SN is planning to resume flight ops on June 15th. https://press.brusselsairlines.com/brus ... m-15-june#

Please, after these positioning flights how do the pilots get back to Germany?

I see they are resuming Toronto 3x weekly starting early June. Perhaps more resumptions on the horizon?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/luftha ... -1.5570624

musapapaya wrote:

Finally some good news coming on the horizon - Lufthansa announced doubling their operating aircrafts to 160 from June onwards. Hope this good news will spread to other airlines.

Link below.

https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/eng ... b7f360f236

zbs wrote:

Please, after these positioning flights how do the pilots get back to Germany?

According to LHs Instagram story the crew of D-AIMB was transferred to Madrid by bus and continued their journey to FRA on a scheduled Lufthansa flight. This was probably done the same way on other flights to TEV.

As per the always-accurate Lufthansa Group fleet, the A380s that will leave the fleet due to the pandemic are D-AIMC/MF/MI/MJ/MM/MN. Just curious as to how LH chose these frames, especially because MM and MN are both barely 5 years old. Why retire the youngest A380s and keep the oldest ones? It makes no sense to me. Thoughts??

InnsbruckFlyer wrote:

As per the always-accurate Lufthansa Group fleet, the A380s that will leave the fleet due to the pandemic are D-AIMC/MF/MI/MJ/MM/MN. Just curious as to how LH chose these frames, especially because MM and MN are both barely 5 years old. Why retire the youngest A380s and keep the oldest ones? It makes no sense to me. Thoughts??

The younger ones might be coming up on expensive maintenance that the older ones have already had, which makes the older ones more desirable to keep.

Airbus A320 -211 83 D-AIPF Lufthansa ferried 20may20 MUC-LETL (+ 86 D-AIPH, + 104 D-AIPM, + 161 D-AIPY SXF-LETL)

https://www.skyliner-aviation.de/regdb.main?LC=nav4

LH is focusing all 7 remaining A380 at MUC: https://www.aero.de/news-35486/Frankfur ... hansa.html [German]

As of today per LHGroupFleet (which are relatively well informed):
7 aircraft stored at TEV (A, B, F, G, J, K, N)
2 aircraft stored at MUC (D, H)
5 aircraft stored at FRA (C, E, I, L, M)
The aircraft at TEV will not fly for a while, if ever. Lufthansa will remain their owner until they are returned to Airbus in 2022 / 23 as originally planned. Not sure what will happen to the 7th stored A380, since Airbus only agreed to 6 aircraft.

Per LH: "It is not feasible to operate [such a small] split fleet from either a logistical or a business point of view". Also: "The entire fleet will remain parked, we are just maintaining the option of eventually returning them to service."

Also:
Fleet size in 2021 down by 300 aircraft (- 40%)
Fleet size in 2023 down by 100 aircraft (- 14%)
Lufthansa is setting themselves up for a very slow recovery. With the retirement of (some) A380, A346 and likely the 744, while taking delivery of the A359 and eventually a few 779, capacity reductions will be even more than that.

I also wonder what this will mean for FRA's expansion (terminal 1 A-Plus) that opened in 2012. It was built specifically and exclusively for LH, with 4 gates dedicated to the A380 and all the newest lounges and amenities. The facilities at MUC are fine, but they don't give you that 'flagship' feeling IMHO. Of course they can use it for A320s but it's a bit of a waste of infrastructure.

mxaxai wrote:

LH is focusing all 7 remaining A380 at MUC: https://www.aero.de/news-35486/Frankfur ... hansa.html [German]

As of today per LHGroupFleet (which are relatively well informed):
7 aircraft stored at TEV (A, B, F, G, J, K, N)
2 aircraft stored at MUC (D, H)
5 aircraft stored at FRA (C, E, I, L, M)
The aircraft at TEV will not fly for a while, if ever. Lufthansa will remain their owner until they are returned to Airbus in 2022 / 23 as originally planned. Not sure what will happen to the 7th stored A380, since Airbus only agreed to 6 aircraft.

Per LH: "It is not feasible to operate [such a small] split fleet from either a logistical or a business point of view". Also: "The entire fleet will remain parked, we are just maintaining the option of eventually returning them to service."

