by Lufthansa Flyer | Oct 24, 2017 | AnyWay, Austrian, Featured, Lufthansa, Swiss |
LH group announced a new way of booking trips to a limited group of destinations that help reduce your costs and add a bit of mystery to your trip.
The way it works is that you first tell LH the dates you want to depart and return on and then book your trip as usual. Two days before your departure, you’ll get an email from LH letting you know what flights you’ll be taking. Don’t fret, you’ll depart and return on the days you booked, but you might get some creative routing for the trip. Your flights will be operated by a combination of Lufthansa, SWISS, or Austrian aircraft.
This new program is dubbed ‘AnyWay’ and it covers travel from most of Lufthansa’s German gateways including Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Dusseldorf, and Leipzig. However, the ‘AnyWay’ concept only covers 10 destinations thus far: Miami, Bangkok, Mumbai, Dubai, Boston, Delhi, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Peking, Shanghai, and Tel Aviv.
Keep in mind that this is only available to Economy Class bookings made for travel on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
For your willingness to be this flexible, the fares will be a bit cheaper than the lowest prices usually offered on a given route. In most cases, I observed fares being €50 to €100 less.
Sounds like fun if you’re into saving a small bit of money, but there can be some consequences to being frugal…..
The biggest issue that I see and would have with this program is that you’ll be steered to aircraft that will already be near capacity and the airlines are trying to squeeze every last ‘sardine’ into the tin. What this might mean for you is that you may be stuck in a middle seat on a very overcrowded A340 aircraft as you jet off to Asia. Since you’ll be among the last passengers to be put on a flight, your odds of getting a good seat diminish dramatically. If you book for you and your family, your odds of sitting together all but vanish if the plane is full.
However, if you’re into sitting at the back of an A340 in the seat next to the stairs going down to lavatories, you’ll have virtually everyone sitting in coach walking past you at least twice during the flight so you might be able to make a few friends as a result! 😉
‘AnyWay’ is set to launch on October 23 and will be available for travel from Mid-December to Mid-March in most cases.
To learn more about the program and to book travel under ‘AnyWay’, please visit the AnyWay webpage. However as of this writing, it appears that the webpage is not yet functioning even though the launch was set for October 23.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Jun 14, 2017 | Electronics Ban, Featured, Passenger Experience, TSA |
In the soap opera known as ‘Will There, Or Won’t There Be An Electronics Ban’ it appears that the latest chapter suggests that we may not have much to worry about.
Speaking at the International Summit on Borders, Homeland Security boss John Kelly state that he ‘has a fair amount of confidence’ with the notion that aviation security measures can be improved and increased, thus benefiting passengers.
He added “The good news is, I think … with a fair amount of confidence, that we can raise the level overall of aviation security and not inconvenience the traveling public very much, if at all in some cases and just really add to the security and get our arms around”
Though he didn’t altogether come out say there’s nothing to worry about regarding a ban, it appears that he may be less keen than he was a few weeks ago on ruining travel for millions of people.
Let’s see how the story changes in the coming days and weeks. It seems like we get alternating positions from Homeland Security as far as the ban is concerned.
by Lufthansa Flyer | May 2, 2017 | Europe, Featured, Passenger Experience, Terror Alert, Travel |
Citing recent terrorist attacks in France, the UK, Sweden, and Russia, the US State Department today issued an alert asking Americans traveling to Europe to take extra precautions and increase their vigilance during their travels. The alert is to remain in place until September 1, 2017.
The alert itself cited no specific threat, but simply asks that Americans do their due diligence when traveling in countries that may carry extra risks to visitors.
The text, exactly as released by the State Department on May 1, 2017:
by Lufthansa Flyer | Apr 25, 2017 | Featured, Passenger Experience, Security, TSA |
Earlier today, headlines started to pop up suggesting that the TSA was entertaining the idea of expanding the current Laptop ban to include the whole of Europe, including the UK. Mind you, this is a TSA that has a 95% failure rate when it comes to screening tests.
Currently the ban applies to certain carriers operating from certain Mid-Eastern countries, so news of the ban being expanding comes as a bit of a frustrating surprise.
Homeland Security officials in the USA have not commented on this other than the generic and predictable ‘We’re considering all options and have not made any decisions’ type of worthless commentary.
Any new policy or expansion of the existing version would mean that a device larger than a ‘Smart Phone’ would be considered too large to bring aboard, including any kind of laptop or tablet device.
Maybe at this point, major US and European carriers will speak up against the ridiculous policy and sway their respective governments. Now that the shoe may be put on the other foot, lets see how non-Mideast carriers will respond.
Predictably to this point, the non-M/E carriers have not spoken out against the current ban since the existing policy hurts their competitors. Let’s see what kind of whining we’ll get if everyone has to play by the same rules, regardless of how stupid and ineffective the rules would be.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Mar 21, 2017 | Featured, Passenger Experience, Security, Terror Alert |
The United Kingdom has following in the wake of the TSA and has announced that they too will ban certain electronic devices from being brought aboard certain flights operating to the UK from the Mid East.
The UK lists differs from the US version in that it includes airlines other than those based in the Mid East, and also covers countries that are not on the TSA’s list.
Specifically, the airlines impacted by the UK ban include:
Atlas Global, British Airways, Easy Jet, Jet2, Thomas Cook, Monarch, Turkish Airlines, Middle East Airlines (MEA), Egyptair, Saudia, Royal Jordanian, and Tunis Air.
The countries affected by the UK ban include direct flights from:
Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia.
According to various outlets, there appears to be a bit of an Intelligence Alert by various government agencies warning that there may be terror attacks planned that would involve the use of electronics brought aboard aircraft.
The ban prohibits any electronic device large than a smart phone, including iPads, large cameras, and laptops from being brought on board, forcing passengers to pack these items in their checked luggage.
