At one point, the passengers on either side of us were asleep and I couldn’t wake them. I was trapped when my blood pressure started racing, I started to sweat and I felt like I was going to be sick with the baby in my lap. I didn’t know that it was an anxiety attack, but I was pretty freaked out when no one from the crew responded when I pushed the attendant button.

The thing is, my standards for service and comfort are very, very low. I would rather suffer through a flight for 8 or 9 hours and see my family at the end than avoid the experience altogether. That said, the problems with Lufthansa are the same as they are in German society. It’s a great society to grow old in. The flight attendants all offered to help the senior citizens with their hand baggage, but they don’t have a moment to find the children’s meals or to clear the stack of days-old newspapers left under the seat in front of us where they were taking up precious space.
The worst thing is, I know they just neglected and ignored us. I saw truly horrible behaviour from their ground crew toward another mother. Many Canadians have dual citizenship. So, they travel to their homelands on their native passports and keep their citizenship ID or Canadian birth certifiates to re-enter Canada. It’s established procedure and legal. The Lufthansa staff, refused to let one woman and her daughter board and made them stand at the service counter for two hours waiting for the flight manager to come back from her break. The fact that there was no designate person to take responsibility while the manager was on her break was shocking.

To tell you the truth, I am not sure customer service, comfort or safety is of concern to anyone who works at that airline. I wish I could travel exclusively with Air Canada or British Airways who I have had great family traveling experiences with, or with Cathay Pacific who I’ve heard nothing but good things about from travelling mothers, but until Lufthansa is removed from the so-called Star Alliance, there is no guartenee I’ll be able to avoid them.

I have to fly back on another Air Canada flight run by Lufthansa and I don’t want worries about it to ruin our time here. Has anyone got some positive stories to tell about a nice flight home?

Edit: I had a great trip back with the kids on April 12th. I told Lufthansa customer service about the anxiety attack I experienced on our outbound flight and that the flight crew didn’t respond to the “request for assistance” button.  I used both the telephone and the web site to ask for seats in the bulkhead, or at least on the aisle.  It took several hours of time and the various customer service and customer relations reps had to send telexes to ground staff at the airport. They still didn’t get us bulkhead seats, but the upgrade to business class made me forgive everything. 

Post from: Babylune