Lufthansa has brought the first of its A380 aircraft out of storage, as the carrier moves forward with plans to resume superjumbo flights this summer.
The German flag carrier placed its entire fleet of 14 A380s into storage following the onset of Covid-19, and has subsequently sold six of the superjumbos back to Airbus.
In June last year the airline confirmed it would reactivate an unconfirmed number of the remaining fleet in summer 2023, “due to the steep rise in customer demand”.
And in a tweet posted over the weekend Lufthansa confirmed that the first reactivated superjumbo (registration D-AIMK) had departed Frankfurt for Manila under special flight number LH9922, where it is “is being made fit to take off again as a regular passenger aircraft in the summer”.
Under the special flight number LH9922, the first reactivated A380 D-AIMK departed Frankfurt in the early hours of this morning for @LHTechnik Manila site. Here it is being made fit to take off again as a regular passenger aircraft in the summer.#Airbus #A380 #Lufthansa pic.twitter.com/X9DkK2sukT
— Lufthansa News (@lufthansaNews) January 29, 2023
It is currently understood that the carrier will reactivate three A380s this summer, with the option to bring back five more superjumbos by 2024.
The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent global travel slowdown led many A380 operators to either place their superjumbos into storage or retire them completely, but as demand for flights rebounds the remaining fleets are gradually coming back into service.
Qantas recently brought back the sixth of ten A380s in its fleet, and in December Etihad announced plans to reactivate four of its fleet of ten superjumbos.
Emirates remains by far the biggest operator of the aircraft, and recently completed the retrofitting of the first of 67 A380s (out of a fleet of 119), with the superjumbo entering service on the carrier’s Dubai-Heathrow route.
For our recent update on the latest situation regarding the Airbus A380 fleets across all 14 operators, see:
