Lufthansa Is in Talks With Boeing to Fit a Bigger Business Class on Some of Its Future 787-9s

Lufthansa is in “very advanced talks” with Boeing to take some of its still-undelivered 787-9s with a larger business class cabin, Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr said on November 3, 2026. He made the remarks to journalists on the day the group reported its third-quarter results.

The current Dreamliners are not yet flying at full business capacity either. Three of the 28 Allegris business class seats on Lufthansa’s 787-9s still cannot be sold while they wait for certification, and Spohr said he hopes to have them approved before the end of the year.

What Spohr said about the 787 cabin

“We are in very advanced talks with Boeing about taking part of our 787s with a larger business class,” Spohr said, as quoted in German by aero.de from a dpa-AFX report and in near-identical words by aeroTELEGRAPH. The quotes in this article are AeroCorner’s translations.

He gave no seat count for the new layout, and none of the reports gives a number of aircraft. “Demand is so good that we are approaching this optimistically,” he said, according to aeroTELEGRAPH.

The reason is a mismatch between aircraft and routes. Spohr said Lufthansa sometimes flies the Boeing 787-9 on routes that were meant for the larger Boeing 777-9 or Airbus A350-1000, so the Dreamliner partly offers “too small a business class relative to what we could sell.” He called it a “luxury problem.”

If the deal goes ahead, the Allegris 787 fleet would fly in two different configurations, Spohr said, as airliners.de also reported.

Premium economy may grow too. Spohr said Lufthansa is considering removing economy rows and replacing them with extra premium economy rows, because that cabin has been very successful. According to aero.de, the airline is studying this for its smaller A350-900s.

Today’s 787-9 cabin and the three blocked seats

Lufthansa’s Allegris 787-9s carry 28 business class seats, 28 in premium economy and 231 in economy, aeroTELEGRAPH reported. Three other 787-9s, built for Hainan Airlines and fitted with 26 business seats, 21 premium economy and 247 economy, are due to move to Austrian Airlines.

Allegris has flown on the 787-9 out of Frankfurt since October 9, 2025. On March 16, 2026, Lufthansa announced that 25 of the 28 business class seats had been certified, after the 787-9 named “Potsdam” (D-ABPM) flew Frankfurt to Toronto with them the day before.

The last three seats are still unusable pending approval from the FAA, aeroTELEGRAPH reported. Spohr said he hopes to get “the last three business class seats in the 787 finally certified” this year.

Plenty of Dreamliners are still to come. The Lufthansa Group had 27 787-9s outstanding at the end of September by Boeing’s figures, and one was delivered in October, leaving 26, according to aeroTELEGRAPH. In March, Lufthansa said it planned to have 29 787-9s by the end of 2027.

Why Lufthansa wants the change built in at the factory

Spohr said enlarging business class after delivery is much more complex than adding premium economy rows, which is why Lufthansa would rather settle it at the factory, according to aero.de. A business seat takes far more floor space than an economy seat, so a bigger cabin reshapes the whole layout rather than swapping a few rows.

A new seat installation also has to be certified before it can be sold, the step that has kept part of the current 787 business cabin empty for months. Settling the layout before the jets are built gives Boeing and Lufthansa one cabin design to take through approval instead of a retrofit later.

The demand case is in the group’s own numbers. Lufthansa Group said third-quarter revenue rose nine percent to a record 12.2 billion euros, and that average yields at its network airlines rose seven percent, driven by strong demand for premium tickets and by routes to Asia and North America.

The bigger jets are late

Relief for the premium squeeze depends on the two larger types. Lufthansa’s first A350-1000, with 49 business class seats, is due within days and will fly Munich to Tokyo Haneda from December 3.

The Boeing 777-9 is further off. Spohr said Boeing now plans to deliver Lufthansa’s first in the second quarter of 2027 rather than the first, airliners.de reported, and aero.de quoted him as expecting only a “few” by the end of next year.

That knocks on across the group. Spohr said the five 787s planned for Austrian Airlines will go to Lufthansa in Frankfurt first to cover the 777-9 delay, while Austrian keeps its Boeing 777s longer, according to airliners.de.

Lufthansa also planned its summer 2027 schedule without the 777-9 and is keeping more A340-300s in service than intended, according to airliners.de. For business class travelers, that means the 787-9 will keep covering some of the long-haul routes it was never sized for while the bigger cabins are worked out.