Most Lufthansa aircraft are named after cities or provinces of Germany, and there are few planes named after non-German places (some A380s and A340-300 D-AIFC). My question is: why do they re-name some aircraft? For example, up until recently, D-AIZH was named after the city of Hanau, but after it got re-painted in the Star livery, it was named after the city of Ahlen. The same thing sort of applies for D-ABVM, the first 747-400 to wear the new livery. It didn't have a name until it was re-painted, when it became Kiel. Only D-ABTK was Kiel before that... Anyone have any insight into this? Surely there must be a reason for this?

Yes there must be a reason. Ordnung muss sein!

Lufthansa Magazin provides the following article, which gives an excellent explanation:

https://magazin.lufthansa.com/xx/en/fle ... r-name-is/

I think it's simply upcycling whereby the larger cities get larger aircraft named after them, but when fleets get introduced and retired things get complicated as names get shuffled around. Hamburg had a short gap between the retirement of D-ABTD (747-4M) in April 2013 and the delivery of D-AIML (A380) in May 2014. Essen had a big gap between the retirement of D-ADJO (DC10) in 1994 and the delivery of D-AIXE in September 2017.

InnsbruckFlyer wrote:

D-AIZH was named after the city of Hanau

I've flown on that!

KLDC10 wrote:

Lufthansa Magazin provides the following article, which gives an excellent explanation:

https://magazin.lufthansa.com/xx/en/fle ... r-name-is/

Oh my, that article is excellent and somehow shows how organised/logical the Germans are lol! I always thought it was similar with the 3 letters registration format (first letter shows the airline, second letter represents the type, and third one is individual ID).

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

aarbee wrote:

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

.....not with 4 letter registrations

trent768 wrote:

I always thought it was similar with the 3 letters registration format (first letter shows the airline, second letter represents the type, and third one is individual ID).

aarbee wrote:

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

Except that German registration marks use four characters after the "D" prefix:

D-AAAA to D-ATZZ for aircraft with more than 20 t MTOW
D-AUAA to D-AZZZ test registrations for aircraft manufactured by Airbus at Finkenwerder
D-BAAA to D-BZZZ for aircraft with 14–20 t MTOW
D-CAAA to D-CZZZ for aircraft with 5.7–14 t MTOW
D-EAAA to D-EZZZ for single-engine aircraft up to 2 t MTOW
D-FAAA to D-FZZZ for single-engine aircraft from to 2–5.7 t MTOW
D-GAAA to D-GZZZ for multi-engine aircraft up to 2 t MTOW
D-HAAA to D-HZZZ for rotorcraft
D-IAAA to D-IZZZ for multi-engine aircraft from 2–5.7 t MTOW
D-KAAA to D-KZZZ for powered gliders
D-LAAA to D-LZZZ for airships
D-MAAA to D-MZZZ for powered ultralight aircraft
D-NAAA to D-NZZZ for non-powered ultralight aircraft
D-OAAA to D-OZZZ for manned free balloons
D-0001 to D-9999 for gliders.

Within these standards, LH are fond of using the second letter to designate the aircraft's manufacturer.

aarbee wrote:

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

The only limit it imposes on LH is them being able to have a maximum of 676 aircraft by each manufacturer:

D-AIxx are Airbus aircraft. For the 3rd and 4th position in the registration there are 26 letters of the alphabet, hence an Airbus fleet of 26*26 = 676 different frames.
Same for D-ABxx -> 676 Boeing frames
The other prefixes they use are D-AExx for the (Cityline) Embraer fleet which could technically be expanded to 676 frames, just as the D-ACxx Cityline CRJ fleet.

aarbee wrote:

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

Not really I guess, since they can just assign another letter. For example, GA use PK-GHx for some of their A330 after running out of combination from PK-GPx. Even their 738 uses GMx/GFx/GNx/GDx. So I guess LH can do the same as well.

Also, I think the states only regulates the first letter of the reg right? Because AB used to have D-ABxx on their fleets, regardless of the aircraft type.

trent768 wrote:

Also, I think the states only regulates the first letter of the reg right? Because AB used to have D-ABxx on their fleets, regardless of the aircraft type.

As already posted - yes, the final three characters of the mark have no regulated meaning for the German civil register.

XAM2175 wrote:

Except that German registration marks use four characters after the "D" prefix:

D-AAAA to D-ATZZ for aircraft with more than 20 t MTOW
D-AUAA to D-AZZZ test registrations for aircraft manufactured by Airbus at Finkenwerder
D-BAAA to D-BZZZ for aircraft with 14–20 t MTOW
... and so on ...
Within these standards, LH are fond of using the second letter to designate the aircraft's manufacturer.

