Is Lufthansa giving up on its Airbus A321 cargo fleet?

Lufthansa Cargo insists it will soon resume commercial service with its four Airbus A321 converted freighters that were grounded nearly four months ago, but all signs suggest the carrier has given up on the narrowbody jets and is looking to unload them.

The cargo subsidiary of Lufthansa Group (XETRA: LHA) is ready to abandon the narrowbody A321 jets after less than four years, because they have fallen short of performance expectations and Lufthansa Cargo doesn’t need the capacity, as most regional freight customers can be served by Lufthansa’s passenger air and trucking networks without any noticeable impact, according to aviation and logistics industry sources.

The A321s were operated for Lufthansa Cargo by CityLine, which provided crews and flight support until Lufthansa Group accelerated the planned closure of the loss-making, regional passenger affiliate. It abruptly shut down CityLine operations in mid-April because of rising fuel costs linked to the Iran war and pressure from labor disputes.

The A321s remain parked at Frankfurt International Airport, Lufthansa’s main hub. “Our strategic European network is a key component in maintaining global supply chains. Lufthansa Cargo and the Lufthansa Group are aware of this responsibility.

We will now be working with the Lufthansa Group to find a way to offer this cargo capacity to our customers again as soon as possible,” the cargo division said in a statement at the time. window. googletag = window. googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag. cmd. push(function() {googletag.

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push(function() {googletag. display('div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0'); }); Lufthansa Cargo, the No. 14 cargo carrier in the world by scheduled traffic, has a fleet of 12 large Boeing 777 intercontinental freighters and manages shipments on Group passenger airlines.

Lufthansa took delivery of the A321 freighter aircraft in 2022 and 2023 from San Francisco-based BBAM Aircraft Leasing & Management, after they were reconfigured by a speciality repair shop to carry shipping containers on the main deck.

The all-cargo airline marketed their capacity on short-and-medium haul routes geared towards e-commerce customers in Europe, and parts of the Middle East and North Africa. In March, Lufthansa Cargo executives remained publicly bullish about the A321s, describing how they helped support customers in the automotive sector, a key focus area for the company.

In one case, a chartered A321 flew on less than 24-hour notice from Frankfurt, Germany, to Vienna, Austria, to pick up a load of components and deliver them to Belgrade, Serbia, to keep a production line from closing down. Two additional charter flights followed in subsequent days.

And in February, Lufthansa Cargo operated 11 A321 freighter flights from Casablanca, Morocco, for Mercedes-Benz over an 11-day span.

Responding to an inquiry about the delayed return of the A321 cargo fleet, spokeswoman Katharina Stegmann, said Lufthansa Cargo was looking to replace CityLine with a third-party contract carrier that would operate the aircraft. “We are currently working intensely to evaluate the available options for operating our A321-fleet.

Currently, it appears that this will be handled by an operator outside Lufthansa Group. It has not yet been definitively determined whether the suspension will remain in effect for the entire summer flight schedule,” she said in a June 29 email message.

“Our goal is not only to provide a short-term solution, but also to establish a structurally improved solution that will ensure even greater stability and flexibility in the future. Until we can implement a new operating structure, the aircraft will remain grounded.

There is no exact timeline foreseeable at the moment, but we are working on restarting the operations as soon as possible.” Ghost freighters Restarting the A321 operations now seems unlikely after a spokesman confirmed to FreightWaves that Lufthansa Cargo has removed its brand name and color scheme from the A321 freighters. window. googletag = window.

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collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag. enableServices(); }); googletag. cmd. push(function() {googletag. display('div-gpt-ad-1665767553440-0'); }); “As part of the ongoing evaluation of different operating scenarios, the aircraft have been transitioned to a neutral exterior appearance. Since the aircraft are currently grounded