Thank you, Lufthansa!

First published April 30, 2015 • Last modified on July 25, 2026 • 2 min read • 378 words

In the morning of September 25th, 2014, I was waiting at Helsinki Airport to board Lufthansa flight LH 855 to Frankfurt where I was to change planes on my way to Genoa, Italy. I had been invited to give a talk at 2:45 pm at the 40th Congress of the European Society of Lymphology. I had only 1 hour 10 minutes stopover time in Frankfurt. 1 hour 10 minutes after the scheduled departure time, me and a few other passengers had not yet managed to board (they had boot problem with their computer system and people were checked in manually). I explained the desk attendant the situation and he said that it would be absolutely no problem to get a refund in this situation when I would decide not to board as I had no chance to catch my connecting flight. They apparently had overbooked the machine and the guy next in line was very happy when I gave up my seat. However, the desk attendant was not right, when he told me that getting the refund would be easy. Actually I have not received it by the time of this writing. However, I got assured by a phone call from Lufthansa, that it would happen within the next two to three weeks.In the frenzy to be competitive, Lufthansa has been streamlining its services to such a point that they apparently are dysfunctional. My first attempt to claim refund was via the regular route: online. When nothing had happened for 3 months, I phoned. Multiple times. Mostly to be cut of after having been in the waiting queue for 15 minutes or more. Then I wrote a physical letter to a UK address that Lufthansa had posted online for customer complaints. That letter came back after about 2 months: “address unknown”. Then I wrote another letter to the new address (they finally managed to update their web pages) and after another couple of weeks, I received that phone call from Lufthansa. Very apologetic. This should never have happened. They sent me two bottles of champagne, which arrived by courier, while I am still waiting for my money. I am flying next month to Switzerland to the 41st Congress of the European Society of Lymphology. I am flying Finnair.