While the COVID-19 keeps taking its toll on international air travel, airlines are reviewing the future of their widebody aircraft. The status of the Airbus A380 was questioned even before the pandemic. But the current health crisis was just enough for some operators to write the Super Jumbo off.
Lufthansa’s (LHAB) (LHA) chief executive Carsten Spohr reaffirmed that the Airbus A380 will “obviously” not be a part of Lufthansa’s (LHAB) (LHA) fleet. Company’s boss added that the German carrier was “in line with their previous announcements”, saying that they will “use this crisis to have major modernization”.
“If you would confine that to long-range only, the A380 will obviously not come back. The A340 will only be brought back for two years to make sure we have enough capacity in Munich including the premium cabins until that is replaced by A350s,” Spohr said during Lufthansa’s (LHAB) (LHA) Q2 2021 analyst call.
“We will increase the share of [Airbus A350 – AeroTime] lease compared to last year,” Spohr added.
To date, Lufthansa (LHAB) (LHA) has a total of 667 aircraft in its fleet, as per Planespotters.net data. The largest part of the airline’s fleet consists of Airbus-manufactured aircraft. Lufthansa (LHAB) (LHA) operates 221 Airbus A320s, 90 Airbus A321s, 89 Airbus A319s, 42 Airbus A330s, 31 Airbus A340s, 30 Airbus A220, and 17 Airbus A350 XWBs. Prior to retirement, Lufthansa (LHAB) (LHA) had 14 Airbus A380 aircraft. As for Boeing-manufactured aircraft, Lufthansa (LHAB) (LHA) operates only 27 Boeing 777s, 27 Boeing 747s, four Boeing 767s, and two Boeing 737 aircraft.