Germany’s largest carrier has removed two aircraft from its Airbus A350 order. Reflected in Airbus' latest backlog revision covering January 2020, the airline’s order for 45 of the type now stands at 43 units in total. Lufthansa has already taken delivery of 14 Airbus A350s.

According to reports by Flight Global, Lufthansa has cut its order for the Airbus A350, bringing the total order for the type to 43 units.

Back in March last year the airline announced it would be ordering 40 new jets. Of this total order of 40 aircraft, 20 units were Boeing 787s, while the remaining 20 were Airbus A350s. Before last year’s additional 20 Airbus A350s, the airline had already placed an order for 25 of the type.

Lufthansa’s Airbus A350s

While the majority of Lufthansa’s Airbus A350 order remains undelivered as of now, the airline does have 15 of the type already in service. They are all fitted with Lufthansa’s business class seats.

Each Lufthansa Airbus A350-900 has a sizeable business class on board. However, there are two different configurations. The first variant includes a total of 48 lie-flat business class seats/beds which are spread across eight rows in a 2-2-2 configuration. The second variant features 36 business class seats which are also arranged in a 2-2-2 configuration.

Airbus A350
Lufthansa's total Airbus A350 order now stands at 43. Photo: Laurent Errera via Wikimedia Commons

As the airline’s flagship type, the business class offering on the Airbus A350 is very important, but the reviews of Lufthansa’s business class have not been particularly impressive. The seats and general layout of business class on Lufthansa’s Airbus A350s are reportedly underwhelming.

As reported by One Mile at a Time, Lufthansa is apparently working on a new business class that should be unveiled on the airline’s new Boeing 777Xs, although the development process for the type has come up against some big hurdles so far.

Lufthansa has already posted its Airbus A350s to a number of important long-haul routes across its global network. These include the Munich to Charlotte route, which was first flown by one of Lufthansa’s Airbus A350 in March 2019, and Munich to São Paulo which was first flown by the type back in December.

Lufthansa Airbus A350
Lufthansa currently has 15 Airbus A350s in service. Photo: Gianluca Borchia via Flickr

Turning the Airbus A350 into a private jet

Back in November, Lufthansa’s maintenance division, Lufthansa Technik, announced that it is currently working on a handful of special Airbus A350 private jets. In total Lufthansa Technik is making just three of these special Airbus A350s. But, rather than going to extremely wealthy individuals, the aircraft will be bought by the German government as replacements for its Airbus A340s.

Lufthansa Technik is no stranger to taking normal passenger jets and turning them into something unique. As shown by its Airbus A220 SkyRetreat concept last year, Lufthansa Technik knows how to make some truly special alterations to the interiors of conventional airliners.

Simple Flying has reached out to Lufthansa for comment on its Airbus A350 order alteration. However, the airline has not yet been able to respond. We will update this article once we receive more information.