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The Story of "Sachsen Anhalt"
Say Yes to Aviationtag! And the next exclusive cooperation with Lufthansa is ready for take-off.
The Boeing 747-400 sporting registration D-ABTE and manufacturer serial number (MSN) 24966 left the factory doors for Lufthansa in April 1991 and was christened “Sachsen-Anhalt”. Boasting 330 seats – split into first class, business class and economy class - the aircraft served international destinations such as Tel Aviv, Bangkok and San Francisco. In its 21 years of service for Lufthansa, “Sachsen-Anhalt” completed 13,527 flight cycles, racking up 106,690 flight hours. The equivalent of a flight duration of more than twelve years!
Lufthansa and the Boeing 747 go way back: the German airline added the iconic aircraft to its fleet back in the 1970s. The very first 747-100 with registration D-ABYA took its maiden flight on 26 April 1970, followed a year later by the -200- model.
Lufthansa took ownership of its first Boeing 747-400 in May 1989, according to Planespotters. Registered as D-ABVA, it bore the name “Berlin”. In a way, this name turned out to be quite fitting, with the fall of the Berlin Wall taking place on 9th November the same year.
With further deliveries in the 1990s and early 2000s, Lufthansa’s 31 747-400s became the flagships of its long-haul fleet. And although most of the -400s were retired or scrapped in the 2010s - after serving Lufthansa for around 20-25 years - some 747-400 models are making a comeback at Lufthansa. In October 2021, they returned with some flights, and in November, Lufthansa even started upping the jumbo jet schedule, with some 147 747-400 flights recorded for the month of November, according to aviation experts Cirium. Currently Lufthansa operates a daily rotation from its home base in Frankfurt to Dubai with the Boeing 747-400, while New York’s JFK has 20 rotations scheduled from Frankfurt and Seoul’s Incheon Airport (ICN) has 13 rotations.
Our D-ABTE did not make it back into the current Lufthansa fleet, however, and in fact was already retired on 6 August 2012. The plane was then parked in Michigan at Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport until 29 May 2013, before changing hands to the US cargo airline Kalitta Air. With its new registration N769CK, the Boeing 747-400 no longer took to the skies, but continued to belong to the airline until September 2021, which used it as a spare parts store.
Now we are delighted to be giving “Sachsen-Anhalt” a third chance by adding it to our Aviationtag fleet.
Go, get yours now!
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