The Supervisory Board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG (Lufthansa) has approved the orders for 22 new state-of-the-art long-haul jets placed by the Lufthansa Group. The order comprises ten Airbus A350-1000 passenger aircraft, five Airbus A350-900 passenger aircraft and seven Boeing 787-9 ‘Dreamliner’ passenger aircraft. The value of the order stands at US$7.5 billion at current list prices. Deliveries are due from the mid-2020s onwards. Including these latest orders, the Lufthansa Group will take delivery of 108 state-of-the-art long-haul aircraft including Airbus A350-1000s, Airbus A350-900s, Boeing 787-9s and Boeing 777-9s over the coming years. This means that, on average, these new aircraft will consume just 2.5 litres of fuel per passenger per 100 kilometres – approximately 30% less than their predecessors.
These new long-haul aircraft will also replace older aircraft types. In the medium-term future, six such sub-fleets will be taken out of service: the four-engined Boeing 747-400s, Airbus A340-600s and Airbus A340-300s and the two-engined Boeing 777-200s, Boeing 767-300s and Airbus A330-200s. This will reduce the quadjet element within the Group’s fleet to under 15%: prior to the pandemic, quadjets made up some 50% of the group-wide aircraft fleet.
In addition to the orders for new aircraft, Airbus and Lufthansa have also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen their cooperation for sustainability and future technologies. This will include the concentrated use of sustainable aviation fuels, the further optimization of operations through a more efficient flight management and exploration into the use of hydrogen.
Carsten Spohr, Chief Executive Officer Lufthansa, commented: “With our purchase of 22 further Airbus A350s and Boeing 787s, we have secured the delivery of more than 50 latest-generation long-haul aircraft for the member airlines of the Lufthansa Group since the pandemic began. These aircraft will be equipped with our new long-haul cabins, including the latest-generation seats in all classes of travel.”
