by Lufthansa Flyer | Oct 1, 2013 | Airlines |
Since Lufthansa launched BLUE LEGENDS, I’ve had many USA based Blue Legend users email me voicing their disappointment that they could not participate actively when flying on non-Lufthansa operated flights in the USA. In order to “Check In” for a flight on Blue Legends, a Lufthansa flight number is required. This included codeshare flight numbers for flights operated by United and US Airways.
To that end, I’ve been able to assemble a complete list of codeshare flight numbers that Lufthansa uses for flights operated by United and US Airways. I’ve made these lists available as dedicated pages on my website. The links below update the codeshare flight numbers for October flights.
For United Operated Flights: “BLUE LEGENDS: Lufthansa Codeshare Flight Numbers For United Flights”
For US Airways Operated Flights: “BLUE LEGENDS: Lufthansa Codeshare Flight Numbers For US Airway Flights”
If you are unfamiliar with Blue Legends, I encourage you to visit the app’s website or read my post on Blue Legends.
There are a few things to keep in mind with these lists:
Lufthansa does not have a codeshare flight number for every United or US Airways operated flight.
Lufthansa updates their codeshare flight numbers monthly and I’ll update my list to reflect the changes (I’ll let you know when I’ve updated the pages).
The list only contains the LH codeshare flight number, origin and destination and does not contain departure or arrival time information. You’ll need to cross reference your own itinerary and match it up to the appropriate LH code share flight number.
If you have any questions or need help with Blue Legends, feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment on this post.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Sep 26, 2013 | Airlines |
Lufthansa has made it official that it will debut it’s new Premium Economy cabin beginning next year on it’s A380 fleet. Currently LH operates 10 of the ‘double deckers’ and has 5 more on order.
The confirmation comes from Jens Bischof, who is a member of Lufthansa’s Supervisory Board and is responsible for Sales for the airline. According to the Bloomberg article, Lufthansa plans to convert 10% of it’s long haul economy capacity into the new Premium Economy product.
The German firm ZIM Flugsitz GmbH has been awarded the contract to provide 3,000 new Premium Economy seats which will be officially unveiled next year at Berlin’s ITB Show that will be held between March 5 and 9, 2014.
ZIM’s website shows the following product that is widely thought to be the basic model (subject to custom colors and features) of the Premium Economy seat (However it has not been confirmed by LH):
H/T to Oliver2002 on FlyerTalk’s Lufthansa / Miles & More Forum
by Lufthansa Flyer | Sep 24, 2013 | Airlines |
Just a brief update……
Barely a day after discussing the timing of LH’s 747-8i service to Chicago, it now appears that the 747-8i seat map has been loaded into the reservation systems for flights beginning on October 27. As it stands, the flight will depart Frankfurt on the 27th as flight 430 and return from Chicago on Sunday as flight 431, arriving in FRA on Monday morning, October 28.
H/T to ‘twitterer’ @FromPointATo / www.FromPointATo.com
by Lufthansa Flyer | Sep 23, 2013 | Trip Reports |
Thanks to my mastery of procrastination, I’ve managed to ‘book’ myself into a corner as far as reaching 100k revenue miles this year is concerned. At the beginning of the year I though I would get ahead of the curve and booked a ‘Mileage Jog’ to Anchorage to pick up approximately 9000 miles and to take in a couple of days of planespotting. Then things were a bit quiet until the Spring and Summer with 1 trip to Hong Kong and a few minor runs within the US. With airfares at their peaks during the summer and not much going on as far as needing to be in Europe was concerned, I decide to practice my advanced procrastination skills, until now.
The beginning of Autumn marks the beginning of what will be a very busy Mileage Run season for me over the next 3 months. To get things started, I’m off to Dubai later this week for 3 days to mark my first visit to the Middle East (I’ve decided to not count my trip to IST as Mid-East eligible). I’m looking forward to seeing the city in person after seeing so much of it on the internet and various travel shows. My wife is looking forward to me visiting the Gold Souk (obviously I can’t come home empty-handed) while I’m looking forward to my rounds of golf and plane spotting from atop the Sheraton Deira which actually caters to plane spotters and understands our disease. I won’t be staying at the Sheraton, but they still allow Plane Spotters to use their rooftop for a very nominal fee. As a bonus there is a roof-top bar to take advantage of in between arriving and departing aircraft. The trip to Dubai, thanks to some creative routing in the USA will yield approximately 18,000 miles. Not bad.
