The unthinkable happens and the Lufthansa Airbus A380 takes off again two years later.

This Friday, December 2, 2022, a moment occurred where few expected it to happen again. After repeated claims that the giant Airbus A380 is being retired for good, German airline Lufthansa has come back and decided to put it back into service two years later. As a result, one of the aircraft, registration D-AIMK, parked in Teruel (Spain), flew to Frankfurt.

According to the German company, the aircraft has been at the Spanish airport since May 2020, and since May of this year, more than 3,000 hours of work have been spent on its re-flight preparation. The same service is being performed on three other A380s that the company intends to restore to its network.

However, more work is needed before the aircraft is ready to fly with passengers again. Although additional landing gear maintenance was still required, today’s flight was to be flown at a much lower speed than usual and was performed with the landing gear down.

At the Lufthansa base in Frankfurt, the aircraft will be put on supports so that the landing gear retraction system can be tested. The aircraft will then fly to Manila in the Philippines, where Lufthansa Technik maintains a maintenance base, to undergo final repairs before release.

The Airbus A380 is scheduled to enter service in the summer of 2023 on high-demand flights from Munich. Videos were taken of the departure of the world’s largest passenger aircraft from Teruel (above and below, awaiting loading). Tracking Radarboxin turn, captured the entire flight.