I have been flying Lufthansa to the US pretty much from the days when this service was started from Bangalore. They started by flying 3-4 days/week to Frankfurt and then in the last few months have made it a daily service. I have probably flown Lufthansa some 15 times in the past few months to travel from Bangalore to the US and I want to share my thoughts about them.

First of all, Lufthansa is probably about 10-15% more expensive than other airlines to the US from Bangalore. This makes them a secondary option to other airlines flying the Pacific Route for domestic and personal travel.

To my knowledge, Lufthansa is the quickest way to get to a US destination from Bangalore. This makes Lufthansa a compelling option for business travellers. End-to-end, you can reach the East Coast of the US in about 20 hours from Bangalore and the West Coast in about 23 hours. The connections in Frankfurt are about 90-120 minutes and this is just great. Enough to comfortably make the connection, ensure that the bags do get transferred properly and also gives enough time to clear the extra security for US destinations in Frankfurt.

Service:
******
Lufthansa provides decent and efficient service. The staff is polite but not overly friendly. Do not expect the big smiles or extra effort like Singapore Airlines, but they will do enough to make you comfortable. Part of this is because English is not their natural language.

Food:
*****
The food on Lufthansa is sufficient and of decent quality and taste. Again, not extravagant, but sufficient. If you have highly Indianized taste buds, you will likely struggle with the food. I recommend that you avoid the Asian Vegetarian meal option and stay with the Western Vegetarian meal. After all these trips, I have not seen too much change in their menu, so it does get tedious. However, I am guessing many of you dont travel every 4-5 weeks like me, so it should not be an issue.

Entertainment:
************
I have flown both economy and business on Lufthansa. The on-board music and TV are barely adequate. While they do show some movies and TV shows, the entertainment is nothing like SQ or BA. The headsets are of poor quality and actually hurt if you wear them too long. I have not seen personalized TV screens (on each seat) in economy on any of the Airbus A340’s. You will have to live with a small screen TV. If you cant sleep on-board, make sure that you have plenty of reading.

Connection:
*********
Like I have mentioned before, the quick connections from Frankfurt make Lufthansa the #1 option for me when I travel. However, Frankfurt airport is pretty bad when compared to a classy airport like Changi in Singapore. The airport is barely adequate for the load it carries. Many times, aircrafts are forced to park away from the terminal and passengers are dumped in buses and ferried to the terminals. The terminals themselves have inadequate seating. There is a good chance that you will not even get a chair to sit on during transit! The airport shopping is meagre and there is very little choice by way of restaurants. If you are used to swimming or a shower in Singapore, just forget it. You are not going to get anything like the Changi experience in Frankfurt airport.

The toilet facilities very poor by international standards. Toilets are overcrowded and are frequently smelly and unappealing.

Other Stuff:
*********
Frankfurt airport has Wi-Fi facility if you are willing to pay the bucks for it. However, I am not aware of any other Internet facility or access for the passengers in transit.

After all my travels, my bags have never failed to make it. That is a huge plus for Lufthansa.

All in all, if you are willing to spend the extra money, you can get from Bangalore to Boston in 19 hours or Bangalore to SFO in 23 hours. This is probably why you should fly Lufthansa.

No. of times flown on this Airlines:	More than 10
Class flown most frequently:	Business Class