Lufthansa CityLine Overview

Lufthansa CityLine is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lufthansa and act as the regional arm of the large German airline. They currently have about 50 aircraft in their fleet, only 7 of which are the Embraer 190 which I’m flying today.

Just like the main Lufthansa airline, Lufthansa CityLine use Frankfurt and Munich as their main hubs. Lufthansa itself is actually the second largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. And the largest based solely on revenue. They also own a huge number or smaller airlines. With Swiss, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Austrian, and a few more all forming part of the Lufthansa Group. They’re also a founding member of the Star Alliance, which I covered in this article here if you want to read more.

Ticket & Flight Details

I paid DKK 895 (£105) for the standard economy ticket from Billund to London City via Frankfurt. Then a further DKK 149 (£17) for seat reservation on just the 2nd leg of the flight. For the route that’s relatively pricey. British Airways and Ryanair both fly direct from Billund to London for about £25 and £50 respectively. But overall I wouldn’t say it’s egregiously overpriced. Just a bit expensive.

After making the booking I was given the option to upgrade to Business class. The cost of that would have been DKK 745 (£85). I think that’s too expensive for a 1 hour flight. Especially considering the Business Class seat is exactly the same as Economy. Of course you get a full meal and lounge access. But I’m able to get free lounge access anyway (thanks Amex Platinum!).

(But if you do plan to fly Business don’t book Economy then upgrade. It’s cheaper to just buy a Business Class ticket from the start. You would save about £20 that way).

Frankfurt Airport

This was my first time at Frankfurt Airport, and I have to admit, I kind of hate it. It’s one of the busiest airports in the world with over 70 million passengers in 2019. It’s also the main hub for Lufthansa and the best connected airport in the world in 2022. You can fly to over 330 airports from Frankfurt, with the busiest route being to London Heathrow at over 100 weekly flights.

All that being said, I just found it an oppresive place to connect through. The airport can be summed up by long narrow corridors with no natural light. Low ceilings and dark colours just make it a miserable place that’s laid out like a maze. Despite the slick looking picture below many of the gate areas were messy and felt very old.

I had a 2 hour layover though which gave me time to visit the Lufthansa Business Lounge. And I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not the most stylish place, with a very ‘German’ design aesthetic. In other words, I think it was kind of ugly. But there was loads of comfortable seating, showers, a massive bar and some great food. I went full German and had a big pretzel, pulled pork, sauerkraut and cheesy spätzle. Then just a coffee and a chocolate brownie with mini pretzels in. Best of all I was able to access the lounge for free! That’s because I have the Amex Platinum Card which includes unlimited free lounge access as a membership perk. Specifically to enter this lounge I just had to show my card and Lufthansa boarding pass.

So then I headed to the gate, B31, pretty much right in the middle of Terminal 1. After waiting for a bit we passed the scheduled boarding time with no announcement. People were starting to queue and I heard someone ask a gate agent what was going on. He said, and I quote “This is normal, we never board on time. The flight should still leave on time”. He was right, we did leave more or less on time. I just found it amusing how he said they never board flights on time at Frankfurt.

After doing some plane spotting and seeing the magnificent Boeing 747-8 and Condor’s quirky new A330-900neo, we started boarding. Slightly annoyingly we had a bus gate, but I can’t really complain as it was all still very efficient.

The Plane & Seat

Lufthansa’s Embraer E190 has 100 seats in a 2-2 config. All seats are standard economy style, but the front rows are reserved as Business class. That just means they block off 1 seat on each row so you never have a neighbour. On this plane the front 8 rows were Business, though they change the number of Business rows based on demand. London City is a very popular business route so it has the max number of Business seats. You can see the full seat map here.

And whilst walking through the cabin I couldn’t help but notice how tiny the overhead bins are. A few people with larger bags were having a lot of difficulty fitting them in. Some even had to get the cabin crew to help. Luckily I just had a small backpack which I put under the seat.

The seat itself is quite spacious with plenty of legroom. The seat has 32″ of pitch and 18.2″ width according to SeatGuru.com. It has a full leather construction and the seat bed is soft and comfortable. Unfortunately the backrest is solid as a rock so it’s not the most comfortable. Also, due to the Embraer E190 being quite a narrow plane, the ceiling is also quite low. That means the seats are also low so if you’re tall you probably won’t have any head support.

The seat features are pretty basic, with small net pouch that can barely fit a water bottle. A tray table and a coat hook. And that’s about it.

Inflight (Service & Facilities)

On my previous flight with Lufthansa in an Airbus A319, I was impressed by the inflight WiFi. You only get 30 minutes for free, after which you have to pay. But the Lufthansa page stay’s accessible throughout the flight. Showing a cool little flight map and some useful connecting gate info. So I was disappointed that there was no WiFi on this flight. I’m not sure if it just happened to be broken or isn’t fitted on the E190s or something. But it was still disappointing.

You also get a small Lufthansa-branded chocolate. Just an average chocolate really, but still nice to have.

Besides that this was a very uneventful flight. Unfortunately throughout the flight there was a raw sewage smell coming from the front toilet. It wasn’t noticeable too often but every few minutes a waft would hit my nose. Very unfortunate, and I hope it was a oneoff so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt this time.

Since the front toilet obviously had something wrong with it, I headed to the back. Below you can (kind of) see that it’s actually quite spacious. Much more spacious than the Airbus A320 or Boeing 737 toilets you’ll see on most airlines within Europe.

Then after just over an hour we landed into London City Airport. Worth noting on this day the weather was pretty bad with strong crosswinds. When I checked after the flight the forecast said 25mph (40kmph) with crosswinds up to 35mph (55kmph). That’s probably close to the maximum this aircraft can handle at a small airport like this. And it was a very bumpy landing. I found it quite exciting. But if you’re a nervous flyer, the Embraer E190 definitely feels the turbulence more than larger planes. The person sitting next to me was clutching the seat in front of them and gasping at every bump.

Final Thoughts

Overall this was a pretty goot flight. It’s pretty basic in what’s provided. Just a bottle of water and a small chocolate. But I love the 2-2 seating of the Embraer E190. And the seat actually had good legroom, despite being a bit hard. We landed early so that’s always a bonus too. The only negative was the sewage smell coming from the front toilet. But I’m going to be lenient and give them the benefit of the doubt on that and assume it was a one off.

More from me…

If you enjoyed my Lufthansa CityLine Review, please feel free to check out other related posts I’ve written:

• Malaysia Airlines Economy A350-900 – Great food on a 13 hour flight
• No1 Lounge at London Gatwick South – Surprisingly good
• Singapore Airlines Economy from London to Singapore – As Good as People Say?

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