Lufthansa’s second Airbus A380 spotted leaving storage

The second Lufthansa Airbus A380 left Teruel Airport (TEV), Spain, as the airline prepares to return several aircraft of the type to service throughout the peak travel months.

The Airbus A380, registered as D-AIMM and still bearing the old Lufthansa livery, left TEV and arrived at Frankfurt Airport (FRA) at 3:12 PM local time (UTC +1) following a two-hour and 44-minute flight from the Spanish airport on February 3, 2023.

Lufthansa moved the double-decker jet to TEV in June 2021. Previously, it sat idle at FRA between April 10, 2020, and June 1, 2021, according to planespotters.net data. The A380 was joined by another of the airline’s our-engine aircraft, namely an Airbus A340-600, registered as D-AIHX, which departed the Spanish airport more than an hour later than the A380.

Bringing back Airbus A380s
D-AIMM was the second Airbus A380 to have left TEV. Previously, another A380, registered as D-AIMK, flew to FRA more than a month ago.

Subsequently, D-AIMK flew to Ninoy Aquino International Airport (MNL) in Manila, the Philippines, for a C-Check prior to it returning to service. Prior to it jetting off to MNL, D-AIMK spent two months at Lufthansa’s facilities at FRA, undergoing initial maintenance after being stored between May 5, 2020, and December 2, 2022.

On the other hand, the more recently returned Airbus A380, D-AIMM, was delivered to Lufthansa from Airbus’ Toulouse, France Final Assembly Line (FAL) in October 2014. Overall, the German airline had 14 Super Jumbos, retiring at least six of them during the COVID-19 pandemic, per planespotters.net.

Following a hectic summer travel season and anticipating even more demand for travel during the summer of 2023, Lufthansa decided to bring back some of its Airbus A380 aircraft – that is, three for the upcoming peak season and an option to add up to five more in 2024.