In June 2022, Lufthansa announced plans to bring back the Airbus A380, to be based exclusively in Munich. Up until now, the plan was only officially to bring back six A380s, though there’s an exciting update, as noted by aeroTELEGRAPH — Lufthansa plans to reactive all eight A380s that it still owns.
Continue reading: All Eight Lufthansa Airbus A380s Returning To Munich
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I s'pose, they said "in the event of an unexpectedly rapid market recovery" and, well, given how badly major airlines have been straining and scrambling and struggling, it's fair to say that the recovery was unexpectedly rapid, at least from the perspective of airline executives.
Great news. From passenger perspective its the most comfortable plane out there. Not sure how A350, but B787 or B777 (I know it's older technology) is not even close.
Such a shame we will not be seeing A380 so much in the next 10 years.
Anyone knows why LH chose MUC instead of FRA for their A380s, even though FRA has historically been the bigger market?
Do we know what happened to the other 380s that were in the Lufthansa fleet prior to the pandemic? Are they flying for someone else or were they scrapped?
Given how expensive it is to not only operate these aircraft but return them to service, I am guessing that LH believes there will be strong longhaul demand as far out as they can see which is beyond 2025 and the expected arrival of the B777Xs. LH wouldn't spend the money to put the A380s back in service if they didn't plan to keep them for 5+ years.
The A350-1000s are rolling off the line fairly close to schedule with some minor delays for engines but far closer to on-time than the B777X. It is precisely because the A350 is larger than the B787 and is being delivered pretty close to on-time that demand for the A350 will be strong. LH picked up additional used A350-900s in addition to its new-build models copying DL's strategy.
It is great to see LH further developing a true two hub intercontinental system with a big vote for MUC. Germany is the only EU country and one of a relatively few worldwide that seems capable of pulling that off.
There is a history of disputes between LH and Fraport. There is something about the economics of landing in Munich being better than Frankfurt.
The article literally states that they sold off 6 of them. A quick Google/Bing search should tell who who they sold the too. None were scrapped by LH. Could have scrapped by the buyers though.
They were sold back to Airbus
Latest info is they are stored, not scrapped yet
There will be great demand for the Euro and Olympics next summer. That after, the planes are back to storage. As Europe will go into a recession.
@Tim...agree with all of your comments, but would add as a point, their are 2 other European countries of having complementary hubs...though would need to be strategically managed differently than the FRA/MUC model, with different types of fleets. Yes, Germany certainly has a higher GDP...but there's strategic potential in the following:
GDP Spain 1.427 trillion USD (2021)
MAD Population 3,255,944million (2023)
BCN Population 5,687,356 (2023)
GDP Italy 2.108 trillion USD (2021)
MIL Population 1,236,837 (2023)
FCO Population 2,318,895 (2023)
GDP Germany 4.26 trillion USD (2021)
FRA Population 650,000 (2023)
MUC Population 1,260,391 (2023)
I realize that the population figures don't reflect the full catchment areas of any of these cities.
Great news. I always find Lufthansa staff very hard working and professional. They don’t look down snobbish on Americans like many other Europeans like the French, Dutch and British airline staff.
If it does go into recession then it means it is even better value for the American tourist routes filling the premium heavy superjumbos. Think.
With the delays of Boeing 777-9s (God knows when they will be certified and what other issues will they find along the way), Lufthansa really has no choice but to reactivate the A380s. The 747-400s are still active too.
Honestly Lufthansa's long haul products are so out-dated that I avoid it at all costs. I will rather fly Turkish 2-2-2 Airbus 330/Boeing 777s than any of those strange Lufthansa 2-2-2 "new" business class. Last time I flew LH's long haul is on its ex-PR A350s.
Nevertheless it is good to see these beautiful A380s around.
Great, so now we can simply route through MUC instead of FRA to enjoy LH FC awards for a few more years
A friend flew on the LH A350 in Y from MUC to LAX. Said it was absolutely horrible. Then again, he had flown over in UA J class, sooooo ya know.
@Leigh
BCN population is around 1.7/1.8M, what you are mentioning is the population in the urban area of Catalunya. To compare apples wit apples:
MIL would be close to 11M
FCO almost 6M
MUC almost 13M
FRA is a bit more complex to calculate as population is distributed over a larger area
Hank, if you consistently have issues with entire nationalities it might be time to ask yourself if your behaviour is the issue. Based on your jingoistic nonsense and the casual bigotry you habitually display here I am confident that the issue is you.
When everyone else is always the problem you’re the problem.
If they wanted more capacity you would think Airbus would lease them back at an attractive rate.
For non-Schengen origing passengers only connecting in Germany, Munich is the best airport, as on of the few designed and built in post-Schengen Europe. All other airports, like FRA, MAD, LIS, CDG, AMS, MLP, were designed before Schengen, and, as such, the redesigned passenger flows with a "domestic"/Schengen track and a "non domestic"/extra-Schengen track meant work-arounds. That can mean the most maze-like passenger flows in FRA or, worst, at CDG2, and kilometers of zig-zagging. Munich is likely the most efficient airport to change from a non-Schengen to a Schengen flight.
Amsterdam, Zurich and Copenhagen are not too bad since they are lower traffic airports and their simple terminal layout has been easier to reconfigure post-Brexit than some other legacy airports.
I agree that the A380, for many carriers, got a lucky albeit short-term reprieve… the “revenge” travel boom coming out of the C19 pandemic.. and the delay of the next gen B777 fleet.. those two combined I suspect forced some carriers to delay their plans to completely phase out their A388s.
I don’t think that once the 77X starts to come online that we will see A388s remain for much longer.
I do think it’s a great aircraft from a PaxEx basis, but I also think that the way the global market developed, that there’s just not all THAT many routes where an A388 is the optimally best fleet type to use long term.