British Airways Club Suite vs. Lufthansa Allegris: Which Business Class Is Better?

Over the past years, we have flown both the British Airways Club Suite and the new Lufthansa Allegris Business Class multiple times across different aircraft types and routes. This gives us a solid basis for a direct comparison of how both products perform in real-world conditions. Of course, this review reflects only our personal experience; other travelers might weigh certain aspects differently. Nevertheless, flying both cabins repeatedly reveals clear patterns in terms of design, comfort, consistency, and overall passenger experience.

British Airways has now reached wide deployment with the Club Suite. After a slow start, the majority of long-haul departures from London Heathrow feature the new product, making it the standard BA Business Class cabin for 2026. You can view all Club Suite routes here: British Airways Club Suite Routes.

Lufthansa Allegris, on the other hand, continues its rollout at an extremely slow pace. The airline originally announced the Allegris concept back in 2017, yet did not begin operating aircraft with the new seats until 2024. Today, only a very small number of jets are equipped with the Allegris cabin. While Allegris is undeniably a major upgrade over Lufthansa’s old Business Class, the painfully slow introduction means that most passengers still end up on the older product. A complete list of Allegris routes can be found here: Lufthansa Allegris Routes.

Despite the rollout differences, both cabins represent significant improvements for their respective airlines. Below we compare the British Airways Club Suite and Lufthansa Allegris across several key elements. We focused exclusively on four core elements that directly shape the in-cabin experience: (1) seat concept and cabin design, (2) in-flight entertainment and connectivity, (3) service and catering as experienced in the cabin, and (4) value for money including seat surcharges.

We deliberately did not include ground experience such as lounges or check-in, as these aspects vary widely between airports and do not reflect the quality of the cabin product itself. While service and catering are not technically part of the hard product, they form an essential part of the passenger experience once inside the cabin and therefore merit inclusion.

 

1. Seat Concept & Cabin Philosophy: Simplicity vs. Complexity

British Airways Club Suite: One Seat, One Concept

The British Airways Club Suite follows a very clear and consistent design philosophy: every seat is a suite with a sliding door.

This gives each passenger the same privacy level and eliminates the need to select a specific seat type to avoid a poor location.

BA’s layout is refreshingly simple. There are no “good” or “bad” seats when it comes to core comfort and privacy. The consistency of the product dramatically reduces stress during booking and ensures every traveler knows exactly what to expect.

Visually, passenger opinions are mixed. Some find the cabin a bit cold or overly corporate, with comparisons to a “call center” appearing now and then. But when seated, aesthetic debates fade away. The Club Suite provides genuinely private, well-shielded personal space with excellent ergonomics.

The seat cushioning is balanced, not too firm, not too soft, and works well for long-haul flying. In terms of sleep comfort, the BA Club Suite performs reliably: the fully flat bed has comfortable padding, well-designed sleeping space, and delivers a consistently pleasant rest experience, even if it isn’t among the very softest products on the market.

In terms of personal storage, BA’s Club Suite performs reliably well. Passengers benefit from a structured setup that includes a side cabinet, dedicated compartments for small items, and a practical surface layout that keeps laptops, amenities, and devices accessible without relying on the overhead bins.

Seat reservation pricing:
Seat selection is free for Oneworld Sapphire members (for example BA Silver). Without status, BA charges approximately €129–€179 per one-way, depending on the route. While not cheap, the pricing is consistent and applies uniformly across the cabin.

 

Lufthansa Allegris: Five Seats, Five Experiences

Lufthansa Allegris takes the opposite approach, and an unusually complex one. The airline introduced five distinct Business Class seat types within the same cabin. These vary dramatically in privacy, space, and features.

This leads to situations where passengers sitting only one row apart can have completely different Business Class experiences. It is a complex, fragmented hard product that demands careful seat selection if privacy is important to you.

Most non-Suite Allegris seats, especially the outboard seats not adjacent to the window, provide limited to no privacy. Some are open to the aisle, and others have minimal shielding. Only the most expensive variants reach the privacy level BA offers to every passenger by default.

Lufthansa promotes the removal of the center overhead bins in the Allegris Business Class cabin as a feature that creates a more open, spacious environment. During boarding, the openness is noticeable and visually appealing. However, once seated, the effect disappears, and the drawbacks become evident. Passengers in the center section must use the side bins, causing frequent disturbances for window-seat passengers throughout the flight. This is especially problematic during night flights when passengers are trying to sleep. In practice, the open ceiling concept offers no real benefit and introduces new inconveniences. It is a design that favors aesthetics over functionality, not ideal in a premium cabin.

Storage options in Allegris also depend heavily on the seat variant.

The Suite seats provide excellent storage with multiple enclosed compartments, while several of the standard Allegris seats offer noticeably less usable space. For many passengers, this results in a more cluttered seating area and a greater reliance on overhead bins, especially problematic given the removal of the center bins.

