Airplanes & Airports 
Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental Delivery Ceremony to Lufthansa - May 1, 2012
Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental Handover Ceremony to Lufthansa - May 1, 2012
Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental Handover Ceremony to Lufthansa - May 1, 2012
A morning press conference, followed by an onboard tour of the Boeing 747, lunch, signing, ribbon cutting, and an on-time fly away were all planned over a 5 hour period. The day kicked off with a 9AM press conference. Due to the late notice, many journalists were dialed in via phone while I Live Tweeted from @airchive the conference to 1000s of followers. With credit to Lufthansa and Boeing, the executive teams were quite forthcoming in the morning press conference.
Nico Bucholz, EVP Group Fleet management revealed that "We are thrilled to take the aircraft. It is beyond up-to-date. We're not happy with the weight situation yet it won't restrict the use of the aircraft. On all our in-service fleet, even those in our fleet for 10 years, we are never happy with the weight situation, so we are always trying to reduce this in order to save even more fuel."
Lufthansa is known as a very tech-forward airline so they're famous for their exacting technical standards. Reportedly, Lufthansa's 11th-20th aircraft are due to fall more in-line with expectations. He did go on to say that "Certain things are better than Boeing promised when he looks at it in the whole. He also indicated Lufthansa's cutting edge satellite based in-flight internet connectivity would be installed by the 6th 747-8I delivered sometime next year."
Lufthansa pioneered satellite based internet back in 2006 with the now discontinued Boeing Connexion. Boeing agreed that they know the airplane isn't perfect yet, but its performing very well in service thus far. Chief Boeing 747-8I Pilot Mark Feurestein indicated there would be innovative advanced vertical navigation functions coming which would improve fuel burn. Lund mentioned that dispatch reliability on the Freighter is already at 97%, 1% above the initial 96% projection which they want higher. Bruce Dickinson, VP and Chief Project Engineer for the Boeing 747-8I said "In spite of these encouraging numbers, we have no breathing room to settle and we won't." On a lighter note, Fuerestein commented that his experience and other Boeing 747-8I flight crews has been "Once they fly the Dash 8, they don't ever want to fly the 400 again as great a plane as that is." He drew laughs when he said he was given a Captain Mark Feurstein bobble head doll which sits on the flight deck and if "The head doesn't bob, then we're having a smooth flight."
A morning press conference, followed by an onboard tour of the Boeing 747, lunch, signing, ribbon cutting, and an on-time fly away were all planned over a 5 hour period. The day kicked off with a 9AM press conference. Due to the late notice, many journalists were dialed in via phone while I Live Tweeted from @airchive the conference to 1000s of followers. With credit to Lufthansa and Boeing, the executive teams were quite forthcoming in the morning press conference.
Nico Bucholz, EVP Group Fleet management revealed that "We are thrilled to take the aircraft. It is beyond up-to-date. We're not happy with the weight situation yet it won't restrict the use of the aircraft. On all our in-service fleet, even those in our fleet for 10 years, we are never happy with the weight situation, so we are always trying to reduce this in order to save even more fuel."
Lufthansa is known as a very tech-forward airline so they're famous for their exacting technical standards. Reportedly, Lufthansa's 11th-20th aircraft are due to fall more in-line with expectations. He did go on to say that "Certain things are better than Boeing promised when he looks at it in the whole. He also indicated Lufthansa's cutting edge satellite based in-flight internet connectivity would be installed by the 6th 747-8I delivered sometime next year."
Lufthansa pioneered satellite based internet back in 2006 with the now discontinued Boeing Connexion. Boeing agreed that they know the airplane isn't perfect yet, but its performing very well in service thus far. Chief Boeing 747-8I Pilot Mark Feurestein indicated there would be innovative advanced vertical navigation functions coming which would improve fuel burn. Lund mentioned that dispatch reliability on the Freighter is already at 97%, 1% above the initial 96% projection which they want higher. Bruce Dickinson, VP and Chief Project Engineer for the Boeing 747-8I said "In spite of these encouraging numbers, we have no breathing room to settle and we won't." On a lighter note, Fuerestein commented that his experience and other Boeing 747-8I flight crews has been "Once they fly the Dash 8, they don't ever want to fly the 400 again as great a plane as that is." He drew laughs when he said he was given a Captain Mark Feurstein bobble head doll which sits on the flight deck and if "The head doesn't bob, then we're having a smooth flight."
