Lufthansa maintains largest passenger Boeing 747 fleet as other airlines retire quadjets

According to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium, Lufthansa scheduled a total of 754 flights using its Boeing 747-8s for September 2025—the same number as last year—offering nearly identical seat capacity but seeing a slight decrease (3.9%) in available seat miles compared to September 2024. This suggests that some routes served by these aircraft are shorter than those flown previously.

In September, Lufthansa’s Boeing 747-8 operates daily flights from Frankfurt Airport to destinations including Buenos Aires, Chicago, Houston, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Miami, Newark, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Tokyo Haneda, and Washington DC. The exception is Frankfurt to New York JFK which sees only 17 flights during the month.

The airline's use of the older Boeing 747-400 has increased compared to last year. For September this year there are plans for 266 flights offering nearly 99,000 seats—a rise over last year's figures—with corresponding increases in available seat miles as well. The main hub for these departures remains Frankfurt Airport. For this variant too New York is not served daily; instead there are only thirteen flights scheduled between Frankfurt and JFK using the -400 model this month on days when it is not operated by another variant.

Elsewhere Lufthansa flies its Boeing 747-400 daily from Frankfurt to Bengaluru Singapore Toronto and Vancouver ensuring continued deployment across long-haul international routes.