Lufthansa Allegris, despite being a brand-new product, performs poorly in the category of sleep comfort. Across multiple flights, we found the Allegris seats too hard. Although Lufthansa advertises an adjustable cushion for firmness, the feature did not work properly on two of our three flights. The heating and cooling function also failed to operate reliably. As a result, overall sleeping comfort ranges from mediocre to downright uncomfortable. Even when fully flat, the bed feels overly firm and less restful than comparable next-generation Business Class seats and significantly worse than the Club Suite.

Seat reservation pricing:
Seat selection ranges from €0 up to an astonishing €600 per one-way segment for the Allegris Suite seats, the only ones with doors. To justify the premium, Lufthansa even added plastic panels behind the Suite seats to create slightly more enclosure than the standard seats. This feels more like a cosmetic patch than a true architectural improvement.

 

Winner: British Airways

From a passenger perspective, British Airways wins clearly in terms of simplicity, privacy, and consistency. Every Club Suite passenger knows exactly what they are getting: a fully enclosed private suite.

Lufthansa Allegris, while modern, introduces unnecessary complexity and aggressive monetization. Instead of lifting the entire cabin to a new standard, Lufthansa created a hierarchy of different Business Class experiences, some good, some mediocre, and some extremely expensive.

 

2. In-Flight Entertainment, Wi-Fi & Connectivity

Overall Performance

On paper, the in-flight entertainment systems on British Airways and Lufthansa Allegris appear broadly comparable, with modern high-resolution screens and generally stable Wi-Fi connectivity. Lufthansa does hold a technical advantage with Bluetooth audio support, which British Airways does not offer. However, Allegris introduces yet another layer of inconsistency: screen sizes differ depending on the seat type, since the cabin contains multiple seat variants.

Despite similar specifications, real-world performance tells a very different story.

 

British Airways: Stable and Predictable

Across our BA Club Suite flights, the IFE system consistently performed well:

• Menus respond quickly
• Playback and pause work normally
• No freezing or noticeable lag
• Overall smooth user experience

It’s not groundbreaking technology, but it is reliable, which is what matters most on a long-haul flight.

 

Lufthansa Allegris: Severe Lag and Functional Issues

Across two of our three Allegris flights, the IFE system was extremely laggy, often borderline unusable. These issues occurred on different aircraft, suggesting a wider systemic problem rather than a one-off technical glitch.

• Multi-second delays on every touch input
• Frozen screens
• Unreliable playback controls
• Impossible to pause movies, with the only option being to stop them entirely

On the latest flight in January 2026, all three of our seats experienced the same issues. For a brand-new long-haul Business Class product, this is difficult to justify and significantly detracts from the overall experience.

 

Winner: British Airways

While Lufthansa offers more features on paper (Bluetooth, different screen implementations), the actual performance of the system on Allegris has been disappointing. British Airways, by contrast, delivers a stable and predictable IFE experience, which is ultimately far more valuable to passengers.

 

3. Service & Catering

Service Quality: Lufthansa Usually Wins, British Airways Is Inconsistent

When it comes to cabin service, Lufthansa generally has the edge. The overall soft product feels more polished and structured, even though Lufthansa crews are certainly not immune to the occasional unmotivated or indifferent attitude. We have personally experienced Lufthansa flights where the crew appeared uninterested or low on energy. That said, these cases tend to be the exception rather than the rule and are not frequent enough to define the product as a whole.

British Airways, by contrast, is far more unpredictable. With BA, the service experience often feels like a 50/50 gamble. On some flights, the crew is warm, attentive, charming, and genuinely pleasant to interact with, delivering a service level that feels fully appropriate for a premium Business Class cabin. On other occasions, however, the service can come across as cold, minimalistic, and at times even bordering on arrogant, with limited interaction and little personal engagement.

This wide variation makes British Airways difficult to evaluate consistently. At its best, BA service can be excellent and memorable. At its worst, it feels impersonal and transactional, which undermines the otherwise strong hard product of the Club Suite.

Overall, Lufthansa delivers a more consistent service experience, even if it does not always reach truly top-tier standards.

 

Catering: Lufthansa Delivers Solid, Reliable Meals, British Airways Falls Short

In the catering department, Lufthansa clearly outperforms British Airways.

British Airways Business Class catering has seen some improvement over the years, but the overall quality remains mediocre when compared to other European and international carriers. Based on our experience, the following patterns are consistent:

• Starters can occasionally be good and well-presented
• Main courses are frequently disappointing
• Breakfast is almost always poor

The breakfast offering is a particularly weak point. British Airways relies heavily on variations of the English breakfast, despite the fact that not every Business Class passenger is British, and even many British travelers do not particularly enjoy it. The biggest missed opportunity is the absence of a simple continental breakfast option, such as yogurt, a croissant, a bread roll with jam, and a small selection of fruit. This would be easy to offer, inexpensive to produce, and widely appreciated across different passenger profiles.

Lufthansa, by contrast, offers catering that is generally reliable and consistently acceptable. Meals are usually well-presented, edible, and balanced, even if they are not particularly creative or exciting. Lufthansa’s food does not reach the level of standout Star Alliance carriers such as Austrian Airlines or Turkish Airlines, but it still surpasses British Airways in nearly every catering category.

