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Lufthansa operates somewhere in the region of 80 Airbus A320 aircraft on its short- and medium-haul routes and today, the airline has confirmed (it has been rumored for a while) that a sub-set of these aircraft will be retrofitted with new cabins starting in 2025.
If AeroLOPA is to be believed (and I think it is), Lufthansa operates its A320s (both ceo and neo versions) with three different cabin layouts. All three layouts offer seats that are just just under 18″ wide, but when it comes to seat pitch, the layouts show some variance.
In the 168-seat A320ceo, all seats (except for the exit row seats) offer approximately 30″ of pitch, but in the 180-seat A320ceo/A320neo aircraft, most rows offer just 29″ of pitch and two of the rows offer just 28″. That’s horribly tight.
Fortunately, things may be about to improve (at least from a seat pitch perspective) as Lufthansa has said that it is introducing a new cabin to 38 of its Airbus A320s starting in “spring 2025”.
Here is what we have been told:
The new Lufthansa A320 cabin will offer more space for carry-on luggage with large overhead bins that can hold up to twice as many carry-on suitcases as the current A320 bins offer.
The new carry-on bins are reported to be 40% larger than the current bins and will allow passengers to stow their bags vertically.
The new A320 cabin will also offer new seats (from the Italian manufacturer Geven) which, we are told, will “offer more legroom with the same seat spacing thanks to the ergonomic shaping of the backrests“.
Each of the new seats will offer a dedicated USB port and, for the first time (apparently), all the seats in this new cabin will come equipped with a holder for tablets and smartphones.
Quick thoughts
With this new cabin, Lufthansa isn’t being quite as innovative as it would probably like people to believe as Alsaka Airline flyers have had extra space overhead bins with vertical stowage on select aircraft since 2016, and a wide variety of airlines (including a number of low-cost carriers) already offer in-seat charging and/or dedicated holders for tablets and smartphones.
What we don’t know, at this point, is whether the new USB ports will offer USB-A or USB-C connectivity (I suspect it will be the former) or, more importantly, just how much more comfortable the new seats will be (if at all).
Lufthansa is claiming that its new A320 cabin will offer “significantly more comfort and premium” so it will be interesting to see if the new seats are a genuine improvement on the current offering or if the benefits of increased legroom (pitch) are offset by whatever the ergonomic changes to the backrests are – this wouldn’t be the first time an airline has made its seats more uncomfortable under the guise of giving passengers more personal space.
Still, we should probably give Lufthansa the benefit of the doubt (at least until we’ve had some real-life reviews of the new seat and cabin) so I’m going to say that it’s good to see the airline retrofitting its aircraft with cabins that will offer passengers more legroom, an option to charge their devices, and a way of using their devices without giving up what little real estate the seat back tables offer.
Obviously, this is the least that a full-service airline should offer as we head to the middle of the third decade of the 21st century, but better late than never.
Bottom line
Starting in spring 2025, Lufthansa will begin to retrofit 38 of its A320 aircraft with a new cabin that will see passengers gaining more legroom, USB charging at every seat, holders for tablets and smartphones, and overhead bins that are 40% bigger than the current bins and which can store rollaboard cases vertically.
Let’s hope this leads to a better passenger experience and not just to financial benefits for the airline.
Featured image courtesy of Lufthansa
Sounds pretty good but the devil is in the details. For instance are the new seats slimline? I loathe slimline seats and the one flight my wife experienced them after 90 minutes she asked why her back hurt. Making all passengers suffer instead of only tall people doesn’t sound like a viable solution to seats being crammed in, at least to me.