Lufthansa is planning a change to its fleet strategy for 2025, in light of ongoing aircraft delivery delays, plus the company’s dissatisfaction with Munich. I first wrote about rumors of these plans last week, but it’s now official, and these flights have been scheduled.
Lufthansa will fly A350s from Frankfurt as of summer 2025
Lufthansa has two major hubs, in Frankfurt (FRA) and Munich (MUC). Historically, the airline has taken a disciplined and rather consistent approach to which planes it flies from which airport. This is both to maximize efficiency, and even because union contracts dictate which planes are based at which airports.
Along those lines, Lufthansa is planning a change for 2025 with regards to its most common long haul aircraft type. Currently Lufthansa exclusively bases its Airbus A350s in Munich, but as of the summer of 2025, Lufthansa plans to base six of these jets in Frankfurt as well.
The airline has concluded negotiations with labor groups for this change. I imagine these flights will still be operated by Munich-based pilots, since they’re trained on the aircraft.
@IshrionA reports on how Lufthansa has now scheduled A350s to operate select flights out of Frankfurt as of next summer. Specifically, you can expect to see the A350 flying between Frankfurt and:
- Shanghai (PVG) as of March 30, 2025
- Seoul Incheon (ICN) as of March 30, 2025
- Denver (DEN) as of May 1, 2025
- Seattle (SEA) as of May 1, 2025
Lufthansa currently has a fleet of 27 Airbus A350-900s, with 28 more of the jets on order, in addition to the 10 A350-1000s on order.
Lufthansa is taking delivery of around one A350 per month, featuring new Allegris cabins. So by next summer, Lufthansa should have somewhere around 35 A350s. Based on current schedule filings, Lufthansa plans to fly A350s with its old configuration out of Frankfurt, which isn’t too surprising.
With its current schedule, Lufthansa flies A350s and A380s out of Munich, and flies A330s, A340s, and 747s, out of Frankfurt. Lufthansa plans to retire its A340s and 747-400s by 2028.
Why Lufthansa will fly A350s from Frankfurt
Lufthansa’s decision to fly Airbus A350s out of Frankfurt comes down to two factors.
For one, Lufthansa is dealing with horrible aircraft delivery delays. The airline is heavily reliant on Boeing 787-9s and Boeing 777-9s for fleet renewal, and those planes are all supposed to be based in Frankfurt. The 787-9s have lingering delivery delays, while the 777-9s have been delayed from 2020 until 2026, at the absolute earliest.
For context on how bad the situation is, Lufthansa had initially expected to already be flying 41 additional Boeing wide body jets, none of which have yet joined the fleet. With A350s now being delivered quite consistently, Lufthansa’s fleet renewal situation is much worse in Frankfurt than in Munich.
On top of that, Lufthansa executives aren’t happy with Munich Airport at the moment, as the airport has had major staffing problems, impacting on-time performance. So it could be that we see some more capacity shift from Munich to Frankfurt to account for that.
In fairness, in the past Lufthansa executives have been unhappy with Frankfurt as a hub, and that’s why we saw A380s moved from Frankfurt to Munich in the first place. So their frustration seems to vary by the year.
Bottom line
Lufthansa plans to base six Airbus A350s at Frankfurt Airport as of the summer of 2025. Historically these planes have been based in Munich, but Lufthansa will be transferring half a dozen to its biggest hub. We’ll see the first jets based in Lufthansa’s largest hub as of late March 2025, with four routes planned so far.
This decision comes down to Lufthansa’s ongoing Boeing delivery delays, plus issues with the Munich hub, which has been dealing with staffing shortages, impacting performance.
What do you make of Lufthansa basing A350s out of Frankfurt?
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