Review of Lufthansa flight from Johannesburg to Frankfurt in First

CDG – MUC / Airbus A320-214 CEO SL D-AIUT Lufthansa LH2239 Economy K / 6 AM Beer City Flug [THERE]
MUC – SOF / Airbus A320-214 CEO SL Lufthansa LH1702 Economy K / Eastern Orient Express [THERE]
SOF – VIE / Airbus A320-200 CEO OE-LBP Austrian OS796 Business C / Vienna coffee [THERE]
VIE – FRA / Airbus A319-100 CEO OE-LDG Austrian OS125 Business C / Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 [THERE]
FRA – JNB / Boeing 747-8i D-ABYO Lufthansa LH572 Business C Upper Deck / I’m leaving on a jet plane, (I know) when I’ll be back again [THERE]
JNB – SZK / Embraer 135 ZS-SWN South African Airlink SA8865 Economy Q / A different kind of animal [THERE]
SZK – MQP / Cessna Caravan C208-B ZS-MLT South African Airlink SA8930 Economy Y / Dreaming of Cessna [THERE]
MQP – JNB / Embraer 140 ZS-ALR South African Airlink SA8828 Economy Q / Outclassing the road [THERE]
JNB – DUR / Airbus A330-200 ZS-SXV South African Airways SA559 Business C / Comfy old cabin [THERE]
DUR – CPT / Boeing 738WL ZS-ZWU British Airways by Comair BA6310 Business U / On the ‘Business’ again [THERE]
CPT – GRJ / Embraer 135 ZS-SWN South African Airlink SA8631 Economy Q / Lost Garden route flightpath [THERE]
PLZ – JNB / Boeing 737-800 Split Scimitar winglets ZS-ZWH British Airways by Comair BA6242 Economy O / From PE with chill [THERE]
JNB – FRA / Boeing 747-8i D-ABYR Lufthansa LH573 First C Nose / "Luck" [YOU ARE HERE]
FRA – VIE / Airbus A320 CEO OE-LBL Austrian OS128 Business C / Good Morning Austria

VIE – SOF / Airbus A320 CEO OE-LBM Austrian OS795 Business C / Foodstock
SOF – MUC / Embraer 195 D-AEMD Lufthansa LH1705 Cityline Economy K / …6.5 hours later
MUC – CDG / Airbus A319-100 CEO D-AILY Lufthansa LH2238 Economy K / Clap-my-end or "I (don't) love Paris, in the summer…"

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Good day everyone and welcome to the inbound journey to France from South Africa…
I have not a lot of pictures for that most interesting part of the routing because that upgrade really took me off guard so my apologizes for the lack of pictures airside.
Landside, the experience obviously started as a regular Business Class passenger

Here are our BPs

The security queue (behind the counters) was a nightmare, packed.
There was no priority lane available despite asking for it. We still had to pass passport control afterwards where an angry agent processed our queue as slowly as she could. I really hate JNB, it is so unrepresentative of South Africa.
Platinum Lounge

I went for the showers but there was no one. I went to search for someone and a super friendly man arrived to hand me the towels and gave me a cabin.
Between the check-in queue and entering the shower : 50 minutes !!!
An individual shower cabin looks like this :

It was quite cold in the cabin and the water was constantly trying to get out of the shower floor as the door did not stay closed. Being a glass door cracking, I was afraid to break it.

After this mere 20 minutes shower, I went back to the lounging area
The catering/relax area : some furnitures like the chairs were taken from the old lounge and are thus not in great shape as you can see. Nonetheless, the space is awesome and it was not that crowded, I could have taken some pictures.

I firstly took what seemed like a chicken massala that was quite good. I took some rice with it.

Then the staff set curry samosas, I tried two…

and three more ! Perfect.

As a drink, I took a still water bottle from Valpré, in my experience, the safest water to drink…
The lounge is a very nice place for spotting

We got out of this place at 5:56PM
By the time we were downstairs, the FIDS was saying : no hurry

Our boarding gate A12/A13 was divided into 3 categories :
One for Y pax

One for J pax (in which we were)

And one for F pax, basically 8 seats facing backwards from the J space (as you can see above)
When a classroom arrived, they invested the First class lane and were quickly called off by a female agent who asked them their class and then told them to return to their assigned lane. Very good work !
Our beast is still a Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental

When boarding time came, we scanned our BP and… biiip. With an error fare, the only thing you can think of is a severe downgrade. But having done the online check-in and all, I was not suspecting anything.
(((One thing I had noticed at online check-in though, was that our pair of seats 87A/C were in the last row whereas when we took the outbound flight LH572 with D-ABYO, there was a row 88 and none of the LH 748i do not have a row 88.
Here you can see that when I was managing the booking months ago, there was indeed a row 88.

So it was like the row 88 did not exist on this aircraft the day prior to our flight. I thought it was just a bug but it surprised me.)))
So the agent told us to take a seat behind them while they would be working on the "issue". A couple had a similar issue, she handed them their new BPs for row 11, so they did not get the upgrade except if they were in Premium Economy.
The agent then handed me our BP, I saw the seats and she told me "so this is First class" on such a neutral tone it almost made me laugh.

