Flight: Munich to Heathrow  

Airline: Lufthansa

Plane: A320neo

Cabin: Business

Seat: 4A

This Flight

This is another flight of my trilogy to and from Brussels.

I’d previously flown from Heathrow to Brussels on Swiss via Zurich. My return leg was via Munich. You can find my reviews on Swiss here, and my review on Brussels here.

This is a relatively short review.

Checking In

Having landed on then ‘Schengen side’ from Brussels, I landed in K-Gates.

I thought I’d pop into the lounge opposite K13 – but upon checking in I was told that the flight to Heathrow would depart from H-Gates, and it was advised to go there as it was 15 minutes to get there.

Getting to H-Gates involved a tram, and going via Passport Control (I forgot about Brexit!).

Passport Control was simply chaotic. There was a line of easily 200 people, and just 4 people checking passports. This came to a head when people starting pushing their way to the front of the queue line because they had immediately departing flights. It got a bit tense for a while!  

The 15 minutes was more like 30 minutes – and I was grateful for the advice as this was the last flight to Heathrow for the day and I would have certainly missed it!

The Lounge   

I managed to visit the Lufthansa Business Lounge opposite K13, and also close to H20 – next to the watch shop.

There is a third lounge I could have accessed at K-gates – but I was concerned about time, and rightly so!

Boarding

Upon boarding, I was told that I needed to hurry as the flight was closing.

In reality, upon boarding, I waited another 20 minutes for other passengers – before we departed late.

One thing I should add is that unlike Swiss or Brussels Airlines – Lufthansa still demand mask wearing on board their flights. Though post-takeoff, it’s mostly forgotten about.  

The Plane

This was Lufthansa’s A320neo.

The plane was similar to TAP’s A320neo, and seemed brand new. It was very clean indeed!  

The Seat

I was sitting in 4A.

Lufthansa’s short-haul Business Class on the A320 uses seats A, C, D and F – with the ‘middle seats’ B and E not used. Unlike BA, there is no centre table – just an empty seat!

The tray table folded down and was ample for eating. Without the person in front reclining, I could easily use my laptop for working.

Another good feature (I say good, better than others) was charging in the seat – with a universal mains sockets or USB charging.

There may have been a marginal amount more of legroom, but it’s pretty negligible. It’s an Economy seat, basically.  

Food and Drink

This must be a European thing, but there was only once choice of meal.

The meal choice was Pastrami – which for me at least is better than fish – and at least the cabin crew knew what it was!

It didn’t really win presentation of the year, and it was served with nuts.

A breadbasket also followed with dry bread, and for desert there was some short of cheesecake.  

In a similar way to Swiss, Lufthansa insist on serving food via cart – meaning that because I was close to the curtain the drinks took ages to come. TAP and BA have this nailed in a much better format!

When the drinks did come, I took a glass of red wine – again seemingly no options on the red. I then took a glass of sparkling wine, which served warm – not great.

Post-dinner, the cabin crew came down the aisle with apples and chocolates, which is something I’ve not seen before!

I could (and probably should) be more fussy about the food – but I’ve traveled to Germany for work for close to 20 years – I’d be lying if I said my expectations were any higher than very low.

Amenities Kit

No Amenities Kit was offered on either flight, which is understandable given the relatively short flights.

Entertainment

No entertainment equipment was fitted, and the safety demo was manual.

Wifi

No wifi was available on either flight – but I may have missed something!

Cabin Crew

The Cabin Crew were nice and polite. The service didn’t really go any further than that.

However, I was regularly asked if I wanted my drink re-filling, which is something, I guess!

I didn’t really feel the Cabin Crew went the ‘extra mile’ – but I’m also not sure what the extra mile would be on a short-haul flight which was less than 2 hours. I’m sure next time I fly from Doha to Dubai with Qatar I’ll find it though!

Landing

Landing into Terminal 2 at Heathrow I was somewhat dreading, with all the recent news reports, etc! We landed around 11pm, and I had a 6:30am start the next day – I was hoping not to be waiting 4 hours for my luggage!

To my surprise, the e-Gates at Passport Control were very quiet indeed, and I waited no more than 10 minutes for my luggage.

Well done Heathrow!

Conclusion

Lufthansa’s short-haul in Business Class is OK. It’s nothing more than that, and of the Star Alliance members I’ve traveled with so far, TAP is the clear the winner!

That said, out of this trilogy of flights; Brussels Airlines I preferred better than Lufthansa and Swiss.

My main motivation for flying Lufthansa again would be to fly on the 747-8 – as for short haul, I’m quite happy with BA for future Heathrow flights.

Score

52 out of 84, which is 62%.