A380 in new Lufthansa design

While both British Airways and KLM celebrate their centenary in 2019, 2018 was the 100th anniversary of the development of Lufthansa’s iconic ‘crane’.

The crane was originally developed by graphic artist and architect Otto Firle for the “Deutsche Luft-Reederei”, a predecessor of “Luft Hansa” (which was the pre WW2 ‘Lufthansa’).

In February, Lufthansa carried out a rebrand with a new design to mark the centenary (see our February and March issues), which among other things saw blue become the primary colour used in the LH livery, at the expense of yellow.

To mark the end of the centenary year, Lufthansa unveiled the first A380 painted in the new design, which landed in Munich before leaving on a commercial flight for Miami.

Lufthansa says that by the end of 2019, over 50 percent of the work on the Lufthansa hubs in Frankfurt and Munich will have been completed and over a quarter of the fleet will be flying in the new design. Digital media is already appearing in the new design. The last aircraft repainting is scheduled for 2025.