Lufthansa vs. KLM to Germany

LH also flies into Dusseldorf from the US which will be the closet large international airport to Cologne.

I really depends on where you are flying from. Not all American airports are equally serviced by each airline. Lufthansa is a United partner. KLM I believe used to be a Northwest partner, which may extend to Delta now. If you need a connection, that may be the deciding factor.

We have flown to Germany 5 times in the last few years on Delta or Lufthansa (some United). Our biggest mess was on Lufthansa. They overbooked a flight out of Munich. They eventually connected us standby (family of 4) through Zurich (where we had to fetch and recheck our bags) on Swiss Air. They handsomely reimbursed us for the trouble.

I suspect that you can have trouble on any airline.

Regards, Gary

Just to give LH some credit, all airlines try to overbook their flights. They have a 10-15% no-show rate (with flying standby, we've gotten on flights that have been overbooked due to this), so they overbook their flights to compensate for this. It usually works out fine, but, on occasion, more people show up than they thought actually would. It's a common practice.

I have no experience with Lufthansa but we had a great experience with KLM. 4 years ago we were traveling to Paris for our 25th anniversary. While in Detroit, where we changed planes from Northwest to KLM, we were standing by the ticket counter at the gate and they asked to see our tickets. The agent mumbled something about needing to change our seats. Next thing we know we are being ushered into the first class section! It was just the icing on the cake to be able to fly from Detroit to Paris in first class. It was a great anniversary trip! Of course it was just random luck, but it does give me a good feeling about KLM.

I like both airlines.

Thank you for all of the help. I wonder if it would be better to fly out of Dusseldorf or Frankfurt if I'm ending my trip in Cologne or does it really matter. Any thoughts?

Which city in the states are you flying out of? Practically every state has a Fairfield, but only a few cities in the U.S. are served by Luthansa or KLM. Would you consider flying on a US airline if it were cheaper, a direct flight and/or had more available daily flights to Germany? That is usually the case on all three points at U.S. airports that are hubs for major airlines, like Delta in Atlanta.

Flying out of San Francisco.

Air France/KLM has just been ranked 2nd most deadly airline to fly (second only to former Sovjet Aeroflot)...

But which one, Air France or KLM, is worse? Is it because of the crash off of Brazil? It might not have anything to do with KLM.