by Lufthansa Flyer | Sep 21, 2014 | Cargo, Featured, Frankfurt, Lufthansa |
If you caught my previous post regarding ‘SAVING THE DATE’ for a great 2-3 days in Frankfurt over Thanksgiving Weekend, you’ll recall that I mentioned I was working on confirming the details for a tour of LH’s Cargo Facility. If you missed that post, click on the link to get caught up!
Well that confirmation has arrived and LUFTHANSA CARGO has invited us to their facility for a detailed look at their operation. As a bonus to the tour and based on their current aircraft timetable, we’ll also have the ability to visit the apron and get up close to one of their 777F freighters that have been added to the fleet this year.
The Cargo Tour will be limited to only 20 people due to security logistics and a limit on how many people can be on an active ramp at the same time. On my last visit to Cargo, I had a chance to be in the cargo hold of an MD11-F during loading and I can see why only a few people can be allowed near the aircraft during loading.
The tour will take place Friday, November 28 in the afternoon and will dove tail nicely with the other events that are planned for the weekend. As of now, there will be a tour of Lufthansa’s Technik hangars which may include boarding a 747-8i to see the new Premium Economy seats being introduced in a few weeks. There are other events planned for the weekend as well.
A tour of Cargo is usually difficult to arrange due to the nature of their business, so we’re fortunate that they agreed to host us for a few hours. I expect sign up for this event to be completed quickly once registration for the events open in the coming weeks.
At the risk of self-promotion, you may want to follow me on twitter at @LufthansaFlyer so you’ll know immediately when sign-up is open for the events. You can also get the latest news from VFT’s thread dedicated to the event.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Sep 18, 2014 | Featured, First Class Terminal, Frankfurt, Lufthansa |
This may be perhaps the most rare of all the Lufthansa Ducks since it will only be available for 2 months as the First Class Terminal undergoes a mild renovation through November.
If your travels will involve Lufthansa First Class flights in or out of Frankfurt, be sure to go the First Class Terminal and claim the newest addition to the First Class Duck family.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Sep 18, 2014 | Featured, Lufthansa, Star Alliance |
At the risk of becoming the ‘Purveyor of Misinformation’, I wanted to provide the latest update from United as far as electronic processing of upgrades on Lufthansa is concerned.
A couple of weeks ago I stated that based upon my conversations with United’s Mileage Plus and Star Alliance Award teams, United and Lufthansa were moving to an electronic process for applying Global Premier Upgrades to qualifying Lufthansa flights. The information that they confirmed for me was that the launch date was set to be September 3 for the new process that allowed passengers to request the upgrade electronically (Click here for more details on how the process will ultimately work).
Well, September 3 has come and gone and we still do not have the electronic process in place. I had called UA a few times in that time span as I have been helping readers with their LH reservations/upgrades. Each time that I asked, the reply was that no new date has been announced.
Today, I called UA Mileage Plus to specifically ask about the program and Premier 1K line agent was nice enough to arrange a conversation with a Service Director who could provide more answers.
After a pleasant conversation that did not include any sugar coating, here is the latest information that has been provided by those directly dealing with the issue (loosely paraphrased from the United Service Director’s comments):
The problem apparently involves compatibility between United’s and Lufthansa’s ticketing systems. The original plan called for the airlines to use the existing upgrade platform designed for those upgrading with their United miles for travel on other Star Alliance partners. This was thought to be the path of least resistance and efficient since it’s already in place. However, the technology incompatibility comes with the software/server/platform not being able to recognize the GPU (Global Premier Upgrades) on credit to a given Mileage Plus account. The thought was that the platform could debit the GPU in the same manner as it would debit miles. This is the major bottleneck in the process as it stands now since they can’t seem to figure out how to using existing tools for the new process.
All of the Mileage Plus customer service reps have already received training and are ready to go. Unfortunately, all of us are just waiting on the IT departments to sort out their issues and flip the switch on this fantastic enhancement for LH passengers who utilize Mileage Plus.
As more info becomes available, I’ll pass it along. At this point there is no current target date for the process to be available.
