Tonight’s flight from Houston to Frankfurt made an emergency landing at JFK in New York after the flight crew received word that a bomb threat was issued to the airline. The A380 had approximately 500 passengers and crew that exited the aircraft without incident.
The aircraft is still at JFK as of this post while Police and Security officials search the plane to confirm that no explosives are on board. It’s expected that the plane will continue on to Frankfurt later this evening.
Here is the flight path of LH441 as it approached the northeast. You’ll see the plane began its emergency decent while over New Jersey and made its turn back to JFK after dumping enough fuel and losing enough altitude while over Long Island, NY:
Courtesy: FlightRadar24.com
D-AIMK diverted to JFK after Lufthansa received a bomb threat
A few days ago I posted about Lufthansa’s special event to celebrate their first A350 that would take passengers on a round-trip between Munich and Hamburg.
For whatever reason, LH stopped accepting bookings for a few days, but now has communicated that tickets will be available beginning December 13. I’m not sure if that means midnights Central Europe Time, or not, but at some point tomorrow you can book a round trip ticket scheduled for February 9 for only €179.
The special A350 flight will operate as LH350 on the outbound and LH359 for the return flight. The flight from Munich will depart at 10:30a and return to leave Hamburg at approximately 5:00p for the return flight to Munich.
If your one of the lucky early bookers, you have a chance of sitting in Business Class. Tickets are the same price regardless of class, so the earlier to try to book the better odds you have of sitting in Business. FYI, the A350 fleet will not have a First Class cabin, so don’t look for those seats when booking.
While knocking on wood, there is hope that labor peace will exist between Lufthansa and Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) through the Holidays.
In comments coming out of Frankfurt, it appears that both sides have agreed to a new series of mediation in an attempt to finally bridge the gap between the union and the airline. So I’m cautiously optimistic that the union will not pull any stunts that seek to hurt passengers during one of the busiest travel season of the year.
Obviously past mediations have yielded nothing but more strikes and passenger grief but there’s always hope of reaching a deal. Just like there’s hope of winning the lottery.
The labor dispute will enter it’s fifth year in 2017. Pilots have been working without a new deal since 2012 and I suspect that trend to continue for the foreseeable future.
PilotsEye.tv has available 2 documentaries covering a SWISS A330 flight between Zurich and Miami, and a roundtrip of a Lufthansa A380 between Frankfurt and San Francisco.
The SWISS A330 video released just in the past few weeks, provides over 2 hours of coverage including preflight and cockpit footage as well as footage from the Miami area including a visit to the SWISS Air Academy. Highlights of the video include a distress call from a nearby Delta aircraft, Thunderstorm departure and a look at ETOPS planning for flights over water. Here’s a teaser:
In their other ‘LH Group’ inspired release, they cover a Lufthansa flight between Frankfurt and San Francisco aboard a Lufthansa A380. One of the highlights of this edition is the retirement of Jürgen Raps, one of LH’s most senior captains. Other features of this video include highlights from the crew break in San Francisco including a cruise beneath the Golden Gate as well as flight planning to avoid an angry volcano which led to a rare view of Greenland.
Lufthansa is planning a special 1-off flight for their new A350 that will take lucky passengers from Munich to Hamburg and back. The day will be full of special events surrounding the addition of the A350 to the fleet.
The flight is tentatively scheduled for February 9 (however Lufthansa has not yet confirmed the exact details). From what I understand the flight will depart Munich at 10:35am and return from Hamburg at 5:00p and will cost only €179 roundtrip.
The flight was available for booking earlier today, but I think a glitch has caused the flight info to be removed from Lufthansa’s timetable. Keep checking as it should be returned fairly soon. Once the flight is full, the booking will close.
The flight numbers are predictable! The outbound flight will be LH350 and the return flight will be LH359, a quiet tribute to the aircraft model.
Passengers on this flight will have a few nice things to experience in Munich ahead of the flight, and once in Hamburg they will enjoy additional Lufthansa hospitality at their Technik facility.
Again, this is tentative and plans like this can change with little notice so take this post as an ‘FYI’ and pay attention to various outlets like ‘VFT’ or FlyerTalk’s Lufthansa Forum.