Two weeks after I return from ‘DXB’, I’ll be off to Munich for a weekend to visit with friends from Lufthansa Social Media and to take in an FC Bayern Munchen football match. It will be my first FC Bayern game that I’ll see in person (I’ve been a fan for years) so I’m genuinely excited about the 3 day trip! I think there will be enough time for a day trip to Salzburg or Innsbruck as well. Chalk up another 11,000 miles.
After that run, I’ll be off to Frankfurt to be there when Lufthansa Cargo celebrates the arrival of their 1st Boeing 777 Freighter. The date has yet to be announced, so that trip will be on very short notice as it’s expected sometime in October/Early November. Add another 10,500 miles to the tally.
Then in early November my wife and I are going back to Hong Kong for our second visit this year. She fell in love with the city during her first trip this past May and who am I to say no to visiting one of my favorite cities in the world…..not to mention the great plane spotting. This time we’ll finish off her checklist of places to visit. On our last trip we ran out of time to visit Lantau and the Peak, so these will be the first places we go to. We also plan on visiting Macau this time as well. Add another 17,300 miles to the abacus.
If that isn’t enough, it’s back to Germany and Slovakia over an extended Thanksgiving Holiday break. If schedules and logistics work out, I’ll be attending Lufthansa Group’s internal Social Media conference in Frankfurt and then fly on to Vienna and cross into Slovakia to visit a wide assortment of cousins, aunts, uncles and a very healthy 99 year old Grandmother. At least 17,000 miles to the balance sheet (have yet to decide if I’ll fly in First or Business for this one so a few extra miles will hit the account).
That brings me to December which has yet to have anything booked, but I think the momentum of October and November will carry over and there will most certainly be something added to the December calendar. South America and Australia are still missing from my list of visited Continents, so it may be high time to go!
So as it stands, between now and the end of the year it looks as though I’ll cover at least 73,500 miles (most of it on LH except for Dubai and Hong Kong) with what’s already on the books. This will be my busiest/most concentrated stretch of long-haul travel that I’ve experienced– I wonder how I’ll come out on the other side……
A hat tip goes to Michelle of Miles, Points and Mai Tais, whose post on her own Mileage Run Marathon motivated me to put together my own version.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Sep 19, 2013 | Airlines |
During a press conference in Frankfurt earlier on Thursday (I had to set my alarm clock to watch this one), Lufthansa has confirmed a major aircraft order that has been speculated about for weeks. The decision entails major commitments to Boeing’s upcoming 77x and to Airbus’ new A350.
Specifically, Lufthansa has committed to 34 777x aircraft with the option for an additional 7 aircraft. The 77x order is contingent upon Boeing’s decision to build the next generation 777 but it is widely expected to be approved later this year. Lufthansa will be the launch customer for this next generation 777.
In addition to the 77x, Lufthansa has also committed to Airbus’ A350 with an order for 25 (with an option for an additional 30) of the next-generation composite-based aircraft (similar to Boeing’s 787). According to LH’s comments, the A350 was chosen over the 787 due to the limited range of the current 787 offerings. Even if LH had waited for the 787-10, it would only cover 40% of what they would need in terms of range.
The first A350 is set to join the fleet in 2017 while the first 77x will follow near the end of the decade.
In all, the order is valued at €14-15 billion at list prices, but I suspect Lufthansa paid less than ‘sticker price’ for the aircraft but those kinds of details are never released by the airlines or manufacturers. In their comments during the press conference, Lufthansa indicated that this will be last big order for quite some time – no others are expected until perhaps later this decade, though they did leave to door open on orders for smaller single aisle aircraft.
During their press conference, they shared their vision for the future of the fleet, with a target date of 2025 — The plan is for the fleet to look as follows:
With these orders, we can look forward to a very different looking Lufthansa fleet beginning in the next 8-12 years. Gone will be the A340 and A330 workhorses along with the Boeing 747-400.
The press conference lasted about an hour including the Q&A session. Surprisingly, no comments came from Lufthansa regarding the successor to CEO Christoph Franz, who earlier this week announced that he will be leaving the Airline when his contract expires in May 2014 and join Roche as their CEO.
