Lufthansa has reached an exciting milestone in the form of the arrival of its maiden Boeing 787 'Dreamliner' aircraft. The German flag carrier's first of 32 mid-sized 787-9 twinjets touched down at its Frankfurt Airport (FRA) hub at 11:02 this morning, following a 9.5-hour flight from Boeing's facilities in the US state of Washington.
A long time coming
While the aircraft's delivery flight from Paine Field (PAE) was a long one, this is nothing compared to the waiting that Lufthansa has had to endure to get its hands on its first 787. Indeed, data from ch-aviation.com shows that the aircraft, which bears the registration D-ABPA and the name Berlin, first flew in August 2019.
However, a combination of factors has meant that the German flag carrier's new twinjet has already celebrated its third birthday before being delivered. It is worth noting that, before being assigned to Lufthansa, the aircraft was not taken up by both Hainan Airlines and Vistara. Nonetheless, the type's recent delivery hiatus has made the carrier wait perhaps a little longer than it would have liked.
However, with 787 deliveries having recently restarted, Lufthansa announced earlier this month that it would be receiving its first Dreamliner before September starts. This comes more than six months after it initially rolled out of the factory. In any case, with the 787 featuring a new business class cabin, it is surely worth the wait.
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The first of 32
The arrival of D-ABPA represents the first of 32 Boeing 787 deliveries that Lufthansa plans to take over the coming years. All of these will be the mid-sized 787-9 variant, which, with nearly 900 orders, is comfortably the most popular version of the Dreamliner. Lufthansa's second 787, which is registered as D-ABPD and named Frankfurt am Main, is also set for delivery in the coming months.
Lufthansa placed its 32-aircraft order for the Boeing 787-9 in three stages. March 2019 saw it initially commit to 20 of the type, before adding another five in May 2021. A year later, a further seven joined the order book, along with seven 777-8 freighters. Network-wise, Lufthansa will initially deploy the 787 domestically, before launching long-haul services to Toronto.
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A closer look at the delivery flight
Let's finish by taking a look at the nature of D-ABPA's delivery flight from Paine Field to Frankfurt. According to data from FlightRadar24.com, the three-year-old twin-engine widebody departed Washington State at 16:28 local time. This represented a delay of almost an hour compared to its scheduled departure time of 15:30.
On its eastbound transatlantic journey, D-ABPA overflew much of Canada before passing south of Greenland. The latter stages of its journey took it over the British Isles and the Netherlands before touching down on home soil in Frankfurt at 11:02 local time.
Before touching down in Frankfurt, the aircraft put on a show for the huge crowd of spotters assembled outside the perimeter fence. Having descended to 5,000 feet, the aircraft first flew across the airport adjacent to runway 18. It then flew around to line up with Runway 07R. However, it didn't land. Instead, it completed a slow pass of the runway at a couple of hundred feet, looking at times as though it was suspended from a cable. After this maneuver, it circled around once more for a full stop landing on the runway. The delivery flight, which cruised at 41,000 feet, climbing to 43,000 feet in the final hour, had a total duration of 9 hours and 34 minutes.
What do you make of Lufthansa finally receiving its first 787? Are you excited to see the type enter service once its cabin has been configured? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!