“Lufthansa’s A380 Returns to Munich and May Fly Short-Haul Routes Before Long-Haul Start”

She is the first to return: Lufthansa’s D-AIMK first flew from Frankfurt to Leipzig on Wednesday morning (April 12), where the Airbus A380 practiced a number of go-around maneuvers before landing properly. Then, after a short time on the ground, we continued to Munich.

The D-AIMK is the first super jumbo that Lufthansa is returning to Munich. The airline had previously brought the four-radiator from its long-term parking lot in Teruel, Spain, to Frankfurt. From there it went to the major maintenance at Lufthansa Technik in Manila. Three more A380s will follow later this summer.

Superjumbo trainings are coming up

Lufthansa’s A380 crews are trained both in the simulator and in flight training – probably also at Dresden, Leipzig/Halle and Hanover airports, as Lufthansa explained in March. At first it didn’t sound as if the airline would also use the A380 on regular short-haul routes with passengers as part of the training.

But now the chances of that happening are increasing. “The next few weeks are primarily intended for training, both for the cabin crews and for the cockpit crews,” said A380 chief training captain Richard Lenz on Lufthansa’s Instagram channel.

“Also some short-haul flights probably”

“That means we will conduct flight training with the aircraft. The colleagues will train in the simulator,” says Lenz. “And then we’ll probably do some short-haul flights to be ready to fly to Boston on June 1.”

From June 1st, Boston will be Lufthansa’s first regular destination for the reactivated A380s from Munich. From July 4th, New York JFK will be added as a second destination.

Two more A380s next year

In 2024, Lufthansa wants to get two additional Airbus A380s back into service, so there will be a total of six of the planes. That leaves two more superjumbos that the German airline could also reactivate.