One of the things we’ve seen over the past few years are airlines eliminating their first-class cabin on transoceanic routes. And that includes top-tier carriers. The latest example is Lufthansa, which is eliminating first class on many long haul routes out of Munich (MUC) including its Charlotte flight effective Dec. 1. The seating configuration on the Airbus A330-300s Lufthansa uses for CLT-MUC will go from 8 first class, 42 business class, 21 premium economy, and 145 economy seats to 42 business class, 28 premium economy, and 185 economy for a net gain of 39 seats.
By comparison, the legacy US Airways A330-300s that American Airlines flies to Europe from Charlotte seat 291 in a two-class arrangement (28 business and 263 economy) though the airline has announced it will be refitting most of its widebodies with a premium economy over the next few years.
