After more than two years in storage, the first reactivated Lufthansa Airbus A380 flew to Manila Philippines for around a month of heavy maintenance. The A380 with registry D-AIMK departed Frankfurt last January 29 and flew a 13-hour flight to the Lufthansa Technik facility at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport complex in Manila.
To prepare for the forthcoming summer season starting in March 2023, the German airline is restoring several of its A380s, and this one is the first to be checked by maintenance personnel.
After more than 30 days of intensive maintenance in Manila, the A380 will return to service this summer. Lufthansa has assured passengers that the plane’s four-class configuration, consisting of eight first-class suites, 78 business class seats, 52 premium economy seats, and 371 economy seats, will remain unchanged.
To reactivate four to five A380s
At first, the airline said it would reactivate “four or five” of the double-deckers; but, it has since said it would bring back from storage “at least” three Airbus A380s. Only one of Lufthansa’s A380s, D-AIMK, has flown out of Teruel, the high-altitude Spanish airfield well suited to long-term aircraft storage, since the pandemic began.
According to Jens Ritter, the carrier’s CEO, the aircraft spent two months in Frankfurt, Germany, getting its first round of maintenance after being stored for a long time. Between May 2020 until December 2022, the A380 sat in a hangar at Teruel Airport (TEV), Spain.
More Lufthansa planes to be reactivated
In addition to the Airbus A380, Lufthansa is bringing back a number of older planes to the skies. Some Airbus A340-600s will be retrieved from storage; these planes, together with the A380 and the Boeing 747-8, are the only Lufthansa planes with First Class seating.
Lufthansa anticipates resuming service with the aircraft in the second quarter of 2023. The German airline hopes to increase summer capacity and the number of First Class seats throughout its network in the same way that it did with the superjumbo. According to flightradar24.com, two Airbus A340-600s have already departed Teruel; one, registered as D-AIHZ, is undergoing repair in the Philippines; the other, registered as D-AIHY, has been in Munich, Germany, ever since it arrived from Manila on December 14, 2022.
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