Lufthansa Allegris seat with extra legroom: more room for improvement

Back on Lufthansa from Toronto to Munich after trying Allegris business suite in the front row — to be completely honest, as a guest of the airline — I asked to be moved from the business suite that Lufthansa had assigned me to one of the other seats in order to try it out.

After all, the underlying structural feature of the Allegris is the wide variety of seats, which Lufthansa plans to price in seven different categories. After some research on board, I put the actual number of seats with what I consider material differences (on the current Allegris A350) at eleven:

1. Single Business Suite at the front (window), like 2A or 8K
2. Business Suite pair in the first row (center), such as 2D or 8G
3. Additional Space Throne, like 3E or 11F
4. Extra long bed with storage locker, like 4G or 10D
5. Extra long bed with privacy screen and extra shoulder room, but without storage locker, like 6D or 10D
6. Private, offset, window-adjacent seat, such as 3A or 9K
7. Privacy seat, offset, adjacent to the window with a large side table and a bassinet, like 7K
8. Classic seat, offset, aisle side, outside, like 4H
9. Classic, offset, aisle-adjacent seat, center section, with privacy screen and extra shoulder room, but no storage locker, like 6D
10. Classic seat, offset aisle side, center section, without storage locker and with privacy screen, like 6G
11. Classic seat, offset to the aisle side, with large side table (but no crib), like 12H

I asked (and was assigned) to try an extra-long bed, and ended up in seat 6D (a type 5, at the back of the cabin). This is what I consider to be one of the ‘best’ types of extra long bed (5, above) as the square shape of the cover means there is much more shoulder room compared to the curved shape of, say, 4G.

Your 6’11” author certainly appreciated what Lufthansa says is an extra 8 inches of bed length, though the way the seat reclines means that when you lay flat, your feet end up right against the footwell wall, and the extra space comes from having to move upward toward your head. (That “Polaris Shimmy” may be familiar to frequent United flyers, too.)

Surprisingly for a modern product, this Classic seat has very little storage. There is only one compartment in an unergonomic location, right next to the shoulder, which is already largely filled with Lufthansa noise-canceling headphones.

I barely managed to fit the contents of my pockets (wallet, passport holder, watch, and AirPods) next to it. The overhead bins are being removed from this section of Zone A between Gates 1 and 2, but not beyond Zone 2, so I would choose a seat in the back in the future so I can store things overhead without having to play Jenga on board with other passengers’ belongings.

Frankly, privacy seekers will probably want to buy a different Allegris seat or even the Business Suites. RGN’s Mary Kirby explored the Allegris during its launch onboard and, in addition to the Business Suite, which we both consider very spacious, sings the praises of the Privacy seat (type 6 above, type 7 is probably also private). The Extra Space throne (type 3 above) is also likely to give a sense of privacy.

My Extra Long Bed version of the Classic seat felt very open and exposed to the cabin, more so than a fully forward-facing seat.

This is an amplified example of The Zero-Sum Problem of Staggered Seating which Lufthansa arbitrates in its seven-tier Allegris fare structure.

As Lufthansa develops the Allegris, it might want to see if some sort of additional higher side splitter or other slight adjustment might help here.

In developing Allegris, Lufthansa will also want to study how seat jolts and shakes are physically transmitted through structures: When the passenger in seat 5F turned around, my entire footrest shook enough to wake me up. Similarly, the table, although of substantial size, shook when the passenger in front moved even relatively slightly.

In bed mode, I found the seat hard and sparsely padded, partly because only Business Suite passengers are provided with mattresses, although on the outward journey these were not enough to compensate for the lack of support inherent in the seat. There is something about the height differences between the backrest and the seat that makes me think that more attention to the cushions, and perhaps a change of foam to bring them to the same height, could work here.

I would like to point out that all Allegris suites are equipped with the Caynova heating and air conditioning system. This is my new favorite feature in business class.

Unfortunately, the same production quality issues I noticed on the way there were also present in my seat – and, easily visible, on the 6C across the aisle.

Fabric elements had fallen off and were not lining up, while creases were visible in the hull of the suite. Lufthansa will certainly want to improve this, and Stelia has some questions to resolve.

I also think Lufthansa needs to look at the UI around the tablet as it relates to seat controls, both for accessibility and because some commonly used seat and IFE controls require multiple taps and multiple menu tabs.

As we descended towards Munich, I reflected on my experience a few years ago on board the cabin of the Vantage XL A350 “Lifthansa” that Lufthansa inherited from Philippine Airlines.

The Allegris Classic experience was very similar to this and other offbeat products I have flown, such as the original Sogerma (now Stelia) Solstys on Asiana’s A380s, or the Zodiac (now Safran) Skylounge on Emirates’ superjumbos.

As Lufthansa plans to install the Vantage XL product on the upper deck of its A380s as part of a light refurbishment, I wonder whether some of the lessons from that product could be applied to improve Allegris in its own rollout, or whether – for the 747-8, for example – more Vantage might be a better answer.

John Walton was a guest of Lufthansa, but all opinions are, as always, his own.

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Main image credited to John Walton