Thus LH could use D-ABxx registrations for Boeing aircraft while AB could use them for all their planes.

trent768 wrote:

aarbee wrote:

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

Not really I guess, since they can just assign another letter. For example, GA use PK-GHx for some of their A330 after running out of combination from PK-GPx. Even their 738 uses GMx/GFx/GNx/GDx.

It's pretty much what you said, though:

trent768 wrote:

I always thought it was similar with the 3 letters registration format (first letter shows the airline, second letter represents the type, and third one is individual ID).

Pan Am did that a few times as well, at least with their 747 fleet. N747PA was "Clipper America" for a long time before it became "Clipper Juan T. Trippe", N734PA was "Clipper Flying Cloud" before it became "Clipper Champion of the Seas", and the ill-fated "Clipper Victor" at Tenerife was "Clipper Young America" for a short time (although it was also "Clipper Victor" before that).

But to answer your question, I don't know!

lugie wrote:

aarbee wrote:

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

The only limit it imposes on LH is them being able to have a maximum of 676 aircraft by each manufacturer:

D-AIxx are Airbus aircraft. For the 3rd and 4th position in the registration there are 26 letters of the alphabet, hence an Airbus fleet of 26*26 = 676 different frames.
Same for D-ABxx -> 676 Boeing frames
The other prefixes they use are D-AExx for the (Cityline) Embraer fleet which could technically be expanded to 676 frames, just as the D-ACxx Cityline CRJ fleet.

Then they'd need to use the last three letters though to make it clear, so they're limited to 676 total. As that article points out, they use the last two of D-AIMA, MA, to identify that type, so a D-ABMA wouldn't work in their current scheme.

In reality, there are fewer than 676 options, some have been skipped for various reasons (D-ABYB->rego of LH540 crash aircraft, D-AISA, SS, and a few others skipped to avoid NS-initialisms).

As to why the names are reused and how, it's basically a function of the city or state size for the fleet, then what's a shiny new toy. Many of the 744s lost their names to incoming 748s, and the 346s are losing theirs to the 359s. You can check this out at lh-taufnamen.

trent768 wrote:

KLDC10 wrote:

Lufthansa Magazin provides the following article, which gives an excellent explanation:

https://magazin.lufthansa.com/xx/en/fle ... r-name-is/

Oh my, that article is excellent and somehow shows how organised/logical the Germans are lol! I always thought it was similar with the 3 letters registration format (first letter shows the airline, second letter represents the type, and third one is individual ID).

Or how difficult they can make things

S0Y wrote:

aarbee wrote:

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

.....not with 4 letter registrations

XAM2175 wrote:

Except that German registration marks use four characters after the "D" prefix:
...

Within these standards, LH are fond of using the second letter to designate the aircraft's manufacturer.

lugie wrote:

The only limit it imposes on LH is them being able to have a maximum of 676 aircraft by each manufacturer:

D-AIxx are Airbus aircraft. For the 3rd and 4th position in the registration there are 26 letters of the alphabet, hence an Airbus fleet of 26*26 = 676 different frames.
Same for D-ABxx -> 676 Boeing frames
The other prefixes they use are D-AExx for the (Cityline) Embraer fleet which could technically be expanded to 676 frames, just as the D-ACxx Cityline CRJ fleet.

trent768 wrote:

aarbee wrote:

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

Not really I guess, since they can just assign another letter. For example, GA use PK-GHx for some of their A330 after running out of combination from PK-GPx. Even their 738 uses GMx/GFx/GNx/GDx. So I guess LH can do the same as well.

Also, I think the states only regulates the first letter of the reg right? Because AB used to have D-ABxx on their fleets, regardless of the aircraft type.

I understand if it was last 2 characters (4th & 5th). The article at https://magazin.lufthansa.com/xx/en/fle ... r-name-is/ specifically states that (with examples)

"The third letter is the code for manufacturer’s identity. “I” stands for Airbus and “B” for Boeing. The fourth letter states aircraft type; that’s “M” for the A380 and, for example; “Y” for the Boeing 747-8. The fifth letter is used to identify the individual plane."

So if 4th letter is aircraft type, then there's only 26 variations left for 5th letter.

How will you get 676, OR the article is wrong ?