I thanked her, wished her a nice evening and we went for our seats !
We were nicely welcomed onboard by a FA that however looked a bit surprised that they would have another 2 pax in First. They, of course, were not prepared at all for that last minute upgrade.
- So here I am, flying a Business class error fare ticket, upgraded for the first time of my life and flying First class for the first time as well. This is the definition of pure luck ! -
The same feeling kept on when we landed on the First cabin but no one asked us to show our BP to prove we were there : good start. The first FA we came across was Ana Maria and she was really well mannered.
The trolley was out at the beggining but they stowed it quickly

The crew was a bit embarrassed because they were caught off guard like me and they went to ask for our names so that the Cabin Crew Purser could welcome us with our actual names. The Captain had indeed not yet give them our names. The situation was a bit comical but I perfectly understood their concern.
However, at one point, while the two female FA that took care of us were talking in between our two seats : 2A & 2K, one of them said " Glück" in German, but it is almost the same word in English, being "luck" so I understood they were talking about our upgrade, while looking at me and they probably thought I couldn't understand a word. I do not think it was very professional talking in these terms of First pax considering I was after all booked in C class and they could not know it was not a full fare ticket^^ However, I got that it was mainly for service purposes that they were worried and It was not done in an evil way.
They were furthermore very kind and offered us to stow our jackets into the cloakroom.
They went to ditribute the pyjama, the slippers and the amenity kit which were kind of… complete ?
Pyjama from Van Laack (I am not a "Large" size, if you wondered)
A shirt/polo ; only a small on the tag says "Lufthansa First Class".

60% cotton, 40% polyester : can do better !

And a large trouser

All packed like this :

The amenity kit from Braun Buffel contained tons of products :
- a pair of socks
- a shoe-horn
- a pair of ear plugs
- a pair of headset covers
- a mask
- a set of three creams from the luxury brand "La Prairie" actually from Switzerland
- a double pocket comb that opened like a swiss knife
- a quick shine product for shoes
- a toothbrush
- a toothpaste
- a menthol pastille

Took those pictures at home being a night flight I couldn't take any proper picture with the turbulences
A menu and a vinothek were handed
Menu
Page 1

2

3

4

5

The Vinothek
Page 1

2

3

4

5

6

And the suggestion of the day

At that point, our FA offered a PDB and I took the Laurent Perrier Grand Siècle, knowing it was an expensive Champagne and I wouldn't drink a lot inflight (this was indeed my sole glass)
Some hot nuts were brought along

The seat controls on the right

The IFE remote control on the left

The glass/amuse bouche holder and the famous rose

3 points seatbelt

The ottoman, like the pitch, is huge and can be adjusted via the seat controls to meet your feet : you cannot dine on it as there is no seatbelt.

It is a big stowage compartment

The safety card and other items were stowed on the left hand side pocket under the glass holder

Front

Center

Rear

Inflight shopping (the FA came to ask me if I wanted one… but it was already in the pocket)

LH Magazine

A charity pocket that was not there in Business Class

back

Air sickness bag

I removed my sneakers and set my slippers

After take off

The service started with a hot oshibori nicely rolled up on a plate

We had a 100% cotton table napkin

The buttonhole for the shirt

Our amuse bouche came shortly thereafter

We were around here

Then started the bread service to wait for the serious stuff

I chose a mini baguette (France till the end)

The branded cultery came from Zwilling JA Henckel
The FA sweetly asked me if she could offer me some caviar, to which I answered yes without a doubt. The traditional garnishes, onion, egg and lemon, were set

As we were 8 out of 8 seats on the F cabin, it was obviously a ""small"" portion and no refill was offered

We carried on with this Springbok (game meat) Carpaccio with Horseradish cream and Walnut.
To be honest, I'm not fond of these game meats. Being from France where the delicatessen are amongst, if not the best in the world, nothing can really impress me by its taste.

Turbulences were quite heavy for the whole meal, thus I had no luck (this time) getting a clear picture of my main course

Herb crusted beef filet with garlic butter, creamy Polenta and caramelized Pumpkin

The only thing I know is the beef was a masterpiece. Tasty, tender, juicy, it had everything we can dream of. The polenta was well executed and the caramelized Pumpkin were surprisingly tasty for someone that do not like vegetables

The dessert was a Chocolate mousse cake with Crème Anglaise

Oh, I forgot the headsets Bose QC15
Their stowage space is the second from the back on the left hand side

Then the crew made my bed (with a mattress topper, a pillow plus a large blanket) and I slept for about 5 hours.
Because my mother was cold, I asked a FA to heat the cabin but she heated it so much that it was actually difficult to sleep. This plus the fact that the privacy screen does not go all the way to your feet : you still can see when your neighbours watch a movie on the IFE. The seat is indeed not a suite.

No seatbelt sign is lighted in the F cabin overhead panels, allowing pax to have a better rest
I was woken up (I had asked it) by the sweet sound of a "Good morning Sir" and was immediately served a freshly prepared orange juice
The window shades are electronic and can be controlled directly by the crew

Breakfast time ! i decided to be on the light side as we had yet another 4 flights afterwards.

I sticked to the scrambled eggs + bacon, even if the crew did not ask me how I liked my bacon :/ The answer was : "not burnt, thank you"^^

Both toilets, reserved for First class, were superb, they even had a window

The sink was clean

There were lots of creams, mouth wash, Evian facial spray and shaving kits/pocket combs inside the drawers

They put a rose as well in the lavatories

They were definitely good as changing rooms.
I charged a bit my iPhone

Before landing, I noticed that the IFE screen resolution was a lot better than in Business but probably not more than 720p

I asked our FA what was our registration, she came to see and answered me we were flying D-ABYR, so "Bremen". Our maximum cruising alt was apparently FL360
I was in the wrong side for the sunrise

The FA came to salute each pax before withdrawing in the galley.

The "and as we say in German, auf wiedersehen" was definitely sweet
At our gate, I was surprised to see that LH has virtually no ground service for its F pax when deplaning via a jetbridge, which was utterly disappointing compared to Air France for instance.

Goodbye 2A ! I would definitely like to try this product on a day flight but unfortunately, it won't be tomorrow :(

A bad point however, the crew had opened the cloakroom but did not hand us our jackets back so we had to search them by ourselves.
As for the punctuality, we were perfectly on-time gate Z52A.