Lufthansa surprised us with some big news today. When announcing their summer 2018 schedule, they revealed that they will be launching A380 flights from their secondary hub in Munich. The airline has 14 A380s in their fleet, five of which will be transferred to Munich to operate flights to Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Beijing.…
Continue reading: Wow: Lufthansa Is Launching A380 Flights From Munich
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Great info Daniel, however, the a330 of Lufthansa does offer first class, in two of the three configurations. But you are indeed correct the a350 does not have a first class cabin. Keep it coming daniel!
They can't have 747 in MUC, because LH doesn't have any maintenance capabilities for Boeing aircrafts in MUC
Whoa! This is very cool! I had wondered why LH did not use any 747s or A380s at MUC. I would love an A380 on JFK-MUC and a First Class Terminal at MUC. Ha.
@David, Lufthansa is removing F from their MUC-based A330s. There is also some evidence that this might be happening to FRA-based A330s as well since LH has stopped selling F on many 330 routes out of FRA. So once LH retires all of their A340-600s, there would be no F at MUC at all. However, with these A380s now there will be some on these routes.
It will probably one of the Indian destinations served by the A380 that will lose its service. I've seen consistently that they're flying half empty.
I hate to admit it, but I'm putting my money on IAH to lose the A380 (I'm based at IAH)
The gulf carrrers are always loaded. But fly out of terminal 1.
USA, not so sure since UA has like 4 flights in addition to LH.
Whenever I go visit, I see lots of Asian travelers arriving in MUC That should be a clue.
btw I think MUC needs to upgrade that terminal 1 pronto. Terminal 2 is way prettier
Daniel, while you may have been caught off guard, the German press has covered this issue extensively: LH has had an ongoing conflict with Fraport (running FRA) for a while now about Fraport granting discounts to Ryanair at LH's main hub. The move of the 380s to MUC is considered the next escalating move in this conflict.
"You’d think it would make sense to introduce 747s first, perhaps moving their old 747-400s down there before doubling capacity with the A380." -- uhh, no. Not if you understand the rationale for the 380 move.
Looks like you should review Lufthansa's First Class ground experience in MUC as soon as possible 🙂
That's great. MUC-LAX urgently needs a capacity increase. This flight is almost always full.
Smart move. MUC can be nice destination for short trips. Just in time for Oktoberfest!
Great move by LH.
I'm i the only one who immediately thought of the 5 A380s that SQ is retiring going to LH? At a rock-bottom price ofcourse?
@Ronny is absolutely right. Ryanair got a 50% discount off its costs at FRA and LH + Condor are not amused to say the very least. The issue is bound to take a red hot with this latest announcement.
But i'd think that LH clearly have done their homework and know the premium yields they are going to get on the routes from MUC. So i don't think that it's directly related to the issue with Fraport. Plus it is indeed a great show of faith in MUC given that their first 15 A350s are going to MUC.
LH also partly owns MUC's T2 and costs are apparently 20% lower than FRA.
The only Indian destination with 380 service is DEL and if they remove the 380 from that sector it will be interesting to see if they replace with 747-8 or 340-600 both of which have the F Cabin. The only other service to DEL is from MUC on a 350 - no F cabin.
I do think that Delhi is going to be one of them to lost the A380 access from Lufthansa. I have seen A380 flying almost empty on this route.
Hi Daniel,
Nice post, great information. I am a post graduate student currently working on my thesis. Good to see Lufthansa restarting Munich - Singapore route. May I ask please, if you would know by any chance about the Munich - Singapore route, when was it closed by Lufthansa in the first place? date with month and year or just the year. I shall be very grateful for your help as am unable to find this info on the net. Thank you so much.
I have checked and Lufthansa will lose the Frankfurt to Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore A380 route and the A340-600 will operate on that route. Their new A350 will operate the Munich-Beijing route from early November to early April when the A380 takes over. However, they are still going to fly the Frankfurt- Shanghai route with the A380 and B747-400 twice a day flight.