One of Europe’s biggest airlines puts doors on business class seats

For the cross-Atlantic traveller, Lufthansa, Europe’s second-largest airline (by passenger numbers), has debuted a new cabin featuring new-generation seats. The highlights of “Lufthansa Allegris” are, as usual, at the pointy end, with business class seats featuring a privacy door – handy when the person across the aisle is snoring loudly.

In first class, the seat configuration creates a dreamy double bed. In premium economy, the seats are hard-shell with a 99-centimetre (39-inch) pitch, while in economy, seat pitch is 79 centimetres (31 inches) with 86 centimetres (34 inches) in the front row. There’s also an option to book a free seat next to you.

A new entertainment system applies throughout the cabin.

The comfort and functionality upgrade is now on A350s flying between Munich and Vancouver Canada, with a rollout over the next few months introducing it on flights from Germany to Montreal, Canada and Chicago in the US.

While the carrier does not currently grace these shores, it wasn’t always so.

The German flag carrier used to fly here, it even had its own version of the Kangaroo Route – the multi-stop hop between Australia and the UK instigated by Qantas and its earlier incarnation, in the first half of the 20th century.

Lufthansa’s kanguru (that’s German for “kangaroo”) route flew between Frankfurt and Sydney (Melbourne was sometimes tagged on, too) with a variety of stops along the way, typically Athens, Karachi or Bombay, then Bangkok and Singapore before landing at Kingsford Smith.

Those multi-stop days are long gone for everyone, and Lufthansa ceased taxiing Australian tarmacs in the 1990s.