InnsbruckFlyer wrote:

Most Lufthansa aircraft are named after cities or provinces of Germany, and there are few planes named after non-German places (some A380s and A340-300 D-AIFC). My question is: why do they re-name some aircraft? For example, up until recently, D-AIZH was named after the city of Hanau, but after it got re-painted in the Star livery, it was named after the city of Ahlen. The same thing sort of applies for D-ABVM, the first 747-400 to wear the new livery. It didn't have a name until it was re-painted, when it became Kiel. Only D-ABTK was Kiel before that... Anyone have any insight into this? Surely there must be a reason for this?

JetBlue does this too, and I really wish they didn't for a while there were two planes in the air named Blue print.

aarbee wrote:

S0Y wrote:

aarbee wrote:

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

.....not with 4 letter registrations

XAM2175 wrote:

Except that German registration marks use four characters after the "D" prefix:
...

Within these standards, LH are fond of using the second letter to designate the aircraft's manufacturer.

lugie wrote:

The only limit it imposes on LH is them being able to have a maximum of 676 aircraft by each manufacturer:

D-AIxx are Airbus aircraft. For the 3rd and 4th position in the registration there are 26 letters of the alphabet, hence an Airbus fleet of 26*26 = 676 different frames.
Same for D-ABxx -> 676 Boeing frames
The other prefixes they use are D-AExx for the (Cityline) Embraer fleet which could technically be expanded to 676 frames, just as the D-ACxx Cityline CRJ fleet.

trent768 wrote:

aarbee wrote:

How true this is ? This means that LH will have only 26 aircrafts of a certain type???

Not really I guess, since they can just assign another letter. For example, GA use PK-GHx for some of their A330 after running out of combination from PK-GPx. Even their 738 uses GMx/GFx/GNx/GDx. So I guess LH can do the same as well.

Also, I think the states only regulates the first letter of the reg right? Because AB used to have D-ABxx on their fleets, regardless of the aircraft type.

I understand if it was last 2 characters (4th & 5th). The article at https://magazin.lufthansa.com/xx/en/fle ... r-name-is/ specifically states that (with examples)

"The third letter is the code for manufacturer’s identity. “I” stands for Airbus and “B” for Boeing. The fourth letter states aircraft type; that’s “M” for the A380 and, for example; “Y” for the Boeing 747-8. The fifth letter is used to identify the individual plane."

So if 4th letter is aircraft type, then there's only 26 variations left for 5th letter.

How will you get 676, OR the article is wrong ?

Just Google LH's fleet. While the 4th letter is indeed exclusively for a certain type, that doesn't mean that same type can't have more exclusive letters for itself. For example, D-AIR* and -AIS* are both A321 registration series, as are D-AIU* and -AIZ* A320 registration series and D-ABT* and -ABV* 744 registration series. I hope that clears out for you that LH indeed has approximately 676 Airbus registrations to play with.

zkojq wrote:

I think it's simply upcycling whereby the larger cities get larger aircraft named after them, but when fleets get introduced and retired things get complicated as names get shuffled around. Hamburg had a short gap between the retirement of D-ABTD (747-4M) in April 2013 and the delivery of D-AIML (A380) in May 2014. Essen had a big gap between the retirement of D-ADJO (DC10) in 1994 and the delivery of D-AIXE in September 2017.

InnsbruckFlyer wrote:

D-AIZH was named after the city of Hanau

I've flown on that!

Me too! LH1426, FRA-SOF.

InnsbruckFlyer wrote:

The same thing sort of applies for D-ABVM, the first 747-400 to wear the new livery. It didn't have a name until it was re-painted, when it became Kiel.

It very much did have a name before. It was originally named "Hessen". I've flown on this aircraft in both incarnations. I assume D-ABVM lost the "Hessen" name when D-ABYL joined the fleet, since that aircraft wears that name now.

zkojq wrote:

Essen had a big gap between the retirement of D-ADJO (DC10) in 1994 and the delivery of D-AIXE in September 2017.

No, there was no gap. D-AIBD (A340-200) was "Essen" from 1993 to 2003, when that name transferred to D-AIHC (A340-600), which in turn became nameless when D-AIXE arrived.

InnsbruckFlyer wrote:

InnsbruckFlyer wrote:

D-AIZH was named after the city of Hanau

zkojq wrote:

I've flown on that!

Me too! LH1426, FRA-SOF.

LH2240 MUC-CDG. My first ever flight with an all female crew.

zkojq wrote:

Essen had a big gap between the retirement of D-ADJO (DC10) in 1994 and the delivery of D-AIXE in September 2017.

