Lufthansa’s latest subsidiary, City: photocopy or innovation?

Lufthansa loves a subsidiary, from Jump to CityLine to Germanwings to Eurowings to Eurowings Europe to Eurowings Discover to Discover Airlines to Air Dolomiti — and that’s not even getting into Swiss and Swiss Global and Edelweiss and Helvetic and Austrian and Brussels and all the rest. The “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” equivalent aphorism at Lufthansa seems to be “nobody ever got fired for suggesting a cost-cutting, union-busting subsidiary”.

Lufthansa City Airlines, IATA code VL, callsign City Air, is just the latest, operating out of Munich, and your author was on its very second flight — the return of its inaugural to Birmingham in the UK. But what exactly is Lufthansa City?

(I’ll start with a quick disclaimer: Lufthansa provided this ticket in order to get me to Munich to try out its Allegris business class product, but as ever all opinions are my own. Given that I didn’t participate in the booking process, I can’t comment on how Lufthansa-like it is, but from a couple of dummy bookings I tried it seems pretty similar.)

The Birmingham Airport experience was very much as normal, with an efficient check-in at the Lufthansa Group desk (no special signs or anything for City there), and the usual dreadful experience at one of the UK’s worst airports was no better or worse than Lufthansa usually offers.

Boarding was the same hurry-up-and-wait #boardingnotboarding experience, although it was particularly unpleasant on a hot summer’s day in full sunshine. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a similar experience on Lufthansa, though, so full clone marks there.

At the door, the usual Lufthansa yellow dry-erase section welcomed us aboard, with smiling crew in a naval-style blue uniform that was either the standard Lufthansa outfit or as near to it that I couldn’t tell the difference, with the possible exception of the scarves.

One of the few remaining elements of the signature brand yellow was, as on Lufthansa, at the door. Image: John Walton

Inflight, the seats were the same Geven Essenza in the same Lufthansa colours as on any other one-year-old Lufthansa A320neo (in this case transferred from CityLine), including the “Ihr Freiraum” headrest antimacassars on the blocked middle seats.

An all grey Geven Essenza slimline seat on the Lufthansa City Airlines A320neo

No complaints about the Lufthansa Geven Essenza, which is a great slimline. Image: John Walton

There was one of the usual Lufthansa wetlease cards, but for City — I’d had something very similar a month ago on an airBaltic-under-LH-code wetlease — as well as a Lufthansa City safety card. The buy-on-board menu, though, was Lufthansa-Lufthansa, as was the heavy Worldshop inflight shopping catalogue.

(Given that Lufthansa is dabbling in passenger environmental surcharges, I’d suggest it consider swapping these heavy magazines for a QR code on the seatback.)

A passenger is holding up the Lufthansa City Airlines safety card and buy-on-board menu

It’s weird that there’s a special safety card. Image: John Walton

An inaugural flight is always going to be a little operationally odd, and indeed they’re often delayed — as ours was by around 30 minutes departing from Birmingham, which I’d presume was at least partly the result of the bosses and crew having the photo shoot that popped into my inbox while I was connecting in Munich. Still, a thirty-minute delay is practically on time this summer, so no major complaints there, and the crew made up some of the delay en route, landing less than 15 minutes behind schedule.

Lufthansa City Airlines galley on the A320neo with trolleys and galley inserts in view

The galley equipment was all Lufthansa. Image: John Walton

The drinks list was the Lufthansa standard, and I plumped for my habitual Campari Sekt, while the food was the normal European Lufthansa chilled plate. This one was particularly unpleasant with a greasy yet dry cold rösti potato hash brown, but not out of the Lufthansa norm.

Lufthansa City Airlines meal consisting of a protein, salad and fruit.

The meal was as you’d find on regular Lufthansa. Image: John Walton

There was no inflight connectivity, which again feels about right for a Lufthansa A320neo of this sort of age. (Lufthansa’s latest IFC retrofit program will see it fit EAN, the hybrid S-band satellite/air-to-ground connectivity, on hundreds of narrowbodies.)

Side view of Lufthansa City Airlines economy class seats, sitting empty

Apart from the extra pamphlets in the seatback, this could be any Lufthansa A320neo. Image: John Walton

On landing in Munich, we were bus gated, as is fairly common for Lufthansa wetlease operations, though it is a frustration — especially when the bus is dilatory in arriving, and given the need to hump a rollaboard for an international connection down the wobbly steps before cramming onto a bus.

A premium experience this is very much not.

On the topic of premium, several Star Alliance frequent flyers have griped to me that one problem with a new Lufthansa subsidiary is that the airline has not got all its ducks in a row to ensure that frequent flyers are treated the same on Lufthansa City as they are on Lufthansa Not City.

All in all, it seems to me that most non-frequent flyer passengers won’t notice what Lufthansa City even is before they sit down and read the card telling them that the very standard Lufthansa experience they’ve been having is actually provided by another airline. Lufthansa City looks, walks, and quacks like a Lufthansa duck.