Part of my big First Class trip to Japan included several regional flights on planes that don't have First Class at all. Thus, these stopovers were in Business Class.

And one of my flights was a short domestic crossing of Germany between Munich MUC and Frankfurt FRA.

• ⬅️ Previous flight: Egyptair Business Class Boeing 737-800 CAI-MUC
• ➡️ Next flight: Lufthansa old First Class Boeing 747-8 FRA-HND

Flight purchase and check-in

I certainly wouldn't buy such a business class flight on my own, so I detail the idea of flying to Japan in first class in this review.

Check-in was already done at Cairo CAI, which I detail in this review.

In Munich, I only made a roughly 2-hour layover without having to leave the transit zone.

Check business class prices at lufthansa.com

• Munich MUC - Frankfurt FRA
• Flight time: 45 minutes
• Seat: 3A
• Aircraft: Bombardier CRJ-900, D-ACNT

Senator Lounge Munich and boarding

I don't have any shopping plans when I connect, so I head straight to the lounge.

Although I'm only connecting between two business class flights, both are included in the first class ticket, so I can choose whether to head to the First Class Lounge or the Senator Lounge.

I want to visit the former on the way back, so I'm going to the Senator Lounge.

To be honest, I don't notice much difference from the standard Lufthansa Business Class lounge. The main difference is the presence of a bar with a much wider selection of alcoholic beverages, but since I drink very little alcohol on solo travel, this change is not at all significant for me.

I work for a while and have a delicious Kaiserschmarrn.

I make my way to the plane about 15 minutes before boarding. We are flying on the smallest aircraft in the Lufthansa fleet - a Bombardier CRJ-900 - which means boarding is not via the boarding bridge, but on foot.

The plane is parked right next to the terminal, so we don't have to take a bus.

The Munich-Frankfurt line is mainly used by business travellers who fly very frequently, so I don't expect any chaotic scenes during boarding, and that's what will happen.

The sentence "boarding completed" is heard about 3 minutes after boarding starts.

Cabin and seats - no surprises

I'm already familiar with Lufthansa's Regional Business Class, including a similarly long flight from Prague to Munich.

So I suspect that on such a small plane, business class will be nothing out of line with Lufthansa's below-average standards.

Unfortunately I am not wrong, the situation is rather worse, but that is simply due to the characteristics of a very small aircraft.

For this flight, Business Class takes up two thirds of the cabin. This sentence alone suggests that Business Class can move between different rows on every flight, which means only one thing - the seats and the spacing are exactly the same for Business Class and Economy Class.

The only difference for business class passengers is that the seat next to them always remains unoccupied.

The legroom in the CRJ Bombarider is trivial, and the fact that I have a 3rd row seat doesn't help either.

Food on a domestic flight - sweet with no choice

The flight is similar in length to the recent route from Prague to Munich, so I expect similar snacks.

The welcome drink is still standard, with a choice of champagne, non-alcoholic juices, Avionic signature cocktail or water. For this flight, I'm opting for water only.

Unfortunately, the situation is significantly worse.

There is only a sweet cake - no choice of anything savoury and certainly not healthy. Only one kind of cake.

Moreover, the dessert is not very good, it is very dense and I can barely eat a third of it.

After dessert I have a coffee, but to be honest I can't remember ever being worse, and not only on a plane.

To make the sweets not enough, we get a small nougat candy before landing.

Conclusion - business class with no idea and no effort

I wasn't expecting much. And got even less.

I understand that flights like this serve mainly as connections to long-haul flights, where business class looks a bit different after all.

• ✈️ Check out my review of the new Lufthansa Allegris Business Class MUC-EWR

Still, I would imagine at least some effort, something that would pleasantly surprise me as a passenger. Even on such a short flight.

Actually, actually, it did. But not pleasantly. The fact that I don't even get a choice of meals in business class, even if it's just small things, I consider a really big faux-pas on Lufthansa's part.

I can't really rate the cabin itself on the Bombardier CRJ-900. There's nothing you can do about the characteristics of such a small aircraft, and the overall space and feel on board matches that.