Lufthansa starts selling most Allegris business class seats on 787-9

Passengers rejoice. Lufthansa has started selling all but three of the Allegris business class seats on board its new Boeing 787-9 twinjets, after clearing some key certification hurdles with the US Federal Aviation Administration.

“[F]urther important milestones in the certification process were reached in recent weeks,” the Star Alliance member enthuses, and “nothing now stands in the way of the approval of Allegris business class in the Boeing 787-9 — with the exception of three seats in the second row of the compartment.”

“As of today,” it continues, “25 of a total of 28 seats in business class can be booked for travel from April 15.”

Lufthansa in August 2025 accepted delivery of its first Allegris-fitted 787-9. On October 9, it pressed the twinjet into service on flights from Frankfurt to Toronto. Frustratingly, however, passengers seeking to book a business class seat had only four options — the extra-swish front-row doored business suites. All other business class seats were blocked pending FAA certification.

But in a statement touting the carrier’s pending certification milestone, Lufthansa Airlines CEO Jens Ritter says: “We are delighted to be able to offer significantly more passengers this top-of-the-range product for bookings from Frankfurt starting today.

“Allegris is an experience in all classes; the approval of the majority of seats in business class on the Boeing 787-9 is an important milestone for Lufthansa — and above all, great news for our customers!”

The three seats which will remain blocked for now are, per the carrier’s Allegris-fitted 787 seatmap, the staggered window-adjacent seats on either side of the aircraft, 2A and 2K, and the extra-space throne, 2E, which are all immediately behind the front-row business suites.

Head Injury Criterion (HIC) and Neck Injury Criterion, expressed as Nij, are among the most common hurdles faced by industry when seeking certification for complex seating configurations. Lufthansa could not be immediately reached to explain the driver behind the delayed certification of these three seats.

In a post published on LinkedIn, Ritter says: “[W]e are doing everything possible to achieve full approval by the authorities as quickly as possible.”

The airline says its Allegris-fitted 787-9s, of which it now has eight stationed in Frankfurt, will fly to Austin, Rio de Janeiro, Bogotá, Cape Town, Shanghai, Hyderabad, and Hong Kong at the start of the summer flight schedule. New York JFK and Los Angeles will be added in June, followed by Delhi in July.

For over a year and a half, passengers have been able to experience Allegris aboard Lufthansa’s new A350-900s on long-haul flights from Munich.

Classic seats (staggered seats closest to and slanted towards the aisle without additional defining amenities) are considered baseline and do not require an additional charge. Seats boasting more comfort, including doored suites up front, extra space seats with extra legroom, privacy seats by the window and those with extra long beds do require an additional charge, however.

Lufthansa says it will take delivery of a further 21 Boeing 787-9s for a total of 29 Dreamliners by the end of 2027.

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All images credited to Lufthansa