Summary
- Lufthansa Airbus A380 diverts to Paris CDG on account of a medical emergency onboard, indicating no mechanical failure.
- Lufthansa has been reactivating A380s to fulfill high demand for long-haul flights and plans to reactivate 4 more in 2024-2025.
- Lufthansa sold six out of its 14 A380s to Airbus, meaning it could possibly return only as much as eight aircraft of the kind.
A Lufthansa Airbus A380, which was sure for Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), has diverted to Paris Charles De Gaulle International Airport (CDG) while squawking 7700, the code for a general emergency onboard an aircraft.
Medical emergency
The Airbus A380, registered as D-AIML, departed Munich Airport (MUC), Germany, at 12:33 local time (UTC +1), 33 minutes later than its original scheduled departure time. After spending greater than an hour within the air, the aircraft began to show around above the English Channel, just off the coast of France.
Because it was turning around, the aircraft began squawking 7700, the overall code for an onboard emergency on an aircraft. It began descending at about 14:00 local time (UTC +1), landing at CDG’s runway 27L 38 minutes later. The Lufthansa Airbus A380 began taxiing to the gate area after landing, possibly indicating that there was no mechanical failure onboard the aircraft.
A Lufthansa spokesperson told Easy Flying that the rationale behind the diversion was a medical emergency amongst the airline’s passengers without detailing the incident further. The aircraft will likely proceed its journey to LAX in due time, with Flightradar24 records showing that it should depart from CDG at 15:40. Afterward, the departure time had modified to 16:41.
In line with ch-aviation data, Airbus delivered the aircraft to Lufthansa in May 2014, with the A380 now seating 509 passengers: eight in first, 78 in business, 52 in premium economy, and 371 in economy class. The aircraft was stored at Frankfurt Airport (FRA) for the past few years, spending time on the bottom on the German airport between March 2020 and May 2021. Afterward, the German airline’s aircraft was moved to Teruel Airport (TEV), Spain, where many other twin-aisle aircraft were stored in the course of the pandemic.
Photo: Vincenzo Pace I Easy Flying
D-AIML’s first business flight after returning to service was between MUC and Latest York John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) on July 25, 2023, with the aircraft operating a flight to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) the next day. Meanwhile, the German airline resumed flights to LAX with the A380 in October 2023, because it has continued to return increasingly Airbus A380s because it restarted flights with the kind on June 1, 2023.
Big Is Back: Lufthansa Operates Its 1st Passenger Airbus A380 Flight Post-COVID
D-AIMK is currently en route from Munich to Boston.
Hitting a limit
In its Q3 2023 financial report, the German carrier detailed that it was reactivating its double-deckers to expand capability to balance out the delivery delays of recent widebody aircraft, adding that the airline has experienced lots of demand for long-haul services.
Photo: Santi Rodriguez | Shutterstock
On the time, the corporate said that it might reactivate 4 more Airbus A380s in 2024 and 2025. Currently, D-AIMK, D-AIML, D-AIMM, and D-AIMN are back in service, while D-AIMC is undergoing maintenance at Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport (MNL). Meanwhile, D-AIMH left its long-term storage place at TEV in November 2023, with the aircraft now undergoing maintenance at Frankfurt Airport (FRA), per ch-aviation. The three other Lufthansa A380s are currently at TEV. Nonetheless, Lufthansa will hit a limit on what number of Airbus A380s it can give you the option to return because it sold six out of its 14 A380s to Airbus.
Lufthansa Reduces Selling Price of Six Airbus A380s
Five of the six A380s suffered storm damage while in storage.