by Lufthansa Flyer | Aug 11, 2015 | 747-8i, Featured, Lufthansa |
In case you missed it, last week was a week to forget for Lufthansa’s D-ABYA, their first 747-8i that entered service back on June 1, 2012.
On 2 separate occasions, ‘Brandi’ had to make unscheduled landings due to smoke/fire alarms in the nose gear bay being triggered. When fire alarms go off, the plane has to land ASAP. No questions, no debate and if not possible, no fuel dump.
The first incident took place only a few minutes into her flight on Tuesday August 4 from Frankfurt to Rio de Janeiro. She returned safely shortly after take off and passengers were booked on later flights to Rio.
Then on August 7, while enroute from Frankfurt to New York (JFK), she was forced to land in Manchester, England for the same reason. ‘YA’ spent the night in MAN and flew back with her passengers to FRA the next day. Passengers were accommodated at local hotels in MAN and then rebooked on flights to get them to NYC after returning to FRA.
Thanks to a few well placed sources (FlyerTalk’s Oliver2002 for example), the reason behind these false alarms has been discovered. Apparently Frankfurt’s ground crews had jammed a tow bar in the nose gear of D-ABYA and in the process of freeing it damaged the smoke and fire sensors.
The problem has been identified and resolved. Fortunately it had nothing to do with the aircraft itself or its reliability but rather with a ground handler that should have paid better attention to what they were doing around a 350 million dollar aircraft!
by Lufthansa Flyer | Aug 9, 2015 | Featured, Lufthansa, Strike |
LUFTHANSA and the union that represents the majority of their cabin crews, ‘UFO’, have both expressed optimism after recent negotiations.
Initially the union had given Lufthansa until September 1 to propose acceptable solutions to the dispute, but thanks to the success of the negotiations the deadline has been moved back to November 1. According to comments from LH and the union, it appears that they have found common ground on several issues, yet have a few more to resolve.
With this recent development and the fact that the Pilot’s union is also satisfied with the current pace of negotiations, it appears that strike threats have been eliminated for the coming months.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Aug 3, 2015 | Featured, Lufthansa, Swiss |
Both airlines began advertising a 3 day Economy Fare sale from the USA to Europe running between now and August 5.
The fare sale covers all of their US gateways. Most fares from the Midwest and East Coast range between $800 and $900 while West Coast fares range between $950 and $1050. However, the absolute best fare that I was able to find was a very attractive $659 between Orlando and Copenhagen advertised by Lufthansa.
The fare sales are a bit of an overlap since either carrier can operate your flight. Additionally Austrian, Brussels, Air Canada and United can be flown as well. Just pay attention to your carrier since the miles you earn will be determined by the carrier operating your flight. With these deep-discount Economy fare ‘buckets’, there are instances where a non LH Group flight will earn you ZERO miles.
The fare sale covers travel for 2 separate periods. One sale covers travel between August 23 and October 31 while the 2nd part of the sale covers November 1 to December 10. Fares were generally lower for the November-December option.
The Lufthansa.com version of the sale.
The Swiss.com version of the sale.
The Terms/Conditions:
Tickets must be purchased by August 5, 2015
Tickets must be purchased 14 days ahead of departure date.
Saturday night stay is required.
A weekend surcharge of $60 may apply.
