After we disembarked an 11-day cruise on the Seabourn Sojourn, and rested during the day/evening at the JW Marriott on Juhu Beach, we headed to Mumbai’s New Terminal T2 at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport to begin the long flight home.
Lufthansa flight #757 was scheduled to leave Mumbai (BOM) India at 3:30 am local time. Many flights to Europe and the US leave Mumbai between 11 pm and 3 am, arriving in the morning hours.
Needless to say, we were ready to get on board and go to sleep.
Luckily, we were on a Boeing 747-400 aircraft, in which Lufthansa locates the first class section in the upper deck. You can see the full plane configuration here on Seat Guru (scroll to bottom of page to see first class/upper deck.) In the drawing above, from the Lufthansa web site, you can see that there are eight seats in first class. What’s harder to see is that there is a full two meter bed (which is perfect for Mr. Jones who’s about 2 meters or 6 feet, 6 inches tall.)
We had the two seats in row 2.
This is how the seat and bed beside it look on the plane. It’s designed so that you can work, eat and/or relax while watching online programming in the seat (which reclines significantly), then you can lie down in the bed to sleep.
Here’s another view from behind.
The bed has its own seat belt and duvet.
And a pretty comfortable pillow and mattress. The bed covers the length of four windows.
As we got settled in, we enjoyed champagne and some tasty macadamia nuts, along with water.
This is the champagne that Lufthansa was serving in first class (in April, 2014.)
We also were given Lufthansa pajamas (separate tops and bottoms). They are German brand van Laack and very nice.
This is the woman’s version of the pajama top. (I didn’t change into the pjs but Mr. Jones found his version quite comfortable.)
There’s also a different amenity kit for men and women. This is the men’s version.
This is the woman’s version. Other than the Le mer Moisturizing Creme and the Lip Balm, the kits seem pretty average compared to other airlines.
Despite the fact that the flight was scheduled to leave at 3:30 am, there was still a full dinner menu offered soon after take-off.
We enjoyed the caviar with more champagne. Then we skipped the main course but enjoyed the lobster and prawn appetizer.
Mr. Jones could not pass up the apple strudel. I had mine with a decaf cappuccino that was delicious and did not stop me from falling asleep shortly afterwards.
Breakfast was served about an hour before landing. Fresh fruit and muesli with yogurt made a terrific breakfast, along with a fully- caffeinated cappuccino.
Perfect for a little wake-up jolt before our arrival in Frankfurt, where we transferred to another Lufthansa flight to reach Chicago.
Booked Using United Frequent Flyer Miles
Since Lufthansa is a member of the Star Alliance, we booked this flight using United Frequent Flyer miles. This one-way trip from Mumbai to Frankfurt, and then Frankfurt to Chicago, and then United from Chicago to Kansas City cost us 80,000 United frequent flyer miles per person.
However, our award tickets were booked before United significantly raised its First Class International award levels in February, 2014. Under the new United award levels, this one-way flight in First Class will cost 140,000 United miles per person.
Even at the higher mileage levels, if we had the miles we would book it again in a heartbeat.
What Made This Flight on Lufthansa First Class So Great?
- On this particular Thursday morning, only three passengers were in all of the first class upper deck. Beside us, there was a gentleman in the last row. We decided that he might work for Lufthansa as he kept a low profile. In other words, it felt like we had the entire upper deck first class to ourselves.
- The two flight attendants were superb; they were always attentive if we needed something, yet invisible when we didn’t.
- The seats are comfortable for eating, reading and relaxing. But for sleeping – a good 6.5 hours of sleep, these sleeper beds are unbeatable.
- Although our flight was scheduled for 8 hours and 25 minutes, it ended up taking about 10 hours, and we didn’t care.
- One note: we hear Lufthansa is moving away from this first class configuration, so grab it while you can.
Have you flown on Lufthansa First Class? How do you think it compares to other airlines?
Other airline-related posts that you may want to check out: