Lufthansa Cargo's Boeing 777F will save about one percent in fuel and
emissions in the future
Surface technology jointly developed by Lufthansa Technik and BASF
The world's first cargo aircraft modified with the fuel-saving
AeroSHARK surface technology entered scheduled service in Frankfurt
early this morning. After SWISS has been transporting passengers
since October with the first Boeing 777-300ER modified in this way,
Lufthansa Cargo is now premiering this technology in airfreight with
their first 777F. The modification, jointly developed by Lufthansa
Technik and BASF, enables both types of Boeing 777 to achieve fuel
and emissions savings in the order of one percent.
At around 5:00 a.m., the first modified B777F, registered D-ALFA and
with flight number LH8410, took off on its premiere flight from
Frankfurt to Bengaluru in India, from where it will subsequently fly
on to Chengdu in China. The AeroSHARK modification was carried out in
mid-January as part of a scheduled maintenance layover for the
freighter and was completed well before its end. Now that maintenance
has also been completed, the aircraft has returned to active service.
AeroSHARK is a surface film that mimics the microscopic structure of
shark skin. It consists of ribs around 50 micrometers in size - the
so-called riblets. If the airflow on the fuselage and engine nacelles
of the Boeing 777F is optimized in this way, significant fuel savings
can be achieved. For Lufthansa Cargo's aircraft, Lufthansa Technik
estimates fuel savings of about one percent. Extrapolated to
Lufthansa Cargo's entire 777 fleet, this will result in annual
savings of more than 4,000 metric tons of kerosene and nearly 13,000
metric tons of CO2 emissions, equivalent to approximately 53
one-way/direct cargo flights from Frankfurt to Shanghai.
"We are proud to be able to operate our entire freighter fleet even
more efficiently in the future thanks to sharkskin technology and to
further reduce the carbon footprint of our modern fleet. Our
investments for the introduction of AeroSHARK bring us closer to our
goal of being 100 percent CO2 neutral in the air by 2050; on the
ground, we would like to achieve this goal as early as 2030,"
explains Dorothea von Boxberg, Chairwoman of the Executive Board and
CEO of Lufthansa Cargo.
Gradually, the AeroSHARK modification will now be used on Lufthansa
Cargo's entire 777 freighter fleet to make these eleven aircraft more
fuel-efficient and lower in emissions. SWISS is also having its
entire subfleet of twelve Boeing 777-300ERs modified with AeroSHARK.
Here, the second and third aircraft have already been modified and
will soon be back in scheduled service.
In December of last year, Lufthansa Technik obtained a Supplemental
Type Certificate (STC) from the European Aviation Safety Agency
(EASA) for two types of Boeing 777, paving the way for the serial
application of AeroSHARK to the 777 fleets of the launch customers,
which has now begun.
Lufthansa Technik and BASF also intend to systematically develop
AeroSHARK for additional aircraft types and larger surface areas to
support airlines around the world even better in achieving their
emissions targets. In initial model calculations, the sharkskin
technology in its maximum expansion stage could even avoid CO2
emissions in the order of up to three percent.