This week's Flight Friday focuses on two operator groups that have captured recent headlines due to new narrowbody orders.
Lufthansa group announced that it is ordering 80 narrowbody aircraft from Airbus and Boeing. The deal also includes several options that, if converted into orders, could turn into a total of 200 aircraft.
Of note is that the Lufthansa group has returned to being a 737 operator with an order for 40 MAXs. Lufthansa announced that the MAXs will not be operated by Lufthansa or Swiss, so it is still to be decided which other member of the group shall operate the aircraft. When looking at the Lufthansa group narrowbody passenger fleet, it is an exclusively Airbus supplied fleet, and with an order for 40 A220s the Lufthansa group is still committed to buying Airbus-built aircraft.
Lufthansa’s narrowbody in service fleet (ISF) at the end of 2019 was 412 aircraft. As of the end of November 2023, the ISF was back to 408 aircraft. The new aircraft that are currently scheduled to be delivered from 2026 onwards will help with fleet replacement. Lufthansa Group’s flights already surpassed 2022 levels with a month of utilization still to go in 2023.
The other group announcing a significant order recently is UK LCC easyJet, which is a finalization of a previously announced order. EasyJet announced an order for 157 aircraft, 56 A320neos and 101 A321neos, all to be powered by CFM International LEAP engines. EasyJet have again stuck to a single source provider of aircraft, which is often the case with LCCs.
However, it looks like easyJet are following market trends to upgauge, by keeping their network reasonably constant and utilizing larger aircraft. EasyJet still has over 70 A319s in its fleet that can be replaced by A320neos, and then the A321neos can be used to replace some of the older A320ceos. EasyJet’s ISF in November 2023 is only eight less than their 2019 end of year fleet, so this is further evidence that the effects of the pandemic are squarely behind the aviation industry.
Like the Lufthansa Group, the easyJet Group’s number of flights by the end of November 2023 already surpassed the 2022 total number.
This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.
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