No, there was no gap. D-AIBD (A340-200) was "Essen" from 1993 to 2003, when that name transferred to D-AIHC (A340-600), which in turn became nameless when D-AIXE arrived.[/quote]

Oh, right you are!

lugie wrote:

D-AIxx are Airbus aircraft. For the 3rd and 4th position in the registration there are 26 letters of the alphabet, hence an Airbus fleet of 26*26 = 676 different frames.
Same for D-ABxx -> 676 Boeing frames
The other prefixes they use are D-AExx for the (Cityline) Embraer fleet which could technically be expanded to 676 frames, just as the D-ACxx Cityline CRJ fleet.

Looking back, the fleets of Augsburg Airways and Contact Air, who did most flying for Lufthansa, also followed that scheme with D-ADxx for the Dash8-400s and D-AFxx for the Fokker 100s.

Some planes are also named after cities smaller than 40.000, but with another connection to aviation, e.g. Buxtehude and Nordenham, which both have Airbus plants.

OlafW wrote:

lugie wrote:

The other prefixes they use are D-AExx for the (Cityline) Embraer fleet which could technically be expanded to 676 frames, just as the D-ACxx Cityline CRJ fleet.

Looking back, the fleets of Augsburg Airways and Contact Air, who did most flying for Lufthansa, also followed that scheme with D-ADxx for the Dash8-400s and D-AFxx for the Fokker 100s.

It gets to be quite fun spotting what they got up to with it all:

D-ABxx is obviously Boeing territory, but the D-ABQx range has a bunch of EW Dash-8s in it - presumably for "Bombardier Q-Series".
D-ADxx was also used for Douglas DC-8s and DC-10s at various points (MD-11s however ended up in D-ALxx)
D-AExx was also used for BAe 146s with Eurowings.
D-AVRx was the main sequence used for CityLine's Avro RJ85s - meaning that one of them was indeed D-AVRO

XAM2175 wrote:

D-ABxx is obviously Boeing territory, but the D-ABQx range has a bunch of EW Dash-8s in it - presumably for "Bombardier Q-Series".

I believe those regs predate the integration of those aircraft into LH's fleet, as those were previously with Air Berlin/Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter. There is a similar registration-hodgepodge among Germanwings' Airbus fleet, some of which came from the original Eurowings, some from LH mainline, some from the Air Berlin/niki acquisition and some of which were directly delivered from Airbus to Germanwings. So there are D-AKxx, D-AExx, D-ABxx, D-AGxx, D-AIxx, not to mention the Austrian regs of the ex-niki arcraft.

XAM2175 wrote:

D-ADxx was also used for Douglas DC-8s and DC-10s at various points (MD-11s however ended up in D-ALxx)

For whatever reason, it seems LH has decided to us D-ALxx for all freighters, regardless of manufacturer. Both the MD11 and the 777-200LRF fleets have regs starting with D-ALxx.

DUSdude wrote:

For whatever reason, it seems LH has decided to us D-ALxx for all freighters, regardless of manufacturer. Both the MD11 and the 777-200LRF fleets have regs starting with D-ALxx.

M1F, Delta - Alfa Lufthansa Cargo Alfa ... November
77X, Delta - Alfa Lufthansa Freighter Alfa ... Golf

DUSdude wrote:

XAM2175 wrote:

D-ABxx is obviously Boeing territory, but the D-ABQx range has a bunch of EW Dash-8s in it - presumably for "Bombardier Q-Series".

I believe those regs predate the integration of those aircraft into LH's fleet, as those were previously with Air Berlin/Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter. ...

They certainly do. Besides D-ABV*, D-ABT* (744) and D-ABY* (748) all Regs with D-AB** in LHs fleet are former Air Berlin aircrafts. In the Dash's case AB as their IATA-Code and Q for Bombardier Q-Series. On a side note, the Dashs were sold in April and left LH's fleet.
The next new aircraft with a D-AB** reg will be a 777-9.
The rule D-AI** for Airbus and D-AB** for Boeing only applies to Lufthansa. Its subsidaries have their own regs:
D-AKN*: oldest Germanwings A319 when Albrecht KNauf still owned most of Germanwings
D-AGW*: middle-aged Germanwings A319
D-AEW*: Eurowings A320
D-AXG*: Eurowings A330 operated by XG
All ACs within EW with D-AI regs are former LH aircrafts.