The Details

• Flight: LH98
• Aircraft: A321-200
• Class: Business
• Seat: 2A and 2C
• Route: Frankfurt Main (FRA)-Munich (MUC)
• Distance: 200miles
• Duration: 39min

The Preflight

After arriving from Chicago, we had a two-hour layover in Frankfurt before our onward flight to Munich. Once we cleared customs and entered the Schengen Zone, we spent a brief 20 minutes in the Lufthansa business class lounge which was an absolute zoo. There was no seating and many passengers were standing up to eat breakfast. We promptly left the lounge and made our way to the gate area to wait for boarding. Boarding began at 8:48AM.

Our A321-200, registration D-AISK and named “Emden”, was delivered to Lufthansa in February 2008.

The Flight

Lufthansa features a total of 205 seats on board their A321s arranged in a 3-3 configuration. The business class featured the standard European blocked middle seat with a small tray table. On this flight, there were eight rows of business class for a total of 32 passengers. My fiance and I were seated in 2A and 2C.

The Recaro BL3520 NEK slimline seats were wafer-thin and lacked padding. The pitch was 30″ with a seat width of 17.7″.

The seat was incredibly basic with a simple folding table and literature pocket. None of the seats had power.

Boarding was completed at 9AM and the doors closed five minutes later. We pushed back at 9:15AM and had a 15-minute taxi to the runway before taking off.

Despite being a less than forty-minute flight, there was a simple meal service consisting of an apple, milk, granola, and mixed oats. Coffee and drinks were also offered.

As soon as we reached cruising altitude, we began our descent into Munich. I did use the forward lavatory which was stocked with generic supplies.

While Lufthansa did not offer and free inflight entertainment, they did have a moving map function on their app which was accessible via personal devices. Wi-Fi was also available for purchase.

We landed at 10:09AM and had a short five-minute taxi to the gate. As our layover was just 45 minutes, we quickly sprinted to our final flight to Larnaca which had already begun boarding.

Lufthansa offered a very simple business-class experience on board their A321s that is barely differentiable from low-cost carriers in Europe. The lack of in-seat power, inflight entertainment, and poor seat padding make it not worth the cost of a cash ticket.