Brooke In The Air

Welcome back to Brooke in the Air! Today we’re going to go over the tumultuous fleet of Star Alliance anchor-member and German flag carrier, Lufthansa in 2024! Just as we’ve done with Emirates and Air Canada, we’ll look in-depth at the German flag carrier’s fleet.

INTRO

Deutsche Lufthansa AG (Lufthansa German Airlines or simply Lufthansa), serves as the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it stands as the second-largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried, after the ultra low-cost carrier Ryanair, largest in Europe and fourth largest in the world by revenue. Lufthansa is also one of the five founding members of Star Alliance, which is the world's largest airline alliance, formed in 1997, see my Star Alliance article for more.

Besides its own services, and owning subsidiary passenger airlines Austrian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Brussels Airlines, discover airlines and Eurowings (referred to in English by Lufthansa as its Passenger Airline Group), Deutsche Lufthansa AG owns several aviation-related companies, such as Lufthansa Technik and LSG Sky Chefs, as part of the Lufthansa Group. In total, the group has over 700 aircraft, making it one of the largest airline fleets in the world.

Lufthansa's registered office and corporate headquarters are in Cologne. The main operations base, called Lufthansa Aviation Center, is at Lufthansa's primary hub at Frankfurt Airport, and its secondary hub is at Munich Airport where a secondary Flight Operations Centre is maintained.

BRIEF HISTORY

The company was founded as Luftag in 1953 by staff of the former Deutsche Luft Hansa that had been politically connected to the government of Nazi Germany and dissolved after World War II. Luftag continued the traditional branding of the German flag carrier by acquiring the Luft Hansa name and logo.

Lufthansa traces its history to 1926 when Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G. (styled as Deutsche Lufthansa from 1933 onwards) was formed in Berlin. The airline was created by the merger of Deutscher Aero Lloyd, formerly Deutsche Luft-Reederei (1917 to 1923), the world´s sixth-oldest airline, and Junkers Luftverkehr (c. 1919). DLH, as it was known, was Germany's flag carrier until 1945 when all services were terminated following the defeat of Nazi Germany; it has since been demonstrated that Deutsche Luft Hansa relied on the use of forced labor and housed forced laborers on the site of Tempelhof airport. In an effort to create a new national airline, a company called Aktiengesellschaft für Luftverkehrsbedarf (Luftag), was founded in Cologne on 6 January 1953, with many of its staff having worked for the pre-war Lufthansa; this included Kurt Weigelt, a Nazi convicted of war crimes, who served on the board on the new Lufthansa, and Kurt Knipfer, a member of the Nazi party from 1929 who led Luft Hansa from 1933 to 1945.

West Germany had not yet been granted sovereignty over its airspace, so it was not known when the new airline could become operational. Nevertheless, in 1953, Luftag placed orders for four Convair CV-340s and four Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellations and set up a maintenance base at Hamburg Airport. On 6 August 1954, Luftag acquired the name and logo of the liquidated Deutsche Lufthansa for DM 30,000 (equivalent to €41000 Euros today), thus continuing the tradition of a German flag carrier.

On the 1st of April in 1955, Lufthansa won approval to start scheduled domestic flights, linking Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Munich. International flights started on 15 May 1955, to London, Paris, and Madrid, followed by Super Constellation flights to New York City from 1 June of that year, and across the South Atlantic from August 1956. In August 1958, fifteen Lufthansa 1049Gs and 1649s left Germany each week to Canada and the United States, three 1049Gs a week flew to South America, three flew to Tehran and one to Baghdad. In parallel, the airline also initiated a marketing campaign to sell itself and West Germany. The challenges involved encouraging travelers to consider visiting the country in the wake of World War II, as well as offering services to other nations via the Frankfurt airport hub. More specifically, Lufthansa's efforts shaped and reflected the development of a modern form of consumerism and advertising through the sale of air travel. By 1963, the airline, initially limited in its public relations efforts, had become a major purveyor of West Germany's image abroad.

The special status of Berlin meant that Lufthansa was not allowed to fly to either part of Berlin until German reunification in 1990. Originally thought to be only a temporary matter (and with intentions to move the airline's headquarters and main base there once the political situation changed), the Division of Germany turned out to be longer than expected, which gradually led to Frankfurt Airport becoming Lufthansa's primary hub.

POST-REUNIFICATION

On 28th of October in 1990, only 25 days after reunification, Berlin became a Lufthansa destination again. On 18 May 1997, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Scandinavian Airlines, Thai Airways International, and United Airlines formed the Star Alliance, the world's first multilateral airline alliance.