Breakfast on Lufthansa flights is almost always good to very good, with proper menu choices and a noticeably higher level of consistency compared to BA.

When it comes to beverages, including wine, champagne, spirits, and non-alcoholic options, British Airways and Lufthansa are largely on equal footing. Neither airline stands out dramatically, but neither disappoints either. The drink selections are competitive, consistent, and adequately premium for a long-haul Business Class experience.

 

Winner: Lufthansa

Lufthansa Wins the Soft Product, Especially Catering, summarizing the soft-product experience:

• Service: Lufthansa is more consistent; BA fluctuates widely from excellent to disappointing
• Catering: Lufthansa is clearly better; BA significantly lags behind
• Beverages: Roughly equal on both airlines

In this category, Lufthansa takes the lead, primarily due to its more dependable service standards and materially stronger catering quality.

 

4. Value for Money & Seat Surcharges

Here, British Airways wins convincingly. BA offers a uniform product where every seat is a suite and every seat guarantees privacy. Even though seat selection can cost €129–€179 without status, the value is transparent and the underlying hard product is the same for every passenger.

Lufthansa’s aggressive seat monetization, with prices up to €600 for a Suite seat, creates a fragmented, pay-to-upgrade experience. Privacy, comfort, and even basic seat advantages are behind a paywall. When factoring in inconsistent IFE reliability and inferior sleeping comfort, the value proposition of Allegris weakens considerably.

Winner: British Airways

 

Quick Comparison Table

Category	British Airways Club Suite	Lufthansa Allegris Business Class
Seat Concept & Privacy	One unified suite product, all seats with doors and consistent privacy.	Five different seat types, only Suite seats have doors; privacy varies widely.
Sleeping Comfort	Good overall; balanced cushioning and consistently comfortable bed.	Generally too hard; adjustable cushion and heating/cooling often not working properly.
IFE & Connectivity	Stable and reliable system, no major lag issues, no Bluetooth audio.	Bluetooth audio and varying screen sizes by seat type, but frequent lag and usability issues.
Service & Catering	Service highly inconsistent; catering mediocre and breakfast particularly weak.	Service more consistent; catering solid, especially at breakfast.
Seat Surcharges & Value	Seat selection €129–€179; same high-standard suite at every seat.	Seat selection from €0 to €600; best seats require high surcharges.
Overall Winner	Stronger hard product and better overall value.	Better catering and more consistent service, but weaker value and hard product.

Summary Box

 

Final Verdict

British Airways Club Suite is the better all-round Business Class product.

BA offers:

• A fully private suite for every passenger
• Consistent privacy and comfort across the cabin
• Reliable in-flight entertainment without major lag issues
• Transparent and predictable value, with one hard product standard

Lufthansa Allegris offers:

• Five very different seat types within the same cabin
• Uneven privacy depending on seat type and surcharge
• Hard and unreliable sleeping comfort on multiple flights
• Laggy IFE on several flights, despite new aircraft
• High seat surcharges with limited real benefit for many passengers

The only category where Lufthansa wins clearly is service and catering. But overall, the British Airways Club Suite delivers the stronger, more reliable, and more premium passenger experience on long-haul flights today, especially once value for money and hard product consistency are taken into account.

 

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FAQ: British Airways Club Suite vs. Lufthansa Allegris

Is British Airways Club Suite better than Lufthansa Allegris overall?

Yes, in our view British Airways Club Suite offers the better overall Business Class product. Every passenger gets a fully enclosed suite with a door, consistent privacy, good sleeping comfort, and reliable in-flight entertainment. Lufthansa Allegris has a more modern concept on paper, but inconsistent seat types, harder beds, and serious IFE performance issues hold it back.

Which airline has the better food in Business Class?

Lufthansa clearly wins in catering. While not at the level of Austrian or Turkish, Lufthansa’s meals are consistently solid, and breakfast is often good to very good. British Airways, on the other hand, struggles with main courses and especially with breakfast, which is heavily focused on English breakfast without a proper continental alternative.

Which Business Class offers more privacy?

British Airways offers more consistent privacy, as every Club Suite seat comes with a door and a well-designed shell that shields passengers from the aisle. Lufthansa Allegris only provides doors on the most expensive Suite seats, with other seat types offering limited or minimal privacy.

Does Lufthansa Allegris have better technology than BA Club Suite?

On paper, Lufthansa Allegris has more advanced technology, including Bluetooth audio and different screen configurations by seat type. However, our flights revealed severe lag, unresponsive controls, and general usability issues with the IFE. British Airways might have a simpler system, but it is much more reliable, which is ultimately what matters during a long flight.

Which product offers better value for money?

British Airways Club Suite offers better value for money. Even though BA charges for seat selection, the underlying hard product is the same for every passenger: a private suite with a door. Lufthansa’s high seat surcharges, which can reach up to €600 for a Suite seat, create a fragmented experience where the best features are locked behind an additional paywall.

Note: All deals are personally verified and bookable directly with airlines or reputable travel partners. Prices and availability can change quickly, we never sell flights ourselves.