Lufthansa’s first Airbus A380 with the new business-class cabin<\/a><\/span> is officially hitting the runway.<\/p>\n The first upgraded superjumbo jet entered service on Thursday, departing Munich International Airport (MUC) for Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) as flight LH452. The plane, tail number D-AIMC, is scheduled to operate the return flight, LH453, on Thursday evening. According to FlightRadar24, the plane has not been scheduled for additional flights yet.<\/p>\n Lufthansa announced the upgrade plan back in February, detailing a new 1-2-1 business class configuration to replace the existing 2-2-2 setup on the A380.<\/p>\n However, the new seats \u2014 which feature Bluetooth connectivity and flexible partitions \u2014 are not Lufthansa’s flagship Allegris product<\/a><\/span>. Instead, the airline picked an off-the-shelf product from seatmaker Thompson, which it customized slightly.<\/p>\n While the seats appear to be a significant improvement over the older product, there’s a catch: In order to give each business-class seat direct aisle access, Lufthansa reduced the cabin from 78 to 68 seats.<\/p>\n The upgraded cabin caps a remarkable reversal of fortunes for the superjumbo jet, which Lufthansa had initially planned to retire during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as lockdowns ended and the “revenge travel” phenomenon began with pent-up travel demand manifesting, Lufthansa returned eight of the double-decker behemoths to service<\/a><\/span> starting in the summer of 2023.<\/p>\n Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter<\/p>\n Join over 700,000 readers for breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive deals from TPG\u2019s experts<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/images\/EmailSignUp\/daily-mob.svg\"\/)
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