A Review Of Lufthansa’s (Surprisingly Good) Domestic CRJ-900 Business Class
For many years, I, perhaps naively, have looked down on intra-European business class, without actually having ever flown in it before. My reasoning was that European carriers simply don’t have competitive short-haul business class products compared to most airlines in the world, as it on most European airlines only consists of economy class seats with the middle seat blocked. While I still maintain that this type of business class is highly uncompetitive on longer 4-5 hour routes where comfort is more important than any phenomenal soft product, a few months ago I experienced two phenomenal intra-German domestic flights on Lufthansa between Munich and Hannover, both of which I will be talking about in this article.
Review: Munich To Hannover
| The Flight At A Glance | |
| Airline | Lufthansa Regional |
| Aircraft | CRJ 900 |
| Route | Munich to Hannover |
| Flight Number | LH2096 |
| Departure/Arrival | 11:40 AM to 12:45 PM |
The first flight was from Munich to Hannover in June 2021, which I took after connecting from Washington Dulles in United Polaris. I should mention that the only reason why we were traveling in Lufthansa’s short-haul business class was because we booked a round-trip business class award using United miles between Washington and Hannover (via Munich both ways), which automatically puts you in business class on both legs, assuming there is availability, which there was. While business class on a 50 minute flight would still almost never be worth it if it costed extra, it certainly isn’t something to complain about if it comes for free.
We first stopped by the Lufthansa Business Lounge in the Schengen section in Concourse H at Terminal 2 at Munich Airport. This lounge was at the time only one of two lounges open at Munich Airport, along with the adjacent Senator Lounge, though more lounges have since opened. Although the selections at the lounge were more limited than in normal times, I still appreciated a fantastic Bavarian pretzel and a chocolate croissant for breakfast.
After visiting the lounge, we headed to G82, a gate on the lower level of the south end of Terminal 2, where our aircraft was departing from. Our flight was on a CRJ-900, and was operated by Lufthansa Regional, which operates most of Lufthansa’s regional aircraft. Most of Lufthansa Regional’s aircraft depart from remote stands, which you have to take a bus to get to, though we were lucky as our flight was departing from one of Munich’s four ground level gates which you can walk to from the terminal on the western end of the south end of Terminal 2. Unfortunately, our flight only boarded at about noon, half an hour late than the scheduled, although it was only a quick walk across the tarmac to get to the aircraft.
Upon boarding, all passengers, regardless of class, received a cleaning wipe, which is standard in this era. For this flight, I sat in seat 2A. Unlike Lufthansa’s A320 series aircraft which are in a 3-3 configuration, the CRJ-900 is in a 2-2 configuration. While the smaller aircraft size can be thought of as a drawback, especially in economy class, in business class in Europe, this is a fantastic thing. While on A320s, intra-European business class consists only of economy class seats with the middle seat blocked, on the CRJ-900, business class passengers get two whole seats, instead of one and a half, giving you significantly more room. In terms of intra-European business class seats, ironically, because of this, CRJs are actually far superior to A320s and 737s.
The extra room that you get and is unrivaled on such regional jets made up for the relative lack of legroom and minimal seat comfort. While the business class seats on a CRJ on an airline such as United or American–simple recliner seats–may be more comfortable, you get a whole lot more personal space on Lufthansa’s CRJ business class, which effectively is in a 1-1 configuration, instead of a 1-2 configuration on United/American/etc.
Boarding ended up being quite brief, which was no surprise given the size of the aircraft, and soon after the aircraft was boarded, the aircraft taxied to runway 26R for takeoff.
About 5 minutes after takeoff, the two flight attendants very efficiently came around and passed out meal trays. This wasn’t the long and drawn out business class meal experience you’d expect on a long-haul flight, but for a 50 minute flight, expediency is in the best interest of everyone. They then took beverage orders, to which I just ordered a glass of water. In terms of service, the two flight attendants weren’t the most friendly in the world, though I don’t blame them, as two people completing a business class meal service, as well as a drink service for 76 people in effectively half and hour of available time is not the easiest task. However, I was still surprised at their attentiveness, given that they came around multiple times taking orders for drinks.
While the seats and service were both more than adequate for such a short flight, the real highlight of this flight (and the next) was the meal service. I was firstly really impressed with the bread service, which was miles above the 8 hour flight I had just taken on United (but good bread is of course to be expected for an airline from a country where quality of bread is actually valued, as opposed to America). Instead of the cold wrapped-in-plastic economy class style stale bread I had just received on United, the flight attendants came around with a bowl of fantastic warm authentic German bread rolls, which easily was the highlight of the flight.
