Lufthansa

Review by eFreeware

The Lufthansa app is the official Android companion from Lufthansa Group, sitting in the Travel & Local category and covering the arc of a trip: booking a flight, checking in, boarding and following your bag after landing. It is free to download, has been on the Play Store since April 2010 and carries a 4.8 average from more than 109,000 ratings alongside over 10 million installs. Those numbers suggest a large, settled user base rather than a novelty.

What makes it worth considering is the way it pulls the ordinary admin of flying into one place. Rather than juggling a booking email, a separate check-in page and an airline website for seat changes, you handle all of it from the phone. The developer also pitches it as the recipient of a best airline app award at the 2024 World Aviation Festival, which is a marketing line rather than a feature, but it does hint at where the effort has gone.

I would treat this as an app for people who fly Lufthansa Group Network Airlines with some regularity and want their documents and updates in one pocket-sized place. If your travel is occasional and booked through someone else, the app will still work, but the value comes from being the thing you open every time a trip approaches.

Booking, seats and bags without a browser

The headline capability is booking. You can search and book a flight inside the app, and the same screen area lets you pick a different seat, move to another one, or pay to check in more bags on a booking you already have. That last part matters more than it sounds: seat selection and bag purchases are exactly the tasks people tend to leave until the last evening before departure, and having them in the same app as the boarding pass removes a step.

The developer also includes car rental as part of the booking flow, so a trip that needs a vehicle at the other end can be arranged alongside the flight. I would not expect that to replace a dedicated rental service for complicated itineraries, but for a straightforward pick-up at the arrival airport it is a reasonable convenience to have in the same place.

What appeals to me about this arrangement is that it keeps the pre-flight tasks together. You are not hunting for a confirmation number to change a seat, and you are not opening a browser on a phone to add a bag. The app is built to be the single point where those decisions get made.

Check-in and the mobile boarding pass

Online check-in covers all flights operated by Lufthansa Group Network Airlines, and the result is a digital ticket held on the phone. The boarding pass lives in the app, which is the part most travelers will touch on every single trip. It is a small thing done well or badly, and this is a core function rather than an add-on.

The app also stores personal information so it does not need to be re-entered each time, and it accepts either a Travel ID or a Miles & More login for personalized services. The Travel ID side includes a digital wallet that can hold several payment methods, which the developer describes as making payment possible from anywhere. For anyone who books repeatedly, that combination of stored details and stored payment is the difference between a two-minute booking and a ten-minute one.

Boarding passes and onboard services remain accessible while offline, which is the detail I would single out as genuinely useful. Aircraft cabins and foreign airports are exactly where a connection tends to fail, and a boarding pass that only loads with a signal is a boarding pass you cannot rely on.

Updates that arrive before you ask

From 24 hours before departure, the app becomes a live travel assistant. It sends push notifications for check-in and for flight status, and gate changes appear on the home screen rather than being buried behind a menu. Anyone who has stood in an airport watching a departure board will recognize the value of having that pushed to the phone instead.

The developer frames this as a way to start a trip feeling relaxed, and the mechanism is straightforward: the information comes to you rather than you going to look for it. The same applies in the air, where the app keeps flight information available so you can check details without asking crew members.

After landing, baggage tracking continues the thread. You can follow your checked-in bag from the phone, which is the point in a journey where uncertainty tends to spike. It does not change how bags are handled, but it removes the guesswork about whether yours made the transfer.

What the app asks of you

The app is free, with no in-app purchases offered. It does contain advertising, which is worth factoring in if you prefer an uncluttered interface. For a free airline app, that is the trade you are making.

Personalization runs through a Travel ID or Miles & More account, which means creating or holding one of those logins if you want the stored details and wallet features.

One security detail is worth noting because it affects how you close the app. The app runs an Android foreground service while signing you out, so a logout finishes properly even if you move the app to the background or close it. That is designed to end the session and clear authentication information from the device, which is the sensible behavior for an app holding payment methods and travel documents.

Getting the most from it on a real trip

The natural rhythm is to set the app up before you need it. Store your details and payment methods in Travel ID, and log in with Miles & More if you collect miles, so that the first time you actually need the app you are not typing card numbers into a phone. Everything the app does later depends on that groundwork being done.

Once a trip is booked, the app takes over on its own schedule. Notifications begin 24 hours out, so the check-in prompt and the flight status arrive without prompting. Keep notifications enabled for the app, because the gate change that appears on the home screen is only useful if you are told about it rather than having to check.

Before departure, download what you need while you still have a connection, since the boarding pass and onboard services are designed to work offline. After landing, the baggage tracker is the last thing you will use, and it is worth remembering it exists when you are standing at a carousel wondering where your suitcase went.

Recent updates have focused on bug and glitch fixes rather than new features, which fits an app that has been refined over many years rather than rebuilt. The last update is dated October 5, 2026, so the app is actively maintained.

A practical companion for Lufthansa Group flyers

The Lufthansa app does the unglamorous parts of air travel well: booking, seat and bag changes, check-in, a boarding pass that works without a signal, live status updates and baggage tracking. The 4.8 rating from over 109,000 ratings is consistent with an app that people keep installed between trips rather than deleting after one use.

It suits travelers who fly Lufthansa Group Network Airlines and want their trip admin in one place, particularly those who book often enough to benefit from stored payment methods and personal details. The free price and the presence of ads are the straightforward trade, and the account requirement is the main thing to accept before you start.

If you fly this network and want the boarding pass, the gate change and the bag status on your phone, this is the app to install. It is built for that specific job and does not pretend to be anything else.

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