According to reports from German media aero.de, Lufthansa in the face of the rapid return of long-haul travel is looking to reactivate several Airbus A380s, given the lack of wide-body aircraft in its intercontinental fleet. The company may also agree to obtain several Boeing 777-300ERs in the near term.
At a conference in April this year, Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr said the superjumbo would not fly with the airline again. A month later Spohr highlighted the possibility of the A380’s return if demand for travel increased strongly enough.
The company planned three scenarios for the recovery of intercontinental travel in a post-COVID era: a slow revival of operations, a benchmark scenario and dynamic return with high demand for travel, the latter of which is in the Lufthansa Group CEO’s expectations, he told aero.de on Monday.
In October 2022 six of the company’s A380s will be returned to Airbus. These aircraft were already planned to be deprogrammed prior to the pandemic. The possibility of the remaining eight units returning to the fleet has increased significantly.
According to information from aero.de, Lufthansa is considering reactivating 4 or the remaining eight A380s in storage in Teruel “as soon as possible”, due to increased passenger traffic in North America.
A380 strategy
The company is calculating a “3+1” or “6+2” variant: bringing back three or six A380s to return to regular use and leaving one or two units in reserve. The superjumbo is planned to return to the airline’s main hub in Frankfurt.
The airline could return to operating the superjumbo in its main U.S. markets such as New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. North America has been one of the airline’s strongest recovering intercontinental markets during the summer season.
More Boeing 777-300ERs for Lufthansa?
The German group has an additional wild card in addition to the A380, which could be defined at the company’s next board meeting at the end of June.
Boeing is offering Lufthansa’s senior management four to six Boeing 777-300ERs available at short notice in Seattle. These aircraft are “whitetails,” waiting for other buyers.
Lufthansa’s intercontinental fleet changes
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis the company made the early retirement of several Airbus A340-600, Boeing 747-400 aircraft and the indefinite storage of Airbus A380s, consequently the company decreased its seating capacity.
In the face of a rapid recovery in the company’s key markets such as North America, Latin America, India and Southeast Asia, the company has sought to introduce several wide-body aircraft to meet demand. The company recently added four Airbus A350-900s (ex-Philippine Airlines) for its Munich (MUC) base and reactivated five Airbus A340-600s to re-launch the First-Class product for its customers in the Bavarian capital.
Due to delays in the Boeing 777X program, Lufthansa is making seven Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners and several 777 freighters, the airline also plans to reduce its fleet of four-engine aircraft and replace them with more efficient twin-engines.
See also: Lufthansa Group acquires additional Boeing 787 and Boeing 777 freighters
The Boeing 777-300ER could be an ideal option for the company; this model is already operated by its sister airline SWISS and Lufthansa Cargo operates the 777 version, where the option of crew training will be facilitated, and the infrastructure is in place to include these aircraft.
On the other hand, the reactivation of the A380 could be somewhat slow, because the aircraft have to undergo maintenance and overhaul due to the long storage period, and crew retraining, spare parts and reactivation of simulators.
