Yesterday was a big day for Lufthansa and the Airbus A380. The airline started its first scheduled flight of the A380 to the United States. The flight from Frankfurt to New York’s JFK is the fourth Airbus A380 route for the airline, after Tokyo, Beijing and Johannesburg.

’œIn early 2007, Lufthansa and Airbus jointly landed the first Airbus A380 on U.S. soil, here in New York during a route-proving flight to North America. Now we are returning with scheduled A380 flight operation. New York is one of the most important markets for Lufthansa, so it was imperative for us to launch transatlantic flights on our flagship aircraft to this U.S. gateway,’ said Jens Bischof, Vice President The Americas for Lufthansa. ’œWe are proud to offer New Yorkers the option to experience this amazing aircraft, combined with Lufthansa’s award-winning service, thus taking the flying experience in all three classes to a whole new level,’ Bischof continued.

Although this is the first Lufthansa Airbus A380 flight to the US, this won’t be the last. The airline has already announced their plans to fly from Frankfurt to San Fransisco starting on May 10, 2011. According to ATI and Flight Global, the airline states the recent issues with the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines will not affect the delivery schedule of the A380. The airline plans to increase their A380 fleet to eight by mid-summer.

With increasing the number of A380’s and being the first customer of the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental, Lufthansa is quickly working on having one of the best aircraft fleets in the world.

Currently there aren’t too many Airbus A380 flights to and from the US. Dan Jones with the site Route Watch, walked me through the current flights:

JFK in New York:
Emirates from Dubai (DXB) as UAE201 daily
Lufthansa from Frankfurt (FRA) as DLH400 not daily, only A380-800 on Mon and Fri after March 27
Air France from Paris (CDG) as AFR006 not daily, Tue and Wed are 777-300ER (77W)
Korean to be 3x weekly starting in August going to daily in September as KAL81

LAX in Los Angeles:
Qantas from Sydney (SYD) as QFA11 daily
Singapore starting March 27 will upgrade SIA11 SIN-NRT-LAX to the A380
Korean to be daily starting October 1st as KAL17

SFO in San Fransisco:
Lufthansa starting May 10 as DLH454

Want more photos and video? Then check these out:
* Simpliflying’s coverage of the event
* Flight Global’s photos and video
* Runway Girl takes a look at the A380’s in flight entertainment
* Photos from NYC Aviation

 

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & FOUNDER - SEATTLE, WA. David has written, consulted, and presented on multiple topics relating to airlines and travel since 2008. He has been quoted and written for a number of news organizations, including BBC, CNN, NBC News, Bloomberg, and others. He is passionate about sharing the complexities, the benefits, and the fun stuff of the airline business. Email me: david@airlinereporter.com

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8 Comments
Sanjeev M

Washington on Air France is coming soon to A380.

Drew V

What an informative post. Thanks for sharing. I think it would be great to tally the heavies (how many are active and who flies them).

AF to start IAD-CDG route on A380 from 6/6/2011

God help me, I put aside a whole afneotron to figure this out.

Ive always wanted to fly on one of those babies and now i get my chance!

Lufthansa A380in First Class is a great product. I just wonder what they thought about installing those 1980’s business class seats in the A380. I hope they are being ‘retrofitted’ soon.

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