Lufthansa Group has recently been actively engaging to purchase new and used aircraft and has announced today that it will be acquiring a few more used aircraft.
Lufthansa Acquires Four Former LATAM A350s
Today, Lufthansa Group announced that it will be purchasing four additional Airbus A350-900s. These aircraft will be acquired from Deucalion Aviation Limited and delivered to the Group later this year.
The aircraft Lufthansa will receive will be the former LATAM A350s which the airline totally retired after filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection back in 2021. Instead, LATAM focused to maintain its Boeing B777 and B787 fleet.
This is not the first time Lufthansa is buying former aircraft, recently the airline acquired four former Philippine Airlines A350-900s as well as five Boeing B787-9s that were flown by Hainan Airlines.
With the additional four Airbus A350s, Lufthansa now has 21 active A350-900ss on its fleet and 38 confirmed A350 variants in order.
Lufthansa Offers Inconsistent Cabin Configurations
It is inevitable for Lufthansa to offer different types of cabin configurations when purchasing aircraft from different airlines. Used aircraft are always beneficial for an airline as they could save a huge amount of money. Moreover, considering aircraft production delays, buying used aircraft shines the light.
However, Lufthansa Group does not retrofit the cabins of these aircraft to its own design and configuration. Instead, the airline keeps it while only changing the finishes. You can check the Business Class seats it acquired from Philippine Airlines and Hainan Airlines below.
Since the brand new “Allegris” product generation will be introduced in 2024, I believe the airline will keep the same configuration for the time being.
Former LATAM A350-900 Cabin Configurations
So how will Lufthansa’s next four aircraft used by LATAM will feature its cabins? I have never flown on LATAM’s A350 but I have flown when the airline leased a couple of its A350s to Qatar Airways a few years ago.
The Business Class cabin is configured in a 2-2-2 layout which is similar to the current Lufthansa’s A350 however seats are much wider.
Meanwhile, in the economy class, it is configured in a 3-3-3 layout without Premium Economy seats. Since Lufthansa offers Premium Economy products in its fleet, maybe the airline will be removing some seats and adding Premium Economy seats.
Summary
Lufthansa Group has announced that it will be purchasing four former LATAM Airbus A350-900 aircraft. The aircraft will be joining the company’s fleet by the end of 2023. Now the biggest interest is how the cabin will be configured.
