MSP-FRA: Lufthansa’s new non-stop coming

Hi Kirstin: News to me. Is the Condor flight still flying also? Can't image there is enough traffic for both, and the United connections from MSP are rather poor to support much Star Alliance traffic.

Minneapolis/St. Paul are a lot like Seattle and Denver, similarly sized and with a higher percentage of locals traveling to Europe than an average US city, so maybe there is the local demand after all. Wondering if Air France is returning in 2024 as they promised after announcing their 2023 hiatus.

Reading this https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/09/12/lufthansa-to-start-offering-service-between-twin-cities-frankfurt I wonder if the large local East African population is part of the Lufthansa thinking. Personally if Europe is the final destination I prefer to leave MSP after 7 pm on the Delta or Icelandair flights. Arriving in Europe in the early morning is undesirable for me, no chance of sleeping on the plane when arrival is 11 pm home time, then zombie walking the whole day trying to stay awake, fell off a curb doing this in July, skinned my knee and tore jeans, never again.

Editing to add: Both flights will be going, interesting. https://www.google.com/travel/flights/search?tfs=CBwQAhomEgoyMDI0LTA2LTI1KABqDQgCEgkvbS8wZnB6d2ZyBwgBEgNGUkFAAUgBcAGCAQsI____________AZgBAg

Hi Tom, I tend to be risk & stress-averse for international travel (also not a huge fan of FRA if I’m connecting) but when I saw this announcement I looked at fares next summer and saw business class for about $2,500 so I got excited… until I realized that was each way 🤣. Like many things, if this is your Plan A and all goes to plan, then great, but probably if a re-route is needed the Plan B options get onerous. I’ll probably stick to Delta myself. I say this as someone who in the last couple of years has only been able to book trips but not actually take them for family reasons — that’s why I was curious about the thoughts from folks like yourself. I think there are 4-5 frequent posters here based in MN (hoping Mardee chimes in too! 😁).

Kirstin: Not seeing great pricing on this run, and noting with chagrin that Lufthansa calls regular coach "Basic Economy" which is beyond confusing. Stupid, stupid.

Hi Kirstin. Thanks for the post. This should be a big plus for my wife and I. We often fly United / Star Alliance to Europe, partly because we had some accumulated miles, but mainly because of the outstanding Star Alliance network within Europe. Once in Europe, with Star Alliance, we can easily connect to virtually anywhere, even smaller cities / airports. The early timing of the flight will be great for this. For example, if going to Krakow, we would now be able to go non-stop to Frankfurt, have a comfortable 2+ hour layover, and still be in Krakow by late morning. Plus there are 3 later Star Alliance FRA to Krakow flights that day in case our MSP-FRA flight is delayed for some reason. In the past, we needed to connect in the US, usually Chicago or Wash Dulles, which was fine, but now we can go direct. And yes, I just checked, and this flight is available for the same # of UA miles as we would have had to use for the previous connecting flights. :)

Hi Bob, you make a good point about connection options in FRA on Star Alliance. Here’s hoping a little competition turns out to be good for airfares!

Bob: There were already many one stop flights to Krakov, Delta KLM Via Amsterdam or United LOT via Chicago, I’m not seeing any improvement in service to Europe with Lufthansa, just another option. And I can’t fathom adding a domestic flight on United and connecting just to fly a specific airline (Lufthansa). Delta has always been a more than acceptable airline, specifically I like the pairs of seats in coach. Lufthansa and KLM don’t offer that from MSP.