At the beginning of 1995, Lufthansa made some structural changes aimed at creating independent operating companies of the aviation group, such as Lufthansa Technik, Lufthansa Cargo and Lufthansa Systems. Three new companies who joined later in the Lufthansa Group were LSG Sky Chefs, Condor and Lufthansa CityLine.

In 1999, Lufthansa participated in the German Business Foundation initiative addressing class action lawsuits against German companies for World War II-era misdeeds, including the use of forced labor, by reportedly paying tens of millions German marks. The same year, Lufthansa commissioned the scholar Lutz Budrass to investigate the use of forced labor by its predecessor company, Deutsche Luft Hansa, during World War II; it declined to publish Dr. Budrass's resulting study for more than a decade.

East Germany tried to establish its airline in 1955 using the Lufthansa name, but this resulted in a legal dispute with West Germany, where Lufthansa was operating. East Germany instead established Interflug as its national airline in 1963, which coincided with the East German Lufthansa being shut down.

*Lufthansa flight aviation training center at Frankfurt Airport, Germany*

MODERN TIMELINE

Lufthansa logo

On 6th of December in 2001, Lufthansa announced an order for 15 Airbus A380 superjumbos with 10 more options, which was confirmed on 20 December. The A380 fleet would be used for long-haul flights from Frankfurt exclusively.

In June of 2003, Lufthansa opened Terminal 2 at Munich's Franz Josef Strauß Airport to relieve its main hub, Frankfurt, which was suffering from capacity constraints. It is one of the first terminals in Europe partially owned by an airline.

In autumn of 2003, the implementation of a new sales strategy initiated by then-incumbent Executive Vice President Thierry Antinori to make the company fit for the digital era led to the abolition of commission payments for travel agencies and led to a revolution in the German travel business with many travel agencies disappearing from the market on the one hand, and the rise of new digital distribution platforms on the other hand.

After a loss of 298 million euros in the first quarter of 2010 and another 13 million loss in the year 2011 due to the economic recession and restructuring costs, Deutsche Lufthansa AG cut 3,500 administrative positions or around 20 percent of the clerical total of 16,800. In 2012, Lufthansa announced a restructuring program called SCORE to improve its operating profit. As a part of the restructuring plan, the company started to transfer all short-haul flights outside its hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, and Düsseldorf to the company's re-branded low-cost carrier Germanwings, now Eurowings.

On the 4th of December, 2017, Lufthansa became the first European airline to receive the Skytrax 5-star certification. As stated by Skytrax, a key factor in the positive rating was the announcement of a new Business Class cabin and seating that was expected to be introduced in 2020. While this makes Lufthansa the 10th airline to be holding this award, in reality the 5th star was given to a product that was supposed to be introduced two years after the evaluation. In celebration, Lufthansa painted an Airbus A320 and a Boeing 747-8 in the "5 Starhansa" livery. Lufthansa is now a 4-star airline.

In March of 2018, Lufthansa and other airlines like British Airways and American Airlines accepted a request from Beijing to list Taiwan as part of China.

In March 2019, Lufthansa ordered 20 Boeing 787-9 and an additional 20 Airbus A350-900 for its own and the group's fleet replacement and expansion. Also, the airline announced it would sell six A380 aircraft back to Airbus, beginning in 2022.

In May of 2022, Skytrax demoted Lufthansa from its aforementioned 5-star rating which it held since 2017 as the first European carrier to do so, to an overall 4-star rating.

In 2023, the airline was affected by an IT glitch, leaving thousands of passengers stranded around the world. According to the German air traffic control agency, the airlines flights were redirected from Frankfurt to other airports due to an IT glitch. The issue was reportedly caused after construction work accidentally cut through fiber optic cables in the city.

In May 2023, Lufthansa Group announced an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) to acquire a 41 per cent stake in ITA Airways. Part of the agreement allows Lufthansa to acquire the remaining shares at a later date. Arguments with the EU are ongoing.

The Acquisition

On 30th of March, 2023, Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr visited ITA Airways headquarters in Rome to negotiate a deal to buy the Italian airline. According to news agency Reuters, negotiations will start at around €200 million for 40% of the airline, with Lufthansa wanting an option to buy the entire airline from the Italian finance ministry. On the 24th of April, the negotiation deadline ended without an agreement made.