Also:
Fleet size in 2021 down by 300 aircraft (- 40%)
Fleet size in 2023 down by 100 aircraft (- 14%)
Lufthansa is setting themselves up for a very slow recovery. With the retirement of (some) A380, A346 and likely the 744, while taking delivery of the A359 and eventually a few 779, capacity reductions will be even more than that.

I also wonder what this will mean for FRA's expansion (terminal 1 A-Plus) that opened in 2012. It was built specifically and exclusively for LH, with 4 gates dedicated to the A380 and all the newest lounges and amenities. The facilities at MUC are fine, but they don't give you that 'flagship' feeling IMHO. Of course they can use it for A320s but it's a bit of a waste of infrastructure.

Maybe once the expansion is complete they could close the older parts of the airport for renovation? By the time they complete it demand should be back to pre-corona levels.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but whats the future looking like for the 747s?

I'm assuming most/if not all of the -400s wont return, but what about the 8's?

the -8 are said to be secure.

Today 2 A346s AIHU and AIHV ferried to Teurel, leaving AIHB the only A346 not stored there yet. She is getting heavy maintenance at MNL until June.
Tomorrow A320s AIPL, -PT, -QA and -QH will follow to LETL.

https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa

viennafly wrote:

Today 2 A346s AIHU and AIHV ferried to Teurel, leaving AIHB the only A346 not stored there yet. She is getting heavy maintenance at MNL until June.
Tomorrow A320s AIPL, -PT, -QA and -QH will follow to LETL.

https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa

Are all these planes leaving the fleet for good?

Blerg wrote:

viennafly wrote:
Today 2 A346s AIHU and AIHV ferried to Teurel, leaving AIHB the only A346 not stored there yet. She is getting heavy maintenance at MNL until June.
Tomorrow A320s AIPL, -PT, -QA and -QH will follow to LETL.

https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa

Are all these planes leaving the fleet for good?

You may raise this question in probably six months again and may expect a more definite answer as is possible today.

Currently it´s still the phase of positioning the existing equipment in the most efficient storage spaces and to make space at the large gateways for a re-start of operations without planes standing left and right (plus saving on the parking expenses there). It is unlikely that any major fleet decision has already been taken except for those who had already been in the pipeline for some time (read: A380 fleet reduction or retirement of the 30 year or older A320s).

For now consolidation of major parts of the fleet in one large space allows for a concentrated and cost effective maintenance operation whilst time is now spend to put together the future fleet composition. This may result in planes parked in Teruel never to come back to just short-term storage. And a lot will depend on how fast and to what level passenger traffic volumes will recover. Plus how will the cargo market look like in a couple of weeks when regular networks will be back?

In my optinion we will see a good part of the A340-600 fleet back in operation at the expense of the A380-800 and older B747-400s, with A350-900s continue to join the fleet. And the A340-300 will stay for quite some time. The focus will be on rebuilding the network (destination count) soonest possible, but at the expense of capacity and frequency.

Blerg wrote:

viennafly wrote:

Today 2 A346s AIHU and AIHV ferried to Teurel, leaving AIHB the only A346 not stored there yet. She is getting heavy maintenance at MNL until June.
Tomorrow A320s AIPL, -PT, -QA and -QH will follow to LETL.

https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa

Are all these planes leaving the fleet for good?

The A320s for sure. It's a shame, as my final flight was on QA before the crisis.
The A346s are not officially retired, but it is very unlikely that they will come back.

LHA320 wrote:

The A320s for sure. It's a shame, as my final flight was on QA before the crisis.
The A346s are not officially retired, but it is very unlikely that they will come back.

The A346s go into deep storage, but some of them will most likely not come back.
The A320s will most likely go to be scrapped @ TEV, they are all close or above 30years of age and reliability is not as good as with the new ones.

viennafly wrote:

Today 2 A346s AIHU and AIHV ferried to Teurel, leaving AIHB the only A346 not stored there yet. She is getting heavy maintenance at MNL until June.
Tomorrow A320s AIPL, -PT, -QA and -QH will follow to LETL.

https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa

For some reason D-AIPL hadn't flown yet... Anyone knows why?

