LONDON – According to The Frankfurtflyer Newsletter, Lufthansa will bring some of its older Airbus A340-600s back into commercial service.
It is understood that the airline will be bringing five units of its -600s back into service to boost the availability of first-class seats.
With travel demand continuing to rise exponentially post-COVID, Lufthansa wants to offer as much capacity as possible ahead of what is expected to be a busy Summer 2023 season.
Proposed Operations…
According to Aero Telegraph, the aircraft will be based at Frankfurt am Main International Airport when Lufthansa brings them out of storage and are airworthy again.
It is understood that the A340s that have returned to service already has been based in Munich, so the other five will go to Frankfurt.
“Lufthansa will fly ten Airbus A340-600s in the future”, said the spokeswoman for Lufthansa to the German media outlet.
“Due to the strong traffic development, we need more aircraft so that routes from Frankfurt are served with A340-600 again”.
The fact that Lufthansa confirmed that up to 10 units of the type will fly in the future does indicate the high level of demand that the German carrier is facing.
Lack of First-Class Capacity…
Lufthansa is wanting to bolster its capacity in the first-class and business-class perspectives, with only a couple of aircraft featuring such cabins.
For instance, their Boeing 747-8s offer First Class, with a new batch of Airbus A350-900s that are set to be delivered will offer this service as well.
Delays to the Boeing 777X program, of which Lufthansa is believed to feature First Class onboard, are delayed massively, so such aircraft like the A340 will be needed.
On top of that, Lufthansa has already started bringing their A380s back to life, with the first one in maintenance in Manila already.
Environmental Consequences?
It comes as no surprise that environmentalists have voiced their concerns already into bringing more of the aircraft back into service.
The A340s in the Lufthansa fleet have an average age of 23.3 years on the -300s and 15.4 years on the -600s, as per data from Planespotters.net.
With the aircraft being older-generation, the fuel burn will be higher than the likes of their newer aircraft of the A350, 787, and others.
Either way, it would appear that the German carrier will have to put such environmental concerns on hold in favor of operational reliability.
Overall…
It remains clear that Lufthansa is experiencing a significant surge in demand, and that is why they are bringing back more aircraft from storage.
Summer 2023 is expected to be a busy period for the airline, with Lufthansa planning to operate over 5,200 weekly flights to 205 destinations globally.
All eyes will be on Lufthansa to see how they cope with this demand moving forward.
