Your first look at Lufthansa's Allegris aircraft, with new seating in all cabins and a shock in first class

25.04.2024 - 23:41 / thepointsguy.com / John F.Kennedy / Jens Ritter / Airlines

Seven years after it was first announced, the wait is finally over.

Lufthansa's first aircraft equipped with the carrier's new "Allegris" cabin has landed, with new seats in all classes. TPG got a sneak peek Thursday in Munich.

The inaugural flight featuring the new Lufthansa cabin is scheduled to depart Wednesday from Munich Airport (MUC) to Vancouver International Airport (YVR) in Canada. Service on Allegris aircraft will continue to roll out in the coming months to Toronto Pearson Airport (YYZ), Chicago's O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) and San Francisco International Airport (SFO) as the airline receives more aircraft fitted with the new seats.

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Vancouver was chosen over high-profile routes like John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York and Washington's Dulles International Airport (IAD) as the first destination in part because that route typically has less demand for first class.

By the end of 2027, Lufthansa expects to have installed 27,000 new seats across 120 long-haul aircraft as part of the airline's 2-billion-euro investment in the passenger experience. Lufthansa CEO Jens Ritter told TPG the airline purposely sourced seats from several competing seat manufacturers so they were not reliant on a single supplier, given how delayed the product already is.

First up, some bad news and what will likely come as a shock to passengers at the front of the cabin.

Due to manufacturing and certification delays, the new first-class suites were not installed on Lufthansa's first Allegris-equipped Airbus A350-900 aircraft. Ritter was understandably frustrated by this delay, explaining that while good things come to those who wait, his patience has worn thin.

Instead, the front of the A350 cabin, where the three suites will be installed at a later date, has a single row of economy-class seats that will temporarily fill the space and will not be bookable. They will remain blocked like this until replaced by the first class suites.

Ritter told TPG that while he expects the first-class seats to be ready to be installed by late August or early September, they will go first into newly delivered aircraft, and then those existing A350s and 747s undergoing top-to-tail refurbishments.

Lufthansa's eight-strong Airbus A380 fleet will not get new Allegris seats in any class.

As for the aircraft being delivered with the empty space at the front of the cabin, like the bird we toured, the seats will only be installed when the aircraft is taken out of service for routine maintenance periods of six weeks, so for a factory-fresh A350, this rather awkward space will likely be