This Saturday, October 29, Lufthansa will be broadcasting via Facebook the retirement ceremonies surrounding the last 737 in the fleet.

Her last day of work is scheduled to be on October 29th with a few roundtrip flights from Frankfurt.    As of now, she is scheduled to fly to Geneva, Stuttgart and Nuremberg.   The final landing of the 737 is scheduled to take place at 7:40p when she returns from Nuremberg (LH153) and the simulcast will capture the moment.   Tickets are still available for these final flights.

To tune into the broadcast, please use this link (you will be redirected to Facebook).  You can also track events on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag of #ThankYou737.

a white airplane on a runway

One of the retired workhorses of the LH Fleet…..

 

There’s a lot attention being paid to this final 737 due to the fact that Lufthansa was the launch customer for the aircraft nearly 50 years ago and is responsible for the aircraft’s existence.

Lufthansa approached Boeing in the 1960s looking to replace a propeller driven regional fleet with jets so that they can better serve their European destinations.    Boeing and Lufthansa announced February 19, 1965 that LH would be the launch customer, and almost exactly 3 years later on February 10, 1968, the first 737 joined the fleet.  In all, 155 737 aircraft had been part of the LH fleet at one time or another over the last 48 years.

Had it not been for LH, there’s no guarantee that the 737 would have ever been developed and become one of history’s best selling and most popular aircraft.

Related:

Lufthansa gives birth to the 737

Lufthansa’s 737 retirement schedule

 

a close-up of a plane