Returning on Lufthansa from Toronto to Munich after trying out the front-row business-plus Allegris Business Suite — full disclosure, as a guest of the airline — I asked to be moved from the Business Suite that Lufthansa had assigned me to one of the other seats in order to try it out.
After all, the underlying structural design feature of Allegris is the wide variety of seats, which Lufthansa plans to charge as seven different categories. After some study onboard, though, I number the actual number of seats with what I’d consider material differences (on the current Allegris A350) as eleven:
- Business Suite single front-row (window), like 2A or 8K
- Business Suite pair front-row(centre), like 2D or 8G
- Extra Space throne, like 3E or 11F
- Extra Long Bed with storage locker, like 4G
- Extra Long Bed with privacy screen and extra shoulder room but without storage locker, like 6D
- Privacy Seat, staggered window-adjacent, like 3A or 9K
- Privacy Seat, staggered window-adjacent with large side table and bassinet crib, like 7K
- Classic Seat, staggered aisle-adjacent, outboard, like 4H
- Classic Seat, staggered aisle-adjacent, centre section, with privacy screen and extra shoulder room but without storage locker, like 6G
- Classic Seat, staggered aisle-adjacent, centre section, without privacy screen or extra shoulder room but with storage locker, like 10D
- Classic Seat, staggered aisle-adjacent, with large side table (but no bassinet crib), like 12H
To me there are 11 kinds of materially different seats in this cabin. Image: John Walton
I requested (and was assigned) to try an Extra Long Bed, and ended up in seat 6D (one of type 5, at the back of the cabin). This is what I consider to be one of the “better” Extra Long bed types (5, above) because the square shape of the shrouding means there is substantially more shoulder space compared with the curved shape at, say, 4G.
The back-row extra-legroom seats (6D and 12D, my Allegris type 5) have square shrouds around the head, meaning extra shoulder room. Image: John Walton
Your 6’3” (1m90) author certainly appreciated what Lufthansa says is 20cm (7.87 inches) extra bed length, although the way the seat reclines means that as you reach flat your feet end up right against the foot cubby wall, and the extra space comes from having to shimmy upwards towards the head. (This “Polaris Shimmy” may be familiar to frequent United flyers too.)
The extra legroom footwell curves to a point, meaning that the extra 20cm is a bit of a stretch in some cases. Image: John Walton
Surprisingly for a modern product, this Classic seat comes with very little storage indeed. There is a single bin at a rather unergonomic location right next to the shoulder, which is already mostly filled with Lufthansa’s noise-cancelling headphones.
The sole storage bin is small (AirPods case for scale) and already filled with Lufthansa’s hardwired headset. Image: John Walton
I barely managed to get the contents of my pockets — wallet, passport wallet, watch, and AirPods — in alongside. The overhead bins are removed from this Zone A section between doors 1 and 2, but not past Zone 2, so I’d pick a seat back there in the future to be able to store things overhead without having to play rollaboard Jenga with other passengers’ things.
The cabin feels very open, and the effect is an ugly sea of grey thermoplastic — not even making use of the A350’s cabin lighting system beyond a gold bar in the overheads. Image: John Walton
Candidly, privacy fans will probably want to buy up to a different Allegris seat or even the Business Suites. RGN’s Mary Kirby explored Allegris at its on-aircraft launch, and — in addition to the Business Suite, which we both consider very spacious — sings the praises of the Privacy Seat (type 6 above, with type 7 likely also private). The Extra Space throne (type 3 above) is likely to feel private too.
My Extra Long Bed version of the Classic seat felt very open and exposed to the cabin, more so than a fully forward-facing stagger would.
This is an amplified example of the zero-sum problem with staggered seats that Lufthansa is arbitraging in its seven-level Allegris fee structure.
As Lufthansa develops Allegris, it may want to see whether some sort of additional higher aisle-side divider or other slight adjustment might help here.
Everything that the passenger in 6C did during the entire flight was right in my eyeline. Image: John Walton
As it develops Allegris, Lufthansa will also want to look at how bumps and shakes of the seat also transmit physically through the structures: when the passenger in the 5F throne turned over, my entire footwell assembly shook enough to wake me up. Similarly, the table, while sizeable, shook when the passenger in front moved even relatively slightly.
The table is large and pulls out from under the screen, but it did wobble quite substantially. Image: John Walton
In bed mode, I found the seat hard and lacking cushioning, not least because only Business Suite passengers are provided with mattress pads — although on the outbound even these weren’t quite enough to make up for the seat’s inherent lack of sleeping support. There’s something about the differing height levels of where the seatback and seat pan end up that makes me think that more attention to the cushions, and perhaps a foam change to bring them to the same height, could work here.
I should note that all Allegris suites come with Caynova’s heating and cooling system. This is my new favourite thing in business class.
Regrettably, the production quality issues like those I noticed on the outbound were also present on my seat — and, easily visible, on 6C across the aisle.
The fabric bending issue was replicated in the seat across from me and in other seats as well. Image: John Walton
Fabric elements had fallen and did not line up, while in the turn of the suite shell there was visible creasing of the fabric. Lufthansa will want to improve this for certain, and Stelia has questions to answer.
The spot where the shrouding turns was, I think, both crinkled and stained. Image: John Walton
I also think Lufthansa needs to look at the user interface around the tablet as far as seat controls go, both for accessibility and because some commonly used seat vs IFE controls required multiple taps and several menu tabs.
If you have poor eyesight, limited vision or you’re not wearing your glasses, finding the controls is not ideal. Image: John Walton
As we descended towards Munich, I reflected on my experience a couple of years ago aboard the “Lifthansa” Vantage XL A350 cabin that Lufthansa inherited from Philippine Airlines.
The Allegris Classic experience felt very similar to it and other staggered products I’ve flown, like the original Sogerma (now Stelia) Solstys on Asiana’s A380s, or the Zodiac (now Safran) Skylounge on Emirates’ superjumbos.
With Lufthansa planning to install the Vantage XL product upstairs on its A380s in a light refit, I wonder whether some of the lessons of that product could be brought to improve Allegris during its own rollout, or if — for the 747-8, say — more Vantage might be a better answer.
This type 5 Allegris seat has a full privacy divider instead of the extending storage locker. I think it’s superior to the type 4 extra long bed, but that’s a set of tradeoffs. Image: John Walton
John Walton was a guest of Lufthansa, but all opinions are, as ever, his own.
Related Articles:
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- Allegris debuts on A350 as Lufthansa Group grows PaxEx prowess
- Lufthansa’s multi-source IFE sees SPI and PAC in play
- The new cabins of 2024 — and what they will tell us about aviation
- Business-plus, front-row seats: where we are and where we’re going
- Classic aisle seats will be baseline business on Lufthansa Allegris
- Lufthansa’s Allegris business class takes unbundling to the extremes
Featured image credited to John Walton
