way from SIN to FRA? If I had paid a rock bottom Y fare for the LH flight, I think I might be tempted to do so, for the added comfort and space.

One caveat, though: if the flight was lightly loaded or near empty, I would actually prefer Y to PE, as it would be possible to stretch out on an empty row, and spend the night on arguably the world’s best value airline seat: the 4-in-a-row fully flat Y bed .

To be continued!

[Update: The TR is now complete. To jump straight to the next installment, click here. To fast forward to the A380 flight FRA-SIN on LH779 in Y, click here.]

[ycp81]

If I am not wrong, SQ and LH uses the same Premium Economy basic seat model, with SQ adding more bells and whistles to the seat. So I guess comfort wise, both could be rather similar.

[SQueeze]

Thanks for the TR

How much are they selling this for? compared to Y, what is the premium?

[icn.sg]

yflyer, your very informative trip reports are what keeps me coming back to SQTalk. Really enjoyed those food and restaurant reviews as well, these reports are in my must read list whenever I am traveling to cities that you had gone to.

Do PE passengers on LH get free access to the Star Alliance lounges?

[jammed]

yflyer, thanks for the once again detailed and comprehensive TR. A very good benchmark for some of us who will be flying SQ's PEY.

Has anyone SQTalker here undertaken a SQ PEY be able to compare with LH's PEY?

[Hajimbo]

yflyer, thanks for the once again detailed and comprehensive TR. A very good benchmark for some of us who will be flying SQ's PEY.

Has anyone SQTalker here undertaken a SQ PEY be able to compare with LH's PEY?

I second that - Would be a first for all, if anyone has done the SQ PEY trip yet.

[9V-JKL]

Thanks yflyer for sharing. It does seem like a pretty decent PY product.

When the front seat pax is in full recline, how much space do you have remaining?