Until now, you might choose your seat free of charge when you checked in. This will soon no longer be possible with Lufthansa on European flights in the Economy Light fare. Anyone who does not want the allocated space must pay.
Lufthansa has been charging money for seat reservations for quite some time. A passenger on European flights has to shell out 12 euros per route if he wants to secure a specific seat in advance. Seats further forward in the plane even cost 17 euros, those with more legroom 25 euros.
If you want to avoid the fee, you can wait until web check-in is released. From 24 hours before departure you can assign yourself a seat free of charge. But that will soon come to an end on European flights if you have booked the cheapest Economy Light fare. On June 21, Lufthansa will introduce a new system. “A seat will be automatically assigned to you upon check-in,” says the airline’s website.
Very different recently
If you are not satisfied, you can still change your mind. But he has to pay for it, like the portal YHBU first reported. Then a change fee of 25 euros for a standard seat is due – per route. Not long ago, it sounded very different at Lufthansa: “Of course, you can still select any seats that are still available free of charge when you check in.”
If you live in Switzerland and the USA, it will be even more expensive. Because there the fee for changing the assigned seat plate is 35 francs or 35 dollars. At the current exchange rates, these are surcharges of more than 35 or 30 percent on the euro prices.*
Daughters will probably follow soon
At Austrian Airlines and Swiss, the new fee for the Economy Light tariff on European flights has not yet been announced. In general, however, the two Lufthansa subsidiaries have adopted such tariff changes in the past, and the tariff structure has also been standardized in the group. In addition, Lufthansa already says: The fee is due for a “on a flight operated by Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines”.
The new fee can mean that the cheapest tariff is suddenly no longer the most attractive. If it is important for you to be sure of a certain seat – for example a seat by the window – you may be better off with the Economy Classic fare in the future.
Tariff for those who already know when to travel and how
According to a Lufthansa spokesman, Economy Light is the basic fare on domestic German routes and European routes. He is the right choice for “travellers who only travel with hand luggage and know when they will fly, because the tickets can only be rebooked for a fee and are non-refundable”.
However, you can add a piece of luggage or a seat reservation at any time for a fee. He also emphasizes that with automatic allocation, families and groups in a joint booking would not be separated as before.
* After the article was published, Lufthansa reacted and adjusted the exchange rates. The fee is now only 30 francs and dollars. The premium to the euro price is now just over 15 percent.
