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Comment by FeistySkink | Hacker News Reader

As an aside, are there ANY decent airlines left in EU? Just having booked tickets thought 3 separate airlines, I had to go throught multiple circles of hell: captcha (LOT), purposefully confusing flow, no luggage by default and next tier being x3-x5 the price (WizzAir, but others are similarly bad), hidden fees appearing during final steps (Norwegian), and everything RyanAir. I'm not even flying with checked luggage for the past 15 years because of the multiple counts of every single airline losing and damaging my luggage. KLM, Lufthansa, SAS - you name it. And many times you don't even get to chose an airline: there is just one option.

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Lufthansa is one of the better ones. Typically I’ve found it better to book tickets via United though.

LH is pretty much the worst of the lot. Their employees will avoid helping you at all cost even when it makes their lives easier. If nothing wrong happens, they're ok. If any thing happens it's your fault. It's been like that for more than 10 years.

I always find those kinds of comments hilarious. Did you actually fly all of the airlines above, or you just hate LH because you normally fly Singapore Airlines? (perspective is important in those discussions).

As a rule of thumb the oldschool companies always suck less than the cheap companies who try to squeeze every penny out of you in every way. (Or have barely enough fuel so they need to call emergency landing once a month, or don't have enough personnel so they live-cancel late evening flights etc)

Now, I had my long list of issues with LH (it's the airline I fly the most because simply there's no other connection to places I want to go): missed connections, late bags on short connection, cancelled flights, late arrival etc. (By definition, airlines who do connections have higher risk of this than point-to-point cheap airlines.)

But every time I managed to get a workable solution to the issue, rebooking at no extra cost, money back quickly after a big delay etc. And no one ever looks whether my bags are not 1mm too big.

Meanwhile with a cheap airlines I had what you were explaining: once the website was not able to give me a boarding card. It was inactive or something. I arrive at the airport and show it to them live, they say sorry f.ck you, pay $$$ for printing boarding card at the airport. You should have called our hotline at $$$ per minute.

Have you flown with LH recently?

If something happens then they shut down service desk and don't help you at all.

Find your own solution and then they ignore you if you want hotel/travel costs paid back.

I'm still waiting ~4000 eur from them. But only one human reply that they forwarded claim to another department. 3 months and counting...

And I resend all my claims weekly and hope for the best.

Phone support is even worse. 2 hours on the phone and then they understand that indeed my flight was cancelled 3 months ago...

Yes, I flew with them on Thursday, and the Saturday before that. Their hard product in Europe is second only to Turkish Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, neither of which go many places without very inconvenient routing at best.

I typically fly LH economy, though have had a few upgrades (meaningless in Europe) over the years. Their business class is not as good as Singapore or Virgin, or modern United, but better than BA, and typically fine.

I don’t buy tickets through LH, only through United, who answer the phone (to me) with a knowledgeable human in under 1 minute as someone with top status.

lol .. which hard product? I've been on LH flights where the cleaniness is competing with Air india.

I'm sure. Your anecdata is as good as mine. Skytrax disagree with you though.

> Did you actually fly all of the airlines above, or you just hate LH because you normally fly Singapore Airlines? (perspective is important in those discussions).

Nice try. I've been flying a lot in the last 10+ years.

But yes. I have flown with LH enough. I've flown with them on their own tickets and UA award tickets. They will act like shit, and they will defend each other there at all costs. UA looks like an angel in comparison, even with the Dao punch out. Heck when, you offer to help them offload 2 pax and help with their equipment swap (as this LH leg is a connection and not the final).. they're respond with "WHO TOLD YOU THIS!".

What happens on an flat tire situation: Many times UA will try to help you out, even if it's a mixed ticket with US Airways.

What happens with LH: You will be repriced and expected to pay, don't expect for the agent to communicate accurately. Their behavior is that this is your fault and will be puzzled why you did this "intentionally". (That stance also goes to their own equipment downgrades, WX problems, staff issues on their side, not liking their own hostile/aggressive staff, or even if you want to fulfill all of the requirements of bringing your dog)

That is their stance, and their willful ignorance of the business. This is a "full service carrier" who acts worse than a LCC.

Airline stacking from what I've flown with:

Best EK, UA, TK, TP, KLM, US

Good: WN, BA, AM, CP, AA, LATAM, Alaska

Questionable but good: SAS, Agean/Olympia, AR, Insel

Garbage: DL, LH, EasyJet

was*

It is one of the worst ones now.

Air Europa out of Spain isn't that bad and fairly inexpensive. I flew on it 4 times this past year and the booking process works OK.

SAS is ok. Not great, but ok. TK is mostly pretty good. TAP is ok, but their OPs at Lisbon sucks.

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