European aviation giant Lufthansa is all set to continue renovating its fleet to make it more environmentally friendly and boost its revenues by saving on operating costs. The latest news regarding the Lufthansa fleet renovation is about the german flag carrier’s long range jets. Let’s find out what the latest Lufthansa fleet news is all about.
Lufthansa Orders New Long Range Jets
The Lufthansa fleet has been undergoing an extensive renovation over the past few years. The airline has been progressively been moving away from older generation jets and adopting newer more fuel efficient ones.
This is something that all major airlines are doing worldwide, as the newer generation jets provide significant savings in terms of fuel burnt and operational costs.
The latest news regarding the Lufthansa fleet is the ordering of 22 new long and ultra long range planes. The arrival of these new planes will allow the Lufthansa fleet to let go of some of its more fuel thirsty legacy jets, but more on this later.
More in detail, LH has ordered 15 Boeing planes and 7 Boeing produced aircraft. Here are the details of the order:
- 10 Airbus A350-1000
- 5 Airbus A350-900
- 7 Boeing 787-9
In particular the Airbus A350-1000 will be equipped with a particularly premium cabin heavy layout. The new Lufthansa Airbus A350s will fly on routes with high premium cabin demand. This translates into the fact that these A350-1000 will all feature the LH first class cabin.
The A350-900 and Boeing 787-9 are also long range planes but offer more operational flexibility as they will feature the 3 class business, premium economy and economy class layout.
LH Retiring Older Planes
The order of these 22 new long range planes is part of the plan to retire most of the older legacy jets. Since before the pandemic the Lufthansa fleet has been letting go of its quad-jet planes in favour of more fuel efficient twin-jets.
With passenger traffic levels on the rise the airline is looking to complete the fleet renovation in the near future. Among the planes that will be retired and that will no longer be part of the Lufthansa fleet are:
- Boeing 747-400
- Airbus A340-600
- Airbus A340-300
- Boeing 777-200
- Boeing 767-300
- Airbus A330-200