Lufthansa check-in: the boarding pass that arrives before you ask for it

Lufthansa's automatic check-in emails your boarding pass 23 hours before departure, with no action from you. If a pass has ever reached you by email before you got round to asking for one, that is why.

The manual window opens 30 hours before the flight — earlier than the automatic send, which matters if you want to influence what the automatic send produces.

That gap of one window inside the other is the whole point. A seat is allocated to you during online check-in when you have not chosen one. If you want a say, you use the manual window; if you leave it, the automatic service checks you in with whatever the system assigns.

Automatic does not mean unconditional. The three sections below are the cases where it produces nothing, or produces something you cannot board with — a fare with no cabin bag, a flight Lufthansa does not operate, and a destination where a phone screen is not accepted.

This is the fact most likely to cost a Lufthansa passenger money at the gate, and it is a fare rule rather than a check-in rule.

On short and medium-haul, the Economy Basic fare carries the personal item only — no cabin bag. The allowance you may be picturing does not come with that ticket.

What Basic does entitle you to is the personal item, 40 x 30 x 15 cm, meant to go under the seat in front.

The cabin bag, when your fare includes one, measures 55 x 40 x 23 cm and may weigh 8 kg. Those figures do not change with the cabin or the distance — the same size on a Munich hop as on a long-haul, which is unusual enough to be worth knowing.

What the class changes is the count: a single piece in Economy, Economy Light, Comfort and Flex as well as in Premium Economy, and two in Business and in First.

What to do with this before you check in. Look at the fare name on your booking, not at the size of your bag. A cabin bag that measures 55 x 40 x 23 cm is still not allowed on Economy Basic, because on that fare the entitlement is not a matter of centimetres.

The contractual deadline is 45 minutes before scheduled departure, and Lufthansa states it as a minimum that applies unless something else is indicated.

Your airport may indicate something else. The conditions say the times differ between airports; 45 minutes is what holds where no local rule replaces it.

No late penalty is published. The floor stands in the conditions of carriage with nothing priced against it, and what the airline describes for a missed deadline is refusal for the flight. We therefore print no figure here, and any amount you find elsewhere does not come from Lufthansa.

Read your own departure airport's line before you rely on the 45 minutes. The floor tells you what Lufthansa owes you contractually; it does not tell you what the desk in your terminal does.

One consequence for the automatic service. A pass emailed 23 hours ahead does not extend anything at the other end of the day: the deadline belongs to the airport, not to the moment you were checked in. Being checked in early is not the same as being early.

Online check-in covers every flight operated by Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and SWISS, anywhere in the world. The rule is about the operator, not the route.

It does not cover a codeshare flight — one carrying a Lufthansa number but flown by another airline. On those, Lufthansa's online check-in is simply not available to you, and waiting will not change it: you check in with the carrier actually operating the aircraft.

A ticket bought from Lufthansa can contain a leg flown by someone else, and the flight number gives no warning — it still starts with LH. That is the case the rule is written for, and nothing on the ticket announces it.

Where to look. The booking shows the operating carrier next to the flight. If it is not Lufthansa, Austrian or SWISS, that leg belongs to the other airline's system, and its deadlines are the ones that apply to you.

When the operating carrier turns out to be someone else, its own rules are the ones you need: see our British Airways check-in page, and our online check-in guide for the rest of the carriers we cover.

Three formats are accepted: the app, paper, and email. The pass can also be held offline — in the app itself, in iOS Wallet or in Google Pay — and no app is compulsory, since the website does the same job.

The airline publishes one reservation, and it is a legal one. On certain destinations, local rules forbid the mobile boarding pass. Where that applies, what reaches you is a check-in confirmation, and the pass itself waits at the airport desk.

A confirmation is not a boarding pass, and the difference is easy to miss on a phone at the end of a queue. If what you received says confirmation, the desk is still part of your journey.

The safe habit is the boring one. Print, or keep the pass in the app rather than in a screenshot — offline storage is what survives an airport with no signal.

Lufthansa publishes no amount for seat reservation. The pages describing the five categories — Classic, Preferred Zone, Legroom, Extra Legroom and Back Seat — send the price back to the booking each time without ever showing it. So no figure appears here on that point.

What is published, and it is worth more than a price: a paid seat can be booked up to 2 hours before departure through Manage Bookings.

Some seats cost nothing on the right fare. The Classic Seat is free on a Flex fare; the Legroom Seat is free for HON Circle members and Senators.

If you choose nothing, a seat is assigned during online check-in. Changing it afterwards carries a fee that depends on the fare and the category — waived if you had already reserved a seat of the same category or higher.

One row cannot be booked in advance at all. The Sleeper's Row in long-haul Economy is reserved only at the airport desk, and it is confirmed only once boarding has finished.

If you would rather not wait for the automatic email, the manual route takes a few minutes.

1. From 30 hours before departure, open the booking on the website or in the app.
2. Identify the booking with its reference and the surname on the ticket.
3. Check the operating carrier on every leg — a leg flown by another airline will not open here.
4. Choose the seat now if you want one, while a paid change is still possible up to 2 hours before departure.
5. Take the pass in the app, on paper or by email, and check whether your destination gives you a confirmation instead.

A return flight has its own check-in, counted from its own departure, and the automatic service treats it as a separate flight.