The main dish however was a cold plate consisting of a roast beef, along with zucchini, tomato, and (I think) mango. The beef wasn’t amazing, but it definitely still was quite good, especially for a 50 minute flight. Then there was also a delicious (quite big) bar of Lindor chocolates, which further impressed the meal service. To add to that, at the end of the flight, the flight attendants came around with (more) small chocolates, though this time to the entire aircraft, which was a nice touch to end the flight.
We landed at Hannover Airport about half an hour behind schedule, and taxied to Concourse A, which is where all Lufthansa flights arrive there. Our flight arrived at an actual gate (not a remote stand), though we had to walk out onto the tarmac from the aircraft’s own stairs and then had to walk up another set of stairs to get to the jetway, which was not equipped to handle CRJs on its own. While our bags arrived quickly at the baggage claim and the ground experience was fairly pleasant arriving in Hannover, the departing flight (you can find the review just down below!) did not…
Review: Munich To Hannover
| The Flight At A Glance | |
| Airline | Lufthansa Regional |
| Aircraft | CRJ 900 |
| Route | Hannover to Munich |
| Flight Number | LH2107 |
| Departure/Arrival | 6:40 AM to 7:50 AM |
This flight was taken in early July of 2021. We arrived at the terminal about 90 minutes before the scheduled departure time, which we thought would be more than enough time at such as small airport. While check-in was very easy, we immediately encountered an extremely long line at Terminal A at Hannover Airport. It turns out that Tui fly Deutschland (the German airline of the Tui Group, which actually is headquartered in Hannover) is now operating some of their flights at Hannover Airport out of Concourse A (which I realize doesn’t really mean anything to 99% of people in the world), which I thought they didn’t used to.
Unfortunately, as a lot of Tui’s flights in Europe leave at excruciatingly early hours (some even as early as 2 AM, though many also between 5-6:30 AM) to holiday destinations such as Izmir or Mallorca, which, along with only one security station being manned, led to a line taking up the entire airside area of Terminal A (which I realize doesn’t mean much to most of you who probably don’t know much about Hannover Airport; anyways, it’s just important that the line was long).
There normally is also a premium security checkpoint, but it turns out that it was closed due to COVID, and them wanting to centralize security (which really makes no sense to me, except the sense that many airlines, and I guess also airports, are using COVID as an excuse for cutbacks, even if the cutback does nothing to reduce the likelihood of infection).
So the line which I anticipated being nearly nonexistent ended up taking about 45 minutes, which was an utterly delightful way to spend the second hour of a nearly 22 hour day, running on only a couple hours of sleep. Anyways, I digress; everything ended up being fine, and we got to the aircraft just in time, though we were realistically never in any danger of missing our flight as most of the people onboard our flight to Munich were behind us in the line.
Once we got to the gate, about half of the people had boarded already, while about the other half were still in security. For this flight, I chose seat 1A, which was the bulkhead seat. Legroom was alright in the bulkhead seat, but I personally would prefer non-bulkhead seats in business class on this aircraft, as I found (on the outbound flight) that there was more room to stretch out without the bulkhead.
About half and hour late, we ended up pushing back and took off en route to Munich. Similarly to the outbound flight, the flight attendants served the meal with haste and efficiency, with breakfast being distributed less than five minutes after takeoff.
The meal was again delicious, especially for a 50 minute flight, this time consisting with another fantastic bread roll, along with turkey slices, cheese, smoked salmon, and and yoghurt. I just asked for some water, which was again served in an actual glass, unlike on United.
Overall, between the two flights, the meal and overall onboard service was miles ahead of anything you would receive on a 50 minute regional flight in the US, or even a 2 hour flight on a mainline aircraft. Service was also similar to the first flight; the flight attendants weren’t the friendliest in the world, but were very professional and efficient in service.
Besides the meal, the flight was uneventful. We ended up touching down in Munich about 15 minutes late. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), we taxied to a remote stand and had to take a bus back to the terminal, and then we headed to immigration before our flight back to Washington.
Overall Impression Of Lufthansa’s Domestic Business Class
Overall, I got a quite good impression from Lufthansa’s domestic CRJ business class. Airlines typically aren’t known for their regional products, and while Lufthansa’s CRJ 900 business class is nothing to get excited about, it pleasantly surprised me. For someone who had such a negative impression of intra-European business class beforehand (for almost no reason at all), the seats were actually quite pleasant for a nearly hour long flight, and the food and work-rate by the flight attendants was fantastic and was much better than the experience one would get in the US. Overall, while I wouldn’t recommend paying for business class on such a short flight on its on, when connecting from another flight already in business class, the product certainly is a nice surprise.
