Lufthansa Complaints: One of the largest airlines in Europe, has faced numerous complaints over the years regarding poor service. Customers have reported issues such as long wait times, flight cancellations, lost luggage, and unresponsive customer service. Despite efforts to address these concerns and improve overall customer satisfaction, some passengers continue to express frustration with the quality of service provided by the airline.

NEVER, NEVER again will we fly with Lufthansa!
With a return flight booked from Cape Town to Dubrovnik with only one leg redeemed here is our story:

We arrived two and a half hours prior to the flight allowing enough time to have lunch. Leaving SA not to return for a while I had my heart set on a Spur “Goodie” burger for lunch.
We were prevented from checking in because the return date (2 June 2023) was after the expiry date of the Schengen visa (11 Dec 2022), we however explained to the ground staff supervisor that we lived in Montenegro (landing in Dubrovnik) and that we were “in transit” to Montenegro and were only using Dubrovnik airport as it was a 30min drive to our apartment. Residency cards were provided.
The supervisor did not know how to handle the situation, so we suggested changing the return date as to allow the system to check us in. The costs for a changed return flights were ridiculous…R28 000 and R16 000…we did ask for the dates to be amended to a “same Fair” rate. In the interim the supervisor said that if we could PROVE we were not going to remain in Croatia and traveling home to Montenegro that he would be satisfied and manually override the system. (we later found out when trying to amend the return leg that CPT had cancelled the return flight…God only knows what would have happened if we actually arrived on the day to use these tickets to find out they had been cancelled).
We responded by providing a car parking receipt for a car that we owned and that showed our licence registration number. I also told him to go through the stamps in both our passports that proved we always exited MNE and entered Croatia to fly and did the same when returning. There were AMPLE international flights this year to prove the same.
The supervisor however had to call a colleague in Germany to explain the situation. She then confirmed that it was perfectly normal for passengers from a smaller country to cross a boarders to fly from a larger airport.
The supervisor then had to update his fellow staff member as to the protocol on the situation and he allowed us to check-in…..almost two hours from arriving at the check-in desk.
* Then came the issue of our luggage…we checked in 3 pieces… two of which were within the weight and size requirements, 1 of which was overweight. They did not have the payment reflected on the system for the extra piece, I had prepaid R2100 for an extra piece but for the overweight bag  of  7kg’s we were charges an additional R3050 which I find completely unfair. For some reason only known to them cannot charge by the Kg. 
* Then lastly as we reached passport control (boarding had now started), we heard an announcement calling us to the boarding gate to remove an item from our luggage…a base speaker….which was removed from our luggage after check-in, the reason given was that the magnet from the speaker will interfere with aviation controls. 
I looked through all online material and the Lufthansa restricted items list and there is nothing on the list about speakers or magnets being restricted. 
There is however MANY articles that say you CAN fly with speaks as long as they do not have lithium batteries and that the speaker confirms to size and weight requirements. 
The speaker was packaged inside my check-in luggage, taking up 20% of the space and weight allowance. This bag conformed to the weight and size requirements. 
To have it removed unnecessarily due to staff ignorance is not acceptable. It was a gift (there are two parts) and I have the sound bar with me (which was taken on as hand luggage)…but I am not able to use half of the equipment without the other component. 
* My elderly mother had to return to CPT International to collect the speaker spending an additional 2 hours on the road. 
* we were not able to have lunch and only got to eat at 8pm that evening with onboard dinner service. My partner is diabetic and needed to eat.
FYI – there was no meal selection, you ate what you were given or went without and the only alcoholic beverages that were served were wine or beer served in a plastic cup..Such a poor experience it prompted me to write “Flying a Necessary Evil?“