Lufthansa plans to retire all Boeing 747-400s, all Airbus A380s and most A340s early, insiders have reported to Bloomberg. A few weeks ago it was already leaked that the German carrier was thinking about this, but now the farewell could be a lot closer. However, an official decision has not yet been made.
Due to the corona crisis, Lufthansa no longer needs these relatively inefficient aircraft. In addition, it is inefficient to maintain small sub-fleets of A380s and 747-400s, as some of them were disposed of early on during the crisis. According to the insiders, only a few relatively young A340-600s remain from the A340 fleet.
The highly diluted long-haul fleet will then consist mainly of Airbus A350s, A330s, and Boeing 747-8s, until the new Boeing 787-9s and 777-9s will be delivered. According to Bloomberg, the narrowbody fleet is also being cut further. All in all, this will probably lead to additional job losses, on top of the previously announced reduction of 22,000 FTE.
If Lufthansa retires their 747-400s and A380s, there will be hardly any European carriers left with these types of planes in their passenger fleets. British Airways will then be the only European carrier with a substantial fleet of Airbus A380s. The only European airline with a significant 747-400 passenger fleet will be Russian Rossiya Airlines. Charter airlines, such as Hi Fly and Wamos, also have a few A380s and 747-400s