Lufthansa will bring its double-decker Airbus A380 fleet back into service by summer 2023, adding the high-capacity behemoths to high-demand routes out of Munich (MUC), the airline confirmed this week.
With travel demand continuing to soar and planemakers struggling to build enough new aircraft to meet airlines’ needs, Lufthansa plans to reactivate the grounded fleet of super-jumbos in time for the busy summer travel season.
Three A380s will operate flights from Munich beginning in June, 2023, with additional A380s to reenter service later. Lufthansa currently owns eight A380s, which have been grounded since travel demand fell to record lows at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The airline also sold six of the aircraft during the grounding.
Want more airline-specific news? Sign up for TPG’s free new biweekly Aviation newsletter.
Although the airline had previously said it planned to resume A380 flights but did not offer specifics, CEO Carsten Spohr provided the additional detail on an earnings call with investors on Thursday.
“Expect three in Munich, and you should book now because our passengers love it, if you want to fly it,” Spohr said. “That’s just the beginning.”
“We’ll need to bring that number up, from the demand we see and also for operational reasons, three is not enough,” he added. “We’re currently working on a detailed plan for that.”
Last June, Lufthansa announced plans to bring the A380 fleet back online after more than two years, citing “the steep rise in customer demand and the delayed delivery of ordered aircraft” in a statement.
Lufthansa’s A380s can seat 509 passengers across four cabins. There are eight first class seats, 78 seats in business class, 52 premium economy recliners, and 371 economy seats.
It was not immediately clear which destinations the A380 will serve.
This is not the first time during the pandemic recovery that Lufthansa has turned to older aircraft to meet unexpected demand. In March, the airline reactivated six Airbus A340-600s from storage, adding them onto several U.S. routes out of Munich.

The airline also operates smaller A340-300 aircraft, which it plans to replace in the coming years. Unlike the -600, the -300 does not feature a first class cabin.
During the earnings call, Spohr noted that those A340-300s will likely be phased out soon and replaced by Boeing 787s. Deliveries of the 787 recently resumed after a pause due to manufacturing issues.
“The 787 is intending to replace our 340-300s, because that’s more or less the same capacity, and both aircraft operate without a first class,” he said. “We have 32 on order total of the 787s coming in, so this will be just the beginning.”
 
								 
 
							 
							 
							 English
 English Afrikaans
 Afrikaans Albanian
 Albanian Amharic
 Amharic Arabic
 Arabic Armenian
 Armenian Azerbaijani
 Azerbaijani Basque
 Basque Belarusian
 Belarusian Bengali
 Bengali Bosnian
 Bosnian Bulgarian
 Bulgarian Catalan
 Catalan Cebuano
 Cebuano Chichewa
 Chichewa Chinese (Simplified)
 Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional)
 Chinese (Traditional) Corsican
 Corsican Croatian
 Croatian Czech
 Czech Danish
 Danish Dutch
 Dutch Esperanto
 Esperanto Estonian
 Estonian Filipino
 Filipino Finnish
 Finnish French
 French Frisian
 Frisian Galician
 Galician Georgian
 Georgian German
 German Greek
 Greek Gujarati
 Gujarati Haitian Creole
 Haitian Creole Hausa
 Hausa Hawaiian
 Hawaiian Hebrew
 Hebrew Hindi
 Hindi Hmong
 Hmong Hungarian
 Hungarian Icelandic
 Icelandic Igbo
 Igbo Indonesian
 Indonesian Irish
 Irish Italian
 Italian Japanese
 Japanese Javanese
 Javanese Kannada
 Kannada Kazakh
 Kazakh Khmer
 Khmer Korean
 Korean Kurdish (Kurmanji)
 Kurdish (Kurmanji) Kyrgyz
 Kyrgyz Lao
 Lao Latin
 Latin Latvian
 Latvian Lithuanian
 Lithuanian Luxembourgish
 Luxembourgish Macedonian
 Macedonian Malagasy
 Malagasy Malay
 Malay Malayalam
 Malayalam Maltese
 Maltese Maori
 Maori Marathi
 Marathi Mongolian
 Mongolian Myanmar (Burmese)
 Myanmar (Burmese) Nepali
 Nepali Norwegian
 Norwegian Pashto
 Pashto Persian
 Persian Polish
 Polish Portuguese
 Portuguese Punjabi
 Punjabi Romanian
 Romanian Russian
 Russian Samoan
 Samoan Scottish Gaelic
 Scottish Gaelic Serbian
 Serbian Sesotho
 Sesotho Shona
 Shona Sindhi
 Sindhi Sinhala
 Sinhala Slovak
 Slovak Slovenian
 Slovenian Somali
 Somali Spanish
 Spanish Sundanese
 Sundanese Swahili
 Swahili Swedish
 Swedish Tajik
 Tajik Tamil
 Tamil Telugu
 Telugu Thai
 Thai Turkish
 Turkish Ukrainian
 Ukrainian Urdu
 Urdu Uzbek
 Uzbek Vietnamese
 Vietnamese Welsh
 Welsh Xhosa
 Xhosa Yiddish
 Yiddish Yoruba
 Yoruba Zulu
 Zulu