The Lufthansa Group is still trying to cut its losses. They just announced that starting in spring 2021, Lufthansa, Swiss, & Austrian will no longer be offering free snacks & drinks on their short-haul and medium-haul routes. The ticket price will then only still include a bottle of water. Everything else needs to be purchased separately, for which a buy-on-board menu will be introduced.
Of course, Lufthansa is once again trying to sell its decision as a positive change. In the press release, besides a lot of superfluous text about how great this change really is, it clearly says:
The standard, complimentary snack will no longer be served in the future.
The new catering concept will apply to Lufthansa, Austrian, and Swiss’ short-haul and medium-haul routes. It could therefore be, that even rather long flights, e.g. to Athens, Lisbon, and possibly even Cairo may be affected. Due to the long flight-time and/or the competitors’ offers, those routes used to even have a warm meal service. This will probably then become a thing of the past, just like the granola bar on short-haul flights.
Lufthansa is also drastically cutting its drinks-service. Except for very short routes, you could always choose from various options, such as coffee, orange juice, soft drinks, or even a glass of wine. From 2021 onward, you’ll only get a bottle of water (and not even that on Austrian flights). In business class, nothing changes.
Swiss had already introduced a buy-on-board menu in 2018 for flights from Geneva to be able to compete with Easyjet. Snack & drinks (except water) had also been cut there, but only for passengers traveling on an Economy Light fare.
Conclusion
Lufthansa states:
Our current snack offer in Economy Class does not always meet the expectations of our guests
… and they’re absolutely right. Giving the passengers a granola bar or a dry sandwich absolutely does not meet the expectations set for a premium airline. This, however, does not improve if you cut the snack and drinks. While the granola bar may not be a big loss, the drinks are quite a hard-hitting cut. The Lufthansa Group is gradually mutating into a group of low-cost carriers but without a matching price policy.
Translated by Ditmar Lange
Comments (3)
This one is a bit tricky to me because I see points at everyone side. Myself most of a time connecting at FRA. I agree that sometimes u get enough in lounge, but not always there is enough layover for it and more importantly not everybody has acces to those yet everybody pay their fare. At one side I fully agree that sometimes is better to pay bit more and get bigger menu to choose from, on the other hand those small snacks, coffee and so on were sometimes one of a very few remarks that u feel that u fly not with a low cost airline. Because as they are saying: …a dry sandwich absolutely does not meet the expectations set for a premium airline. With all due respect but this extra free of charge hospitality during the flight was sometimes the most spoken difference between low cost and regular airlines. I also understand at some point airline, that free of charge is maybe disappointing and if u put something decent in ticket fare, than those will rise for everybody yet not everybody wants/needs to eat something during flight. As said, tricky point. Anyways, this is our current reality so stay focus on the good sides fellow LH travelers.
To be very honest, Brussels Airlines has already used this method and I do prefer it.
I flew a lot with Lufthansa short haul economy (2-4 times per month), most of the time they serve just a very small cheese/ham sandwich or snack which in my opinion is almost nothing to eat. While in Brussels Airlines you can buy a decent hot meals, oven fries, pasta and a wide varity of sandwiches for between 3-10 euro a set. This gives me a better choice and when you don’t have time to buy food.
I don’t fully agree, the cheese and salami sandwich are quite decent, especially for a first leg outside of germany. The 50 then 33cl warsteiner were also a good added value. Now I will fill my needs at the lounge, which isnt always easy when you have short layover. This is without saying that SN prices are most of the time a bargain vs LH/LX/OS prices, so a BoB is acceptable.
Quite disappointed here tbh..