Lufthansa Launches First Scheduled Biofuel Flights

Today, Lufthansa launched a six-month biofuel trial on its regular scheduled flights flying between Hamburg and Frankfurt, Germany. A Lufthansa Airbus A321 with registration D-AIDG will fly the Hamburg- Frankfurt-Hamburg route four times daily with one of its engines running on a 50/50 mix of regular fuel and biosynthetic kerosene.

The biofuel being used for the jet engines has been approved by the American Society for Testing and Materials, and since biokerosene has similar properties to those of conventional kerosene, it can be used for all aircraft types without any need for modifications to the aircraft or its engines. The first flight of the six-month trial, operating with flight number LH013, took off today from Hamburg bound for Frankfurt. During the next six months, Lufthansa estimated that its use of biofuel will reduce CO2 emissions by up to 1,500 tons.

According to Christoph Franz, chairman and CEO of the Lufthansa Group, Lufthansa is the first airline worldwide to use biofuel in scheduled daily flight operations.

The biosynthetic kerosene used by Lufthansa is derived from pure biomass and consists of jatropha, camelina and animal fats. In the procurement of its biofuel, Lufthansa said that it ensures that it originates from a sustainable supply and production process.

Lufthansa projected the total costs of conducting the biofuel project at approximately $9.5 million. The German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology has awarded $3.5 million in funding for this project.

The use of biosynthetic kerosene is just one element of the airline's four-pillar climate protection strategy pursued by Lufthansa with its goal to reduce overall CO2 emissions in the air transport sector.

Visit www.lufthansa.com.