Both parties stated that negotiations were nearly finished, so they would continue negotiating until May the 12. This date was once again postponed with both parties saying that negotiations are "On a good way." At the meeting of G7 leaders in Hiroshima Japan in May 2022, the topic was discussed between the German and Italian leaders. They had talked about "rising the synergies between the industry of the two countries." On May 25, a deal was finally signed, with Lufthansa paying €325 million for 41% of the airline. Lufthansa also has an option to buy the rest of the company; if this happens, this price will comply with the airline's profit. As part of the deal, Rome becomes a hub of the Lufthansa Group, with Milan also being considered.

BUS SERVICE- CITYLINE

A bus service from Nuremberg Airport to Munich Airport was reinstated in 2021 to replace short-haul flights between both cities. Lufthansa operated a check-in point in Nuremberg and a bus service from Nuremberg to Munich Airport in the late 1990s.

THE FLEET

Now what we're all here for. Lufthansa's current fleet. Lufthansa utilizes a healthy mix of Boeing and Airbus aircraft.

Wholly owned by Lufthansa

Lufthansa German Airlines
Lufthansa Regional – regional feeder entity
Lufthansa CityLine – German regional airline headquartered in Munich and part of Lufthansa Regional
Air Dolomiti – Italian regional airline headquartered in Villafranca di Verona and part of Lufthansa Regional
City Airlines – Regional airline based in Munich expected to start operations branded as Lufthansa City this summer in 2024
Discover Airlines German long- and medium-haul leisure airline, originally known as Eurowings Discover
Eurowings Group (low-cost or hybrid point-to-point airlines)
Eurowings – German low-cost airline headquartered in Düsseldorf
Eurowings Europe – low-cost airline registered in Austria
Lufthansa Cargo – German cargo airline headquartered in Frankfurt, formerly German Cargo
Partly owned by Lufthansa
AeroLogic – German cargo airline owned by a joint-venture of Lufthansa (50%) and DHL (50%)
SunExpress – Turkish leisure airline, jointly owned by Lufthansa (50%) and Turkish Airlines (50%).
Lufthansa Network Airlines
Austrian Airlines – the flag carrier airline of Austria based at Vienna International Airport
Swiss International Air Lines – the flag carrier airline of Switzerland based at Zurich Airport
Edelweiss Air – Swiss leisure airline subsidiary
Brussels Airlines – the flag carrier airline of Belgium based at Brussels Airport

Naming Conventions

In September of 1960, a Lufthansa Boeing 707 (D-ABOC), which would serve the Frankfurt-New York intercontinental route, was christened Berlin after the divided city of Berlin by then-mayor Willy Brandt. Following Berlin, other Lufthansa 707 planes were named "Hamburg", "Frankfurt", "München", and "Bonn". With these names, the company established a tradition of naming the planes in its fleet after German cities and towns or federal states, with a rule of thumb that the airplane make, size, or route would correspond roughly to the relative size or importance of the city or town it was named after.

This tradition continued, with two notable exceptions, until 2010: The first was an Airbus A340-300 registered D-AIFC, named "Gander/Halifax", after Gander and Halifax, two Canadian cities along the standard flight path from Europe to North America.

MAIN FLEET

By the numbers.

*Airbus A320neo of Lufthansa, one of 34 in service*

*A380 hangar of Lufthansa Technik at Frankfurt Airport*

Lufthansa operates a mainline fleet consisting of Airbus narrow-body, and Airbus and Boeing widebody aircraft. The mainline fleet is composed of seven different aircraft families: the Airbus A320, Airbus A330, Airbus A340, Airbus A350, Airbus A380, Boeing 747 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Additionally, Lufthansa currently has orders placed for new Airbus A320neo, Airbus A350 and Boeing 777X aircraft. They have also placed an order for 40 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft with an optional 60, making it the first order of Boeing single aisle aircraft in 40 years. In the following years, the 777X will replace all Boeing 747-400 aircraft in the fleet, and the 787 and A350 will replace all remaining Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft, respectively.

As of February 2024, Lufthansa (excluding its subsidiaries Air Dolomiti, City Airlines, Discover Airlines, Eurowings and Lufthansa CityLine) operates the following aircraft:

Narrow-body:

Airbus A319-100 - 23 in service

Airbus A320-200 - 52 in service

Airbus A320neo - 34 in service

Airbus A321-100 - 20 in service

Airbus A321-200 - 37 in service

Airbus A321neo - 17 in service