Lufthansa plans to retire its remaining four Airbus A340-600s on October 18, 2026, as part of the Lufthansa Group’s “accelerated capacity and fleet measures”.

With jet fuel prices more than doubling over the past year, Lufthansa announced plans to expedite the retirement of its fuel-hungry four engine jets, including its fleet of A340s. The April 2026 announcement specifically mentioned that the larger -600 variant which would be retired at the end of the summer flight schedule. Two Boeing 747-400s are also expected to be grounded around a similar time frame.

Currently, the last remaining -600s operate flights from Frankfurt (FRA) to New York (JFK) and Washington-Dulles (IAD). Now that we have a firm date, plane spotters and travelers may want to take note of the final flights if they plan on getting a photo op or flying on one of those last few flights.

Flight LH400 is scheduled to depart Frankfurt at 10:55 a.m. local time, arriving in New York at 1:35 p.m. local. The return flight (LH401) leaves New York at 3:40 p.m., and will touch down in Frankfurt on the 19th at 5:25 a.m.

As for Washington, there are two daily flights, with the latter (LH418) departing Frankfurt at 1:10 p.m., arriving in IAD at 4:05 p.m. The return (LH419) is expected to leave Dulles at 5:55 p.m., arriving in Frankfurt on the 19th at 7:55 a.m., marking the end of revenue service for its A340-600s, after 23 years in service.

What about its remaining Airbus A340-300s? At the time of publication, Lufthansa had 11 A340-300s in its fleet, and plans to keep them in active service until it starts taking delivery of its newest Boeing 777-9 jets.

As for the Boeing 747s, of the eight 747-400s in Lufthansa’s fleet, two will be grounded shortly, while the remaining six are expected to be phased out in 2027. The newer 747-8is are still safe for now and will remain in service for the foreseeable future.

In April 2026, when the aircraft retirement plans were announced, they also immediately phased out its subsidiary brand Lufthansa CityLine, which operated a fleet of 27 Bombardier CRJ900s.

At the time, they said:

“In view of significantly increased kerosene prices, which have more than doubled compared to the period before the Iran war, as well as rising additional burdens from labor disputes, the implementation of the corporate strategy is being partially accelerated. To this end, an initial package has been approved that provides for a reduction of the flight program on short-, medium-, and long-haul routes, as well as measures for early fleet modernization.”

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