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German flag carrier Lufthansa has announced effective July 15, it will upgrade the existing Boeing 747-400 on the daily Mumbai Frankfurt service, and fly the new Boeing 747-8i.
Mumbai will be the third city in India, following New Delhi and Bangalore to receive the newest variant of the legendary Jumbo-jet also called the “queen of the skies.”
Lufthansa’s new business class
The 747-8i features the new Lufthansa business class product which features a special air-cushion seats which converts into a 56 cm wide 195 cm long full-flat bed, and is one of the best business class hard products we have experienced. (Read our business class trip review). Lufthansa already offers the new business class seats ex Mumbai on its A330-300 service to Munich.
The quietest first class in the sky
The first class aboard Lufthansa’s 747-8i is considered the quietest first class in the world (which we experienced by personal review of the author), with special seats featuring cushions that mould to your body with a special “shape system”, and convert to one of the widest full-flat beds in the sky with a width of 80 cm and a length of 207cm. (Read our photo review of the first class cabin). The cabin features the the white glove, red rose ‘Senator’ service of Lufthansa.
Schedule, configuration and seat-maps
The flight schedule remains unchanged. LH 756 departs Frankfurt daily at 13:30 arrives Mumbai 01:00 the next morning. LH757 departs Mumbai at 03:00 and arrives Frankfurt at 07:55. The aircraft will be in a three class configuration with eight seats in first class, 80 in business and 296 in economy. The lower deck seat map can be downloaded here and the upper deck here.
Lounges at Frankfurt
Premium class passengers arriving in to Frankfurt can make use of the welcome lounge in the arrivals area of the airport. The lounge offers showers, buffet breakfast and importantly, an ironing service for the well turned out business person. For transit passengers we recommend you consider visiting the City Lights Senator lounge located near gate B42 though access is limited to first class passengers, Lufthansa HON Circle, Senator and Star alliance gold elite level members. Get more information on Lufthansa lounges.
Expect Lufthansa to fly A380 to New Delhi
Lufthansa’s actions appear to be confirming our February analysis on which airlines could be expected to fly the Airbus A380 to India, wherein we had opined “We expect Lufthansa to operate one A380 to India. It may upgrade Delhi to an A380 and move the 747-8i to replace the 747-400 at Mumbai.” Lufthansa CEO Christoph Franz is on record saying “We will likely make it [fly an A380] for the winter flight schedule of 2014-2015.” New Delhi has always been the preferred Indian destination for Lufthansa to deploy its A380, as told to us as far back as 2009 by Karl Ulrich Garnadt, then a member of the Lufthansa Board. So Delhites can expect a super-jumbo service later this year.
I hope they restart services to Hyderabad. Currently no carrier from schengen region flying directly to Hyderabad. I hope some carriers schedule research covers such aspects than usual aviation parameters for destination.
I think Lufthansa is one airline who has the guts to take on the big 3 of Gulf Carriers. I am one of the few travelers who try to avoid the gulf carriers after having some rough time with them. Now I always prefer EU carriers even if they are expensive than Gulf carriers. I have traveled FRA-MAA and FRA-BLR many times and recently flown to BLR with 747-8i. I was not let down by LH not even a single time and I was impressed by the Cabin products of LH. I had done many Long-Haul journeys using BA’s 747-400 and LH’s 747-400 but LH has good cabin products than BA or AF. BA uses their old cabin products to Indian market hope they change it if not they are going down for sure. But its nice move to use their 787-8 to HYD. Hope they change their strategy to other cities too if they want to rub shoulder with LH. B-747-8i is way too good and 3rd 747-8i to DEL shows they are betting big on Indian market. AF is the real looser in the Indian market of the big 3 EU carrier into India. When BA and LH are using their largest planes AF is struggling to fill their A332s. They have to think out of box to attract Indian customers. If not they might disappear sooner or later. They already lost MAA. Hope they feel the heat. My best regards to LH and I hope to fly with them again this summer.