It seems passenger demand, as well as late aircraft deliveries, are pushing Lufthansa to reactivate their last two parked Airbus A380 aircraft.
Lufthansa Airbus A380 at Munich Airport – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
The move was announced on the platform form known as Twitter, in a post:
Time for good news 🤩: It has been decided that two more A380 will be reactivated between 2024 and 2025 – this means our customers will enjoy a total of eight A380 operating from our Munich hub as of 2025! ✈️#airbus #a380 #wearelufthansa pic.twitter.com/X4GFSHq8SP
— Lufthansa News (@lufthansaNews) August 31, 2023
The move will strengthen the Lufthansa A380 fleet to eight aircraft in total (which is based out of the Munich hub, rather than the Frankfurt hub), with the redeployment completed in 2025.
Before the pandemic, the airline had 14 of the type in service. Lufthansa Group sold six of these aircraft – leaving it with the current eight it is planning to reactivate – with four currently in the air.
The move comes after FlightGlobal reported that China Southern had withdrawn their A380 fleet completely.
Finding a place in the world
Like a lot of things, the Airbus A380 worldwide fleet is trying to find a place in the world, and it could be argued that the type was hunting for that place a long time before the pandemic.
And some airlines were having trouble making it work, leading them to drop them at the first opportunity… or even later in the day as we can see with China Southern being unable to make the type work for it.
A lot of those airlines have come back, tempted by either its ability to move sheer numbers of people, that they are short of aircraft (given the supply chain shortages), or have a specific use (e.g., holiday transports such as the ANA fleet).
And it will come down to economics in the end, even as some airlines plan beyond the A380s life (with Qantas staking its plans recently, with it withdrawing the type from 2032).
For now, it seems that Lufthansa through a mixture of circumstances makes it viable for the WhaleJet to once again take to the skies – and in numbers.
And it’s better to seem them flightworthy and active, rather than parked, awaiting their fate.
Taken September 2020 at Frankfurt Airport.
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