[NO] Lufthansa Customer Service

When Lufthansa cancels your connecting flight so you get stuck for hours on the Munich airport, after a long haul flight of more than 12 hours originating from China, what can you expect from their customer service ? Nothing much... and certainly no free use of their shower facilities ! Read on

When I arrived out of Shanghai (China) in Munich (Germany) Airport on Thursday morning, I was looking forward to a less than 2 hour connection time and be home in Brussels shortly thereafter. As it was snowing a bit, Lufthansa decided to cancel several of their flights, and my connecting flight to Brussels was one of them. Well, you know, better safe than sorry. No complaints so far.

Having now more than 4 hours to spare on the Munich airport, and remembering that Lufthansa has some nice shower facilities in the Lounge area, I decided to go and ask if I could take a quick shower. To feel refreshed, and also gain back some of the lost time when I would arrive at my Brussels destination. Well, no such luck. Getting stuck at the airport for hours, because Lufthansa has canceled their flight after coming in on another Lufthansa flight of more than 12 hours flighttime, and connecting to yet another Lufthansa flight hours later, that is not enough for a free shower. The employee at the entrance of the lounge made it very clear to me that they could not make exceptions, even in case of flight cancelations. "Their other customers would not appreciate it, as the lounge was almost full". I requested the Service Manager... so Linda showed up, and told me that she fully supported the decision of her employee (good management style, congratulations): no access for you.

It gets better. Last year I flew more than 27,000 miles on Star Alliance, the Frequent Flyer Program of which Lufthansa is part. Just short of 18,000 miles of these were on Lufthansa flights - and we are talking about real flying miles, not bonus miles. But no that is not enough for free use of their shower facilities if they cancel your connecting flight.

So, can I propose that they change the name of their Frequent Flyer program ? Because with a Silver Star Alliance Premier Card in my hand I actually felt that they would do someting for me as a customer, especially when the airline themselves causes me hours of inconvenience by canceling their flight. I suggest they put a name like sucker on the card. Then I won't be surprised anymore if that membership status card and the flight cancelation results in getting no single accomodation from the airline.

To be clear: to be officially allowed to use the free shower facilities in the Lufthansa lounge, you need to be Premier Executive / Star Alliance Gold member - meaning you obtained 50,000 frequent flyer miles in the prior year. Then, hopefully, all your troubles go away. Somehow, I believe I won't fly 50,000 miles on Lufthansa anymore...