In September 2023, German flag carrier Lufthansa revealed that it planned to make a big investment by refitting its fleet of Airbus A380 superjumbos with new cabins, including new Business and First Class seats.
The announcement was quite something, given that Lufthansa had been close to permanently retiring the double-deck aircraft during the pandemic, concluding the quad-engined gas guzzlers were too much of an expense.
But with the eight superjumbos set to remain in Lufthansa’s fleet for the foreseeable future, it’s now come time to upgrade the aging interiors and uncompetitive premium seats.
It would make sense, therefore, for Lufthansa to install its new Allegris Business Class seats on the A380 – A seat that was first announced in 2017 but which didn’t roll out on a Lufthansa plane until last May after a series of costly delays.
Some of those delays have been attributed to odd design choices that have made the Allegris product challenging to retrofit on some of Lufthansa’s aircraft. For example, we already know that the Business Class cabin on Lufthansa’s Boeing 747-8s will retain the old seats due to the width of the cabin.
And it now appears that the Airbus A380 is presenting its own set of challenges for Lufthansa as the airline’s chief customer officer, Heiko Reitz, has now told Executive Traveller that the superjumbo won’t be getting Allegris Business Class seats.
Instead, unlike Lufthansa’s fully bespoke Allegris seats, the airline has opted for an off-the-shelf seat, which has a proven track record with several major international airlines, including the likes of Qantas and Delta Air Lines.
What is Lufthansa’s Allegris Product?
In 2017, Lufthansa announced a major upgrade program for its long-haul fleet, which it dubbed Allegris. In short, Allegris is a new range of seats for every cabin class ranging from First Class to Economy.
Allegris has proven to be an ill-fated, costly, and long-delayed project for Lufthansa, with the first aircraft to be fitted out with the new seats only taking to the skies in May 2024… Even then, the First Class cabin wasn’t finished, and the aircraft was initially deployed with a row of Economy seats installed where the First Class cabin should have been.
In Business Class, Lufthansa has designed a fully bespoke project with direct aisle access at every seat but with varying levels of privacy and comfort between different seats in the same cabin. The idea is that Lufthansa will be able to monetize these seats better by getting passengers to pay more for the most comfortable seats.
Amongst the myriad problems that have beset the Allegris rollout is news that the US Federal Aviation Administration has so far refused to certify the Business Class seats on Lufthansa’s new Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
The problem could be so serious that Lufthansa is considering taking delivery of the planes and flying them with an empty Business Class cabin until it can iron out the certification concerns.
The seat is called Vantage XL and is manufactured by Northern Irish-based manufacturer Thompson Aero Seating, offering direct-aisle access, a fully flat bed, and even a ‘honey seating’ configuration as an option.
“We are introducing a standard, very high-quality, all-aisle access product in business class,” Reitz told Executive Traveller last week. “This is going to be starting (in the) beginning of next year.”
Some Lufthansa passengers should already be familiar with the VantageXL seat (or ‘platform’ refers to it as it is highly customizable) as some Boeing 787 Dreamliners that the airline acquired from Philippines Airlines already featured these seats and Lufthansa simply changed the seat covers to match its own design colors.
Since Thompson built the VantageXL seats for Philippines Airlines, however, the platform has undergone a significant upgrade and Lufthansa will have a variety of new options available to customize the seat, including adding a sliding privacy door.
VantageXL has also proved to be a popular choice with some airlines as it offers the ability to add two ‘First Class Suites’ at the front of the cabin without losing any additional space.
Virgin Atlantic became the first airline to install these seats on its Airbus A330neo aircraft, and while Lufthansa has its own bespoke First Class product, these could still fit into the Allegris theme that the airline has pursued with different Business Class seats offering varying levels of comfort.
Little more research would be nice. The seats are installed in the A350 they acquired from Philipine Airlines, not the 787.