To mark Lufthansa’s 100th founding anniversary, the world’s largest passenger aircraft now also shines in a special blue design. This week, an Airbus A380 was rolled out from the IAC painting hangar in Shannon in a spectacular blue colour scheme, with the aircraft departing for Munich on Wednesday afternoon.
35 staff worked on the Airbus A380 for exactly 34 days. They brought the 47-meter-long stylised crane on the aircraft to life and painted a total area of over 4,000 square meters. That is equivalent to about 16 tennis courts. The Airbus with the registration D-AIMH will start regular service in March. The Airbus A380 is already the fourth aircraft to feature this extraordinary design. At the beginning of the month, a freshly painted blue Airbus A350-900 landed in Munich. A Boeing 787-9 and an Airbus A320neo, both based in Frankfurt, are also flying in the “100th anniversary colours.” Another Airbus A320neo with an XXL crane is currently getting painted in these colours and is expected in Munich in the next few days.
A Boeing 747-8 and an Airbus A350-1000 will follow in the coming weeks. A total of seven special liveries will then be in service to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first “LuftHansa”. The aircraft will receive the special design either as part of a regular repainting program or, in the case of new deliveries, as their initial paint job at the factory. This means that there will be only minimal additional costs for this special fleet appearance in Lufthansa’s anniversary year.
Images by Malcolm Nason
