Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt International) has taken possession of its maiden A320neo following a low-key presentation ceremony held at Hamburg Finkenwerder on Wednesday, January 20.
The aircraft, D-AINA (cn 6801), is the first of five to be delivered this year and is due to be positioned to Lufthansa's Frankfurt International hub later this week. The German carrier plans to begin active A320neo operations on January 24 with flights to Hamburg Helmut Schmidt. Thereafter, the twinjet will be deployed on flights from Hamburg-Munich as well.
Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad International) was originally slated as the type's launch operator only to defer that position to Lufthansa in the wake of the Pratt & Whitney's PW1100G powerplant's teething problems.
The Lufthansa Group has a total of 116 neo Family aircraft on order from Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac), forty-five of which are for the larger A321neo version.
