20 Years ago today, Lufthansa celebrated two “FIRSTs” for the airline.
On March 18,1994 the first Airbus A321 entered service when ‘D-AIRA’ took to the skies for Lufthansa who was the launch Airline for the new type of aircraft. Thats ‘First’ #1.
The second ‘First’ to take place was that this A321 was the first Airbus that was fully assembled in Germany. A major accomplishment for a country just barely coming out of reunification in 1990.
The A321 model compliments the A320 family (A318/A319/A320/A321) by being an aircraft with 30% more capacity than the A320 while at the same time being 43% more efficient when it comes to carbon emissions and 10% more efficient in terms of fuel consumption. According to ‘Wikipedia’ there are 891 A321s in active service today around the world. For Lufthansa it represents the largest part of its fleet with 62 A321s in operation.
D-AIRA is still in service today. The photo at the top of this post was taken when I was plane spotting in Munich last year in the Fall.
