Lufthansa Cargo has announced plans to add Boeing 777 freighters to its fleet as of November 2013. The planes, which Lufthansa says are more modern, less noisy and more efficient, will initially be bound for Atlanta, Chicago and New York in North America.
On 19 April 1972 Lufthansa was the first airline world-wide to use the freighter version of the "jumbo" Boeing 747 - which was at the time also the largest civilian aircraft to go into serial production - for transporting cargo between Europe and the USA. With 73 tons of cargo and 1.8 tons of mail on board, the four-engine Boeing 747-200F took off on its first scheduled flight from Frankfurt to New York. Four decades later, the new member of Lufthansa Cargo's fleet only needs two engines to connect Europe with the USA or Asia. The Boeing 777F is able to remain in the air for ten and a half hours with a load of 103 tons. During that time it can fly over 5,592 miles non-stop. In addition, the aircraft meets the strictest noise protection standards in international civil aviation, which gives it maximum access to airports with strict noise regulations, bringing significant relief to people who live near airports.
"Thanks to its outstanding technical performance and reliability, the freighter is entering new dimensions. It also marks a milestone on our ambitious path to lowering specific emissions by 25 percent until 2020", says Dr. Karl-Rudolf Rupprecht, Board Member Operations Lufthansa Cargo AG. Modernizing the fleet is just one of six projects of the Lufthansa Cargo 2020 future program, by means of which Germany's largest freight airline wants to maintain and strengthen its position as the industry leader of the air cargo sector. Lufthansa Cargo has invested in five new Triple Seven aircraft. The list price of the Boeing 777F is 270 million US dollars. The first two new aircraft will not increase the size of Lufthansa Cargo's fleet but will be used to replace its two oldest MD-11F freighters.
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