Lufthansa is planning to retire all of their Airbus A380s, the bulk of their smaller A340s and all of their older Boeing 747-400s. The move would be one of the largest fleet shake-ups of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The unexpected claims stem from a number of unnamed internal sources, who, according to Bloomberg, also believe that there will be a cull of narrow-body planes that feed longer routes.
Although Lufthansa has already confirmed that they will axe 100 aircraft from their fleet, these new fleet cuts would far surpass that number. In turn, the sources have disclosed that Lufthansa will also lay-off many more staff than the 22,000 initially announced.
Lufthansa may keep a handful of younger A340-600s, thus preserving capacity for busier routes, according to the Bloomberg sources. At this stage, no indication has been given that the airline will retire their newer Boeing 747-8i aircraft.
Based on their latest official announcement, Lufthansa is currently aiming to mothball about 300 aircraft in 2021 and 200 in 2022. Eventually, the group fleet, which currently stands at 760, will need to be about 100 aircraft smaller by 2023.
Lufthansa reported a $1.78 billion loss from January to June, marking some of the most abysmal results the airline has seen. The German Government has taken a 20% stake, injecting €9 billion ($11 billion) in survival lifelines.
Lufthansa declined our request for comment.
All images courtesy of Sebastian T (atcpilot_photography)
500passagiere seien auf meisten linien nicht zu füllen,was!?
Warum fliegen dann täglich 5-6 maschienen des lufthansa konzerns dieselbe strecken!!
Endlich mal steuern auf benzin und mehrwertsteuern bezahlen sollen sie.
Alleine swiss überwies 500millionen jährlich nach Deutschland,jetzt sind sie am ar…..
Ohne steuern,zoll,gebühren und und.
Da lacht ja jeder kleinunternehmer der jedes jahr mehr bezahlt.
Very sad. Somewhat feels right though that the Queen of the Skies will outlast the A380!
The A380, while magnificent, never made much sense. It is pretty tough to round up 500+ passengers for a given flight so they seldom flew anywhere near capacity. While there are city pairs where it works (LHR-JFK for example), for most routes it is massive overkill. I flew it MIA-MUC pre-pandemic and it was, maybe, 60% full.
Lufthansa keeping the 747-8 makes a lot of sense as they can always be converted to cargo where the A380 can’t.
Don’t hold your breath for 747-8I freighter conversion program. The potential feedstock frames number less than 50 anyway; of these, several will never be touched by any commercial entity (two USAF frames, to be converted into VC-25B’s, and at least one “Air China”/”China Air Force One” come to mind).
Who would invest into an STC for that conversion? Not Boeing, they would rather sell you fresh dedicated freighters.
This is incredibly sad and I hope they reconsider the decision. They should at least wait till the end of the year when there are chances of a vaccine and then see how the demand is after all of this. I think people will start flying as soon as possible because to be honest most people are tired of being stuck at home. Even more, I don’t see why they want to retire the A380 right now. Just keep it in Long term storage like Qatar and Qantas. And the planning of Lufthansa makes no sense. On one hand they’re operating the 747-8 on several routes and on the other they’re saying that it’s very hard to fill these aircraft. Isn’t the 747-8 the second biggest passenger aircraft?
So what does that mean for first class?
First Class on 747-8 continues.
Is it a permanent decision