Lufthansa's shiny new Boeing 787 Dreamliners may already be due for a rethink. CEO Carsten Spohr has signalled that the airline is looking at squeezing more business class and premium economy seats into upcoming deliveries, after concluding that the current layout — 28 business seats and 28 premium economy seats in a 287-seat aircraft — simply doesn't match demand on many routes.

The numbers make the concern fairly obvious. Lufthansa's 787-9 fleet currently stands at 20 aircraft: four picked up secondhand from Hainan Airlines and 16 brand-new jets fitted with the Allegris cabin. At least 22 more are on order, and the type is intended to become the workhorse of the carrier's Frankfurt long-haul operation alongside the 747-8s and future 777-9s. Even the 28 business seats overstate things for now — three of them aren't certified yet, so the real figure is 25 until certification lands, expected before the end of 2026.

Compare that with what competitors are flying. American's new 787-9s carry 51 business class seats, United's carry 64, and British Airways is reconfiguring its 787-9s with 38 business seats plus eight in first. Even Lufthansa's own retiring Airbus A330s had 42 business seats — on a smaller plane. Against that backdrop, dozens of freshly built Dreamliners arriving with 28 premium flatbeds reads as a misstep, especially given how long premium travel demand has been surging.

Nothing is locked in yet; the airline is still negotiating with suppliers, and no final configuration has been announced. One plausible outcome is a split fleet: a standard layout for thinner, leisure-oriented routes and a more premium-dense version for high-yield destinations. The demand profile for New York JFK, after all, looks nothing like that for Columbus, Ohio — both slated as Dreamliner destinations in the coming months.

For travellers, the takeaway is that the exact seat count on your Lufthansa 787 flight may vary as these plans evolve, and the airline's premium cabin footprint — already complicated by the slow Allegris rollout and the oddities of the SWISS Senses first class cabin — remains a moving target. Anyone booking long-haul premium cabins on Lufthansa, or hoping to redeem miles on these routes, should watch which configuration ends up on their flight.

Story via One Mile at a Time