When Lufthansa claimed that a half hour connection time was routine between flights to Munich and continuing on the Budapest, we questioned how this could be. When making the reservation and when arriving at the airport to check our bags we were assured that this is routine on a daily basis and special arrangements were made to make sure things went smoothly.
Of course they don’t. Our flight was on time, we ran, we went through the security check point, we reached the gate a few minutes before the schedule departure time. However, we were too late since all passengers had to be on board twenty minutes ahead of time. Yes, that allowed ten minutes for the passage!
A low level service representatives acknowledged that passengers on from Newark to Munich are stranded every day due to deception, not just for our continuing flight but to various destinations. Her manager gives a group of angry travelers a well practiced and used ‘song and a dance routine’ by which she seeks to exculpate the airlines. We are not buying!
From our experience and the accounts of the other delayed passengers, there is every indication that Lufthansa policy is to entice passengers to take the flight from New York to Munich on the pretense that they will make a tight early connection and then put them on their flight three hours later.
We don’t know what the word for this unseemly practice is in German. But in English we would call it ‘bait and switch’, a form of fraud.
Next time we will fly another airline. Non-stop, if possible.
We also will bring this to the attention of the appropriate federal authorities.