A321Lufthansa wrote:

D-AIPF - QA + QH are all scheduled to leave the fleet from 30.05. till the end of June.

D-AIQA flew to Teruel today - 27th May.

A321Lufthansa wrote:

D-AIQD/QF are staying until 2022 and that means that they will be retired at the age of 31!

Impressive, though I'm still sad that D-AIPA didn't get put in a museum somewhere. Surely now, in a time when the secondary market is flooded with loads of used aircraft (and parts) - many of which are very young - it makes donating an aircraft to a museum a much smaller loss than ever?

danipawa wrote:

Airbus A320-211 83 D-AIPF Lufthansa ferried 20may20 MUC-LETL

30.5 years old - what a workhorse!

viennafly wrote:

Today 2 A346s AIHU and AIHV ferried to Teurel, leaving AIHB the only A346 not stored there yet. She is getting heavy maintenance at MNL until June.

Let's hope that this becomes a lifeline. If she's the most recent plane to have a heavy check then hopefully she will be the first to be reactivated if Lufthansa returns the A340-600 fleet to service.

A321Lufthansa wrote:

https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa

For some reason D-AIPL hadn't flown yet... Anyone knows why?[/quote]

...went AOG.

viennafly wrote:

A321Lufthansa wrote:

https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa

For some reason D-AIPL hadn't flown yet... Anyone knows why?

...went AOG.[/quote]
Does it mean it will be scrapped in MUC instead of being ferried to TEV?

A321Lufthansa wrote:

viennafly wrote:

A321Lufthansa wrote:

https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa

For some reason D-AIPL hadn't flown yet... Anyone knows why?

...went AOG.

Does it mean it will be scrapped in MUC instead of being ferried to TEV?[/quote]

No, just means it had a technical failure that prevented the A/C to fly to Teruel. Has been fixed now....

Hey all,

according to https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa
the first 2 of 5 B744 from Lufthansa will do their final flights to Enschede. 18-year old ABTL will fly in from FRA on thursday, while 24-year old ABVO will fly in on Friday from PEK, where it had heavy maintenance and was stored after.

Best regards

LH has retired many 747-400s already.

Sorry, I chose a misleading topic - at least it’s the first ones of the last 13 remaining.

D-ABVO did NOT have its D4-Check. It was planned to have it done, but that was cancelled due to COVID and the retirement of the A/C. It was just parked all that long months in PEK...

Has LH further updated the PDF file for their planned startup schedule in June (I believe the last update made was roughly the 3rd week of May)?

If someone could post the link to the file, it would be very much appreciated - I tried looking for in in the thread and the other one related to the bailout, but for some reason or another, I cannot seem to find it.

So sad to hear about D-ABVO. My most recent 747 flight was with her, and it was quite possibly my best 747 flight. FRA-SEA in late August 2018. Was on the upper deck and had an awesome crew. RIP D-ABVO

viennafly wrote:

Hey all,

according to https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa
the first 2 of 5 B744 from Lufthansa will do their final flights to Enschede. 18-year old ABTL will fly in from FRA on thursday, while 24-year old ABVO will fly in on Friday from PEK, where it had heavy maintenance and was stored after.

Best regards

The ferry of D-ABTL is cancelled now according to this website and it appears as a reserve A/C.

A321Lufthansa wrote:

viennafly wrote:

Hey all,

according to https://sites.google.com/site/lhgroupfleet/lufthansa
the first 2 of 5 B744 from Lufthansa will do their final flights to Enschede. 18-year old ABTL will fly in from FRA on thursday, while 24-year old ABVO will fly in on Friday from PEK, where it had heavy maintenance and was stored after.

Best regards

The ferry of D-ABTL is cancelled now according to this website and it appears as a reserve A/C.

No, it will fly to ENS tomorrow. Interesting fact about this is that D-ABTL was not among those 5 744 retirements announced in April. Writing is on the wall for the 744 fleet, unfortunately. Like I said, when the A346 is parked: The 744 is next. Expect the last frames to leave as the first 2 777X arrive next year, if not sooner. Currently only VM, VW, VY and VZ have no retirement planned. The plan in April was to retire VO, VP, VR VS and VT only!

