Coffin ships take to the skies

I've flown Lufthansa a couple of times, and it's mostly been a great experience. It helped that, thanks to the frequent flyer miles my husband so insanely collected, most of the times I've been on Lufthansa for overseas flights, it's been in business class. 

Oh, it wasn't all perfect. One time, a flight attendant decided I must be German, and got a bit annoyed when I told her I was a non-sprecher. 

And on one short-hop intra-Europe flight - when we were flying steerage - there was a weird little occurrence when they boarded everyone at once without going by row assignment or boarding group. It was completely inefficient - so non-German.

But mostly it's one of the best airlines I've ever flown. Maybe even the best. (I haven't been on a primo like Emirates, but I've flown plenty of the European carriers over the years, and most of the domestic ones that aren't total puddle jumpers. And I've even traveled on a few of those puddle jumpers. Ask me about Bar (Barf) Harbor, why don't you?)

Anyway, I'd be more than happy to fly Lufthansa again, once the COVID seatbelt light is turned off and we're free to walk around the cabin, metaphorically speaking. 

Not that I'm going anywhere soon, but I was delighted to see that Lufthansa is about:

...to start making rapid COVID-19 antigen tests available to passengers in October and is weighing the option of opening test centers at airports in the United States and Canada, a company executive said on Tuesday.

The move comes as airlines and airports globally have urged countries to accept a passenger’s negative COVID-19 test as an alternative to travel restrictions and quarantines that have battered demand for travel. (Source: Reuters)

The airline will be looking into rapid - 15 minute - results tests, as this is really the only way it will work out. Who wants to make an extra trip to the airport, a few days in advance of a trip, to have a COVID test when they can get one closer to home. 

There's just one little fly in this ointment:

[Senior Director Bjoern] Becker said Lufthansa is considering making the new antigen tests initially available to its first-class and business class passengers, given limited supply.

Having enjoyed the benefits of traveling first and business class, I'm fine with rewarding the big spenders (or frequent flyer miles accumulators) with well-appointed lounges to hang out in. Earlier boarding. More comfortable seats. Better food. Served on china. With cloth napkins. A little travel gift. Preferred luggage treatment. More toilets per capita. Nicer service.

And these are all easier to give to the haves, while not giving them to the have-nots. It is, as they say, what it is. Sure, we're left there, like the Poor Little Match Girl, with our noses pressed up against the curtain that separates first and business from "economy" (a.k.a., steerage). The truth is that everyone can't be a one-percenter.

But I've got a frage for Lufthansa. (Frage, that's German for question. See, after that flight attendant threw down the gauntlet, I took it upon myself to Duolingo my way into learning a word or two of my mama's mamaloshen. (Okay, that's Yiddish, but close enough.))

So here's meine frage for Lufthansa:

If the first and business class passengers are all COVID free at the moment of departure, how are you going to protect travelers from steerage class folks who might have had their COVID test a few days before? Sure, there's that curtain between us and them. (Or is it them and us?) But that curtain's not exactly air tight, and sometimes it's even beaded. And I believe that while the upper classes get free champagne while the rest of us get a half pour of apple juice, the same air circulates throughout the plane. Not just in each cabin separately.

I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, so it's not my worry. Sure, I can see why the first and business class travelers would be happy to get a near real-time test in hand to provide to officials at whatever border they're crossing that they're not a 21st century Typhoid Mary. But what's going to keep some steerage classer, having passed whatever screening the airline requires for boarding - sweeping a thermometer across someone's forehead - from coughing their head off and turning the plane into a coffin ship?