Lufthansa

A340-300 and seat 27K last row of front economy cabin. Seat was spacious with 32" pitch. There is a space to recline the seat towards wall behind. There were no noise from the galley and toilets. Only problem is if pax front of you fully reclines you might feel a bit uncomfortable first. Entertainment equipment box takes some of the legroom.

FRA-JFK Seat 87A. Legroom adequate for someone who is 6' tall. Even though there is a wall behind this seat you can still recline. Individual screens for inflight entertainment and selection was adequate to keep me occupied for 8 hours. The new Airbus 380-800 is a quiet smooth aircraft.

HKG-FRA/FRA-HKG Terrible seats. With the seat in front of me fully reclined I could not exit my seat without lifting myself off the seat with my arms and levering my legs sideways. Re- entering the seat required major acrobatics as well. Legroom was insufficient and recline minimal. The seating was so bad that it really should not be allowed and I actually hold the airline licensing and accreditation bodies responsible for allowing this to happen. In flight entertainment was terrible since there are only old colour fringed CRT monitors on the ceiling. Headphone jacks are also incompatible with 3.5mm adapters preventing the use of normal headphones. Food was good however especially kids' meals.

Modern interior at first hides that seats are only tolerable for short hauls. Avoid this airline for overseas flights if you are over 6'. Incredibly cramped even in aisle. IFE in seat has good selection but box under seat and inability to see IFE screen when seat in front of you is reclined cancels out the good.

MUC-GRU. Although I reserved a window seat (27A) 2 months before the flight they gave me a seat at the last lane before the toilets located in the middle of the plane. The problem is that none of these seats recline - I mean no recline! Apparently Lufthansa staff does not care to tell passengers that during reservation at the check-in even though you are a Top- Tier flyer (Star Alliance Gold). Besides that this plane had only old TV monitors hung from the ceiling that had no view point from the seat I was. Worst flight for the last 5 years at least!

Immaculate interior fittings and facilities on the old 747s disguises how cramped and uncomfortable is the economy class seating. A Lufthansa Boeing 747 flight to Frankfurt from Johannesburg last year was unbearable. Lufthansa's more modern A340-600s offer more space comfort and individual screens and the outgoing flight to Cape Town was better.

Those media-boxes have made travelling a hell on earth. They have made it impossible to stretch out your legs. And if the passengers in front of you recline their seats you will probably never get out of yours.

Seat 38G (and 38F also) is good for full-time reclining because there are no seats behind. In-seat LCD is large enough (9 inch) and a touch screen type so no hand controllers are equipped in the armrest and games are not available (only movies and music). Overhead bin of seat 39D is occupied by a baby bed and no room and half of overhead bin of seat 39B and 39H is occupied by magazine racks.

Lufthansa's long-haul economy seats are just like those on short-haul or just not really suited to anything more than a couple of hours. However on their Airbus fleet you do get at- seat IFE unlike on the Boeing 747s where there are TVs over the aisles - this is a big problem for children.

Lufthansa is about the norm for economy transatlantic flights. It's not something I look forward to but is bearable. The food is ok and FA's nice. IFE mundane.