LHA320 wrote:

The 744 is next. Expect the last frames to leave as the first 2 777X arrive next year, if not sooner. Currently only VM, VW, VY and VZ have no retirement planned. The plan in April was to retire VO, VP, VR VS and VT only!

If the first 777-9 arrive next year isnt clear. LH is trying to defer deliveries/convert orders to 777F.

Boeing 747 -430 28086 1080 D-ABVO Lufthansa ferried 06jun20 PEK-ENS
Boeing 747 -430 29872 1299 D-ABTL Lufthansa ferried 06jun20 FRA-ENS

https://www.skyliner-aviation.de/regdb. ... av4&page=2

They go into deep storage in ENS.

DUSZRH wrote:

They go into deep storage in ENS.

...that is highly likely to be forever, especially for D-ABVO.

Maybe this is more like deep disassembly?

na wrote:

LHA320 wrote:

The 744 is next. Expect the last frames to leave as the first 2 777X arrive next year, if not sooner. Currently only VM, VW, VY and VZ have no retirement planned. The plan in April was to retire VO, VP, VR VS and VT only!

If the first 777-9 arrive next year isnt clear. LH is trying to defer deliveries/convert orders to 777F.

Link to your claim?

Eurowings recently announced the phase-out of 2 non-repainted A320s - D-ABHA and D-AEUD. This will make the first one the sole aircraft that managed to survive in AB livery during the entire term of usage in EW. May they be switched to another LHG airline?

A321Lufthansa wrote:

Eurowings recently announced the phase-out of 2 non-repainted A320s - D-ABHA and D-AEUD. This will make the first one the sole aircraft that managed to survive in AB livery during the entire term of usage in EW. May they be switched to another LHG airline?

At least D-AEUD is an owned frame which was bought and then leased to Laudamotion before joining EW. D-ABHA is still leased from GECAS if I remember correctly. So I guess D-AEUD will stay within the group and D-ABHA will be returned to lessor.

I could see D-AEUD being transferred to WK, they have some older 320's in the fleet wiht two frames in the below MSN1000 range. Engine type is ok, and they have more 2nd hand frames. LH/OS/SN don't need them and LX is usually only taking new frames with plenty of NEO's on order.

From the BBC

German airline Lufthansa has said it will cut 22,000 jobs as it struggles to deal with the slump in air travel caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The carrier predicted a slow recovery in demand and expected to have about 100 fewer aircraft after the crisis.
Lufthansa said half the job cuts would be in Germany. It hopes to agree the measures with unions by 22 June.
It added that it hoped to minimise redundancies through short-time working and crisis agreements.
"The aim is to pave the way for the preservation of as many jobs as possible in the Lufthansa Group," the company said.
The airline employs more than 135,000 people worldwide. About half of them are in Germany.

They need/want to cut 22’000 FTEs. That likely means more people affected, (ufo, one of the union talked about 26’000). However, there are negotiations ongoing to reduce hours and wages (per hour).

LHA320 wrote:

A321Lufthansa wrote:

Eurowings recently announced the phase-out of 2 non-repainted A320s - D-ABHA and D-AEUD. This will make the first one the sole aircraft that managed to survive in AB livery during the entire term of usage in EW. May they be switched to another LHG airline?

At least D-AEUD is an owned frame which was bought and then leased to Laudamotion before joining EW. D-ABHA is still leased from GECAS if I remember correctly. So I guess D-AEUD will stay within the group and D-ABHA will be returned to lessor.

I wonder if LHG would sell its ex-AB/HG/OE A321s or keep at least some of them to replace some older frames.

I don't know if this fits in with the grounding, but it does fit in with job cuts...what about a sale or partial spinoff of either Technik, or SkyChefs? Such on Technik is discussed here. https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/91644

Pretty dire stuff:

Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s fleet of Airbus SE A380 jets will be mothballed for at least two years and may never return to service as demand for long-haul travel remains subdued in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

With Lufthansa already retiring about half of its 14 superjumbos, remaining jets will be relegated to its secondary hub in Munich. Flights could resume there in 2022 if there’s enough demand on “thick” routes such as New York and Chicago, said Klaus Froese, who runs the carrier’s main Frankfurt base.

