by Lufthansa Flyer | Oct 30, 2015 | 747-8i, Airports, Destinations, Featured, Lufthansa, Route Announcements |
Lufthansa announced today that it will reduce the frequency of flights between Frankfurt and Tokyo Narita as well as ‘downgauge’ the aircraft used on the route.
Beginning March 27, Frankfurt – Tokyo Narita will be reduced from 7x/week to 3x/week. The 747-400 that currently serves the route will be replaced by an Airbus A340-300.
The flight schedule is as follows:
LH710 departs Frankfurt at 1:40p and arrives in Tokyo at 8:15 the following morning (Tuesday, Friday, Sunday).
LH711 departs Tokyo at 9:40a and arrives in Frankfurt at 3:00p (Monday, Wednesday, Saturday).
There is no change to the daily service between Frankfurt and Tokyo Haneda, currently flown by a 747-8i.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Aug 11, 2015 | 747-8i, Featured, Lufthansa |
In case you missed it, last week was a week to forget for Lufthansa’s D-ABYA, their first 747-8i that entered service back on June 1, 2012.
On 2 separate occasions, ‘Brandi’ had to make unscheduled landings due to smoke/fire alarms in the nose gear bay being triggered. When fire alarms go off, the plane has to land ASAP. No questions, no debate and if not possible, no fuel dump.
The first incident took place only a few minutes into her flight on Tuesday August 4 from Frankfurt to Rio de Janeiro. She returned safely shortly after take off and passengers were booked on later flights to Rio.
Then on August 7, while enroute from Frankfurt to New York (JFK), she was forced to land in Manchester, England for the same reason. ‘YA’ spent the night in MAN and flew back with her passengers to FRA the next day. Passengers were accommodated at local hotels in MAN and then rebooked on flights to get them to NYC after returning to FRA.
Thanks to a few well placed sources (FlyerTalk’s Oliver2002 for example), the reason behind these false alarms has been discovered. Apparently Frankfurt’s ground crews had jammed a tow bar in the nose gear of D-ABYA and in the process of freeing it damaged the smoke and fire sensors.
The problem has been identified and resolved. Fortunately it had nothing to do with the aircraft itself or its reliability but rather with a ground handler that should have paid better attention to what they were doing around a 350 million dollar aircraft!
by Lufthansa Flyer | Jun 26, 2015 | 747-8i, Featured, Lufthansa, Route Announcements |
Earlier this week, Lufthansa announced an update to its timetable that reduces both service and capacity on flights between Dusseldorf and the US.
The biggest change is the conversion of Dusseldorf – Chicago to a seasonal route. Going forward, the route will only be flown during the summer and will be suspended between October 25, 2015 and March 26, 2016.
Additionally, a capacity change has been made between Dusseldorf and Newark (EWR). Beginning October 25, the route will be flown by an A330-300 aircraft, replacing the A340-300 that currently flies the route.
I suspect more adjustments like this to be coming in the near future as Lufthansa tweaks its Winter 2015/16 timetable and aircraft assignments.
