On Wednesday, December 12, 2018, the Airbus A380 landed in Germany for the first time in the new Lufthansa design.

The landing of the newly painted flagship of the Lufthansa fleet marks the festive end of the anniversary year of the crane’s 100th birthday.

The Airbus A380, named “Tokyo”, was welcomed to Munich Airport early Wednesday morning. The aircraft came from Guangzhou, China, where it has been repainted over the past three and a half weeks.

The A380 took off on December 12 on its first commercial flight to Miami at noon.

The Airbus A380 with the registration of D-AIMD is based at the Lufthansa hub in Munich. The aircraft is one of a total of five Airbus A380s based in the Bavarian capital for the first time this year. The A380 is also one of the first thirty Lufthansa aircrafts to fly in the new design this year. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Lufthansa crane, the airline has further developed its design and adapted it to the requirements of a digitized world. The redesign of the airline’s brand identity is the most visible sign of Lufthansa’s far-reaching modernization.

As part of the airline’s new design, the new Lufthansa paintwork underlines Lufthansa’s modern premium claim. The fuselage, wings and engines of the A380 are all painted in brilliant white. The precise white line at the apex of the vertical tail supports the streamlined shape of the aircraft. The deep blue, optically elongated tail provides the basis for a large, strong and contrasting representation of the crane. The Airbus A380 is an aircraft of superlatives: the crane, which has been given an even more dynamic design as part of the design refresh, has a diameter of over six meters on the tail unit. The letters of the Lufthansa lettering on the aircraft reach a maximum height of 1.90 meters. More than 4,200 square meters of aircraft skin were repainted with hundreds of liters of paint.

Since the introduction of the new brand design until the end of the year, 30 aircrafts have been painted in the new design, over 50 gates have been redesigned at the Lufthansa hubs in Frankfurt and Munich and more than 200 in-flight service items have been exchanged. By the end of 2019, over 50 percent of the work on the Lufthansa hubs in Frankfurt and Munich will have been completed and over a quarter of the fleet will be flying in the new design. Digital media is already appearing in a completely new design. In 2021, 80 percent of the new brand design will be visible along the entire travel chain. The last aircraft repainting is scheduled for 2025.

This year Lufthansa celebrated the 100th anniversary of its corporate symbol. In 1918, the graphic artist and architect Otto Firle designed a stylized bird for the “Deutsche Luft-Reederei”, a predecessor of “Luft Hansa”. Over the past 100 years, the crane has become an unmistakable company logo and the symbol of the Lufthansa brand. Today it stands for competence, cosmopolitanism and quality, inspiring trust and sympathy around the globe.

In other news, in November 2018, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group welcomed around 10.6 million passengers. Despite a strong basis for comparison from the previous year, this corresponds to an increase of six per cent compared with November 2017. The number of seat kilometres offered was 8.1 per cent up on the previous year, while sales increased by 8.6 per cent. This results in a seat load factor of 78.1 per cent, 0.3 percentage points higher than in November 2017.

Freight capacity in November was three per cent up on the previous year, and tonne-kilometres sold were 0.9 per cent lower. This results in a 2.7 percentage point lower load factor of 68.4 per cent.

Network airlines again increase seat load factor

The network airlines Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines carried a total of some 7.9 million passengers in November, 4.5 per cent more than in the same month last year. The number of seat-kilometres offered in November was 6.7 per cent up year-on-year. Sales rose by 7.2 per cent in the same period. This increased the seat load factor by 0.4 percentage points to 78.6 per cent.

Double-digit growth in sales in Munich, Zurich and Vienna

The strongest growth was recorded by the network airlines at the Vienna hub in November 2018 with passenger growth of 9.7 percent, followed by Zurich with eight percent, Munich with 2.6 percent and Frankfurt with 2.4 percent. The underlying offer increased by 13.5% in Munich, 9.5% in Zurich, 6.3% in Vienna and 2.7% in Frankfurt. Sales in Munich, Zurich and Vienna increased by 13.5 per cent, 12 per cent and 11.5 per cent respectively. In Frankfurt, sales rose by 1.9 percent in this period.

Lufthansa welcomes around 5.5 million passengers on board in November

In November Lufthansa carried around 5.5 million passengers, 2.7 per cent more than in the same period last year. A 5.9 per cent increase in the number of seat kilometres in November was offset by a 5.2 per cent increase in sales. At 78.8 per cent, the seat load factor was 0.5 percentage points lower than in the same month last year.

Eurowings increases passenger numbers by more than ten percent

Eurowings (including Brussels Airlines) carried around 2.7 million passengers in November, of which around 2.5 million on short-haul flights and 250,000 on long-haul flights. This represents an increase of 10.6 percent on short-haul flights and 10.2 percent on long-haul flights over the previous year. A 15.1 per cent increase in capacity in November was offset by a 15.8 per cent increase in sales, resulting in a seat load factor of 75.6 per cent, an increase of 0.4 percentage points.

On short-haul routes, the number of seat-kilometres on offer was increased by 16.4 per cent in November, while the number of seat-kilometres sold rose by 14.5 per cent over the same period. This results in a seat load factor on these flights that is 1.2 percentage points lower than the 72.9 per cent recorded in November 2017. On long-haul flights, the seat load factor rose by 3.2 percentage points to 80.2 per cent over the same period. The 13 per cent increase in capacity was offset by a 17.8 per cent increase in sales.

All photos by Lufthansa.