The first of a series of Airbus A350s to be refurbished on behalf of German Chancellor Angela Merkel was delivered in Hamburg yesterday. The government plans to refit three Airbus A350s to replace the ageing fleet of A340s currently used for executive transport.
The first of these, given the civilian registration D-AGAF, arrived at Lufthansa Technik’s facilities in Hamburg’s north. Lufthansa plans to convert the cabin into a VIP configuration on behalf of the federal government’s Special Air Mission Wing, at which point it will be re-registered scheme as 10+03 (the other two are 10+01 and 10+02).
“This is the world’s first conversion of this kind of an Airbus A350. As this aircraft is to be made available to the German Air Force very soon, it will initially be equipped with a special transitional cabin for the transport of representatives of the federal government and their accompanying delegations,” said a spokesman for Lufthansa Technik.
The aircraft will be operated by a special unit of the German Air Force responsible for executive transport and protection. The unit is known locally as the “Flugbereitschaft”, and goes by the English moniker of the “Executive Transport Wing of the Federal Ministry of Defense”. In addition to fixed-wing craft, the unit also operates three Cougar AS-532 helicopters.
Plans to replace the current A340 fleet were first announced in February 2019, after a number of technical issues. In late 2018, one flight had to make an abrupt return after leaving Cologne Airport due to an electrical fault.
Kai-Stefan Röpke, vice president VIP and special mission aircraft services at Lufthansa Technik, said, “Today we are of course particularly pleased to be able to … install the first government cabin in an Airbus A350. This is not only a first for our long-standing customer German Air Force or for Lufthansa Technik, but for the entire industry.”
