On Friday afternoon, December 2, 2022, there was a moment that many did not expect again. After successive allegations of retiring the giant Airbus A380 for good, German airline Lufthansa has decided to return it to service after two years. As a result, one of the aircraft, registered D-AIMK, which was parked in Teruel (Spain), flew to Frankfurt.

According to the German company, the plane has been at the Spanish airport since May 2020, and since May of this year, more than 3,000 man-hours have been dedicated to getting it ready to fly again. The same service is being carried out on three other A380s that the airline intends to restart in its network.

However, some additional work is still required before the aircraft can be refitted to fly with passengers. While still requiring additional maintenance on the landing gear, today’s flight had to be flown at a much lower speed than normal and was done with the landing gear down.

At Lufthansa’s base in Frankfurt, the aircraft will be placed on struts so that the landing gear retraction system can be tested. After that, the plane will continue to Manila, Philippines, where Lufthansa Technic has a maintenance base, for a final overhaul before being released.

The Airbus A380 is scheduled to enter service in the summer of 2023 on high demand flights from Munich. Videos of the departure of the world’s largest passenger plane from Teruel (top and bottom, awaiting loading) have been recorded. tracking Box RadarHe, in turn, took over the entire flight.