Lufthansa Retires Oldest Aircraft

Lufthansa has said goodbye to its oldest aircraft, an Airbus A320, registered as D-AIQS, as part of fleet renewal efforts.

Reporting led by Aerotelepgrah confirmed the retirement of the A320-211, which was first delivered to Lufthansa at the beginning of 1993 in January.

The aircraft has, therefore, played a pivotal role throughout the Lufthansa Group, where it has stayed exclusively from 1993 to now 2025.

The aircraft operated with Lufthansa between 1993 and 2013 before being transferred to Germanwings, where it operated for four years.

After operating at Germanwings, the aircraft was transferred to TFC Käufer, where it operated as a crew trainer to help develop Eurowings staff members.

In 2018, the aircraft would return to Lufthansa, painted in the unique Star Alliance white colours until 2019.

The aircraft did experience a period of storage that stretched from mid-2020 through to mid-2022 at the height of the global pandemic when a lot of the worldwide airline fleet was grounded.

As demand surged back and Lufthansa struggled to take on next-generation aircraft, this unit was returned to service only to be withdrawn on 13 January 2025 and stored in Teruel.

The A320’s MSN is 401, and its age is 32 years, precisely upon retirement. The aircraft has completed a staggering number of flights, around 50,000, and is among some of the oldest A320s in the air.

Lufthansa has always had a strong relationship with Airbus, having successfully operated every commercial aircraft model manufactured by the planemaker, but not yet the A220, which remains on order.

Because of their long history with European manufacturer, some of the oldest active flying Airbus aircraft are part of the fleet, still reliable, and carrying passengers daily.

Looking Ahead For Lufthansa

The German flag carrier will continue to rely on Airbus’ next generation of aircraft to power its fleet. As a result, more retirements on the cards and beloved units with stories to tell for generations will head to storage and scrapping.

Unfortunately, the focus must rest on the future/ beloved aircraft such as this Airbus A320 and thus, its former oldest aircraft must be retired, and so with it go millions of stories that were able to be captured in that fuselage that people called home for a few hours at a time.