“In Frankfurt, the chance that we will again operate any A380 is close to zero. That’s all but decided,” he said. “In Munich we will have to see. Planning is very difficult in these times.”

Ref: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -two-years

So even the plan to fly the remaining 7 out of MUC is now uncertain.

https://www.airlineratings.com/news/las ... -grounded/ says:

Qatar Airways chief Akbar Al Baker told AirlineRatings.com that “Qatar Airways is parking its 10 A380s and they will not return for at least a year, and maybe never.”

Clearly the A380 is being hit hard by CV19.

When the time to recover to 2019 passenger numbers is increasingly moved backwards and were are now looking a 2023 or 2024 the A380 has no place in the industry any more.

I'm surprised they're returning at all.

seahawk wrote:

When the time to recover to 2019 passenger numbers is increasingly moved backwards and were are now looking a 2023 or 2024 the A380 has no place in the industry any more.

Will EK be able to cope as a 77W-only airline?

I wonder if the recently created requirement to grow VIE at the same pace as FRA and MUC played a role here? In an ideal business world, LH could've consolidated flights between FRA and MUC. But LH is now forced to distribute connecting passengers and adopt a more point-to-point strategy. The relatively low O&D demand at VIE requires them to operate long-haul routes on trunk routes only, i. e. precisely the routes where it would make more sense economically to send those passengers to an A380 at MUC.

Pre-COVID there would have been enough demand to fill a OS 772 + LH A380 to a destination, but instead of consolidating to only the LH A380 post-COVID, they have to take the OS 772 + LH A330 strategy.

F27500 wrote:

I'm surprised they're returning at all.

I would imagine the plan to not fly any for 2 years allows them to not have to keep pilots current on the type. If that is the case, any return to service will have even more challenges.

mxaxai wrote:

I wonder if the recently created requirement to grow VIE at the same pace as FRA and MUC played a role here? In an ideal business world, LH could've consolidated flights between FRA and MUC. But LH is now forced to distribute connecting passengers and adopt a more point-to-point strategy. The relatively low O&D demand at VIE requires them to operate long-haul routes on trunk routes only, i. e. precisely the routes where it would make more sense economically to send those passengers to an A380 at MUC.

Pre-COVID there would have been enough demand to fill a OS 772 + LH A380 to a destination, but instead of consolidating to only the LH A380 post-COVID, they have to take the OS 772 + LH A330 strategy.

I don't know. Fragmentation has its own benefits. VIE passengers may not want to pay for an extra hop and cancel their trip, or fly a LH competitor if they have no home airport service. A380 represents a lot of seats to fill on a relatively inefficient airliner that LH decided to start reducing even before CV19. Retiring off the whole fleet may free up a lot of resources.

Revelation wrote:

Will EK be able to cope as a 77W-only airline?

Some similar airlines (CX, VS) manage just fine without the A380. An aircraft model doesn't make or break an airline business model.

The thing is, EK offers good one-stop flights from most places in Europe and the US to most places in Asia and Australia. The same trip on legacies will often require two stops. Point-to-Point is cool and all but realistically how many non-EK flights to Asia / Africa / Australia can places like BHX, GLA, DUS, LYS, ... support, especially post-COVID? How many secondary destinations in southern Asia will BA, LH, ... serve? Probably few. So the fundamental appeal of EK remains unchanged, with or without the A380.

Revelation wrote:

I don't know. Fragmentation has its own benefits. VIE passengers may not want to pay for an extra hop and cancel their trip, or fly a LH competitor if they have no home airport service. A380 represents a lot of seats to fill on a relatively inefficient airliner that LH decided to start reducing even before CV19. Retiring off the whole fleet may free up a lot of resources.

I wasn't talking about O&D traffic. MUC & VIE both require significant connecting traffic to work as a hub. Those passengers couldn't care less about the airport, they only care about the price.

During the past few months, LH chose to route almost all traffic through FRA to maintain a core network. (Also partially because FRA is well connected to ground transportation whereas MUC is in the middle of nowhere) Distributing passengers creates the need for double connections when the low demand doesn't allow to serve a destination from both hubs.