Lufthansa Cargo is retiring the last of its MD-11 freighter aircraft, with the final landing of the three-engine jet scheduled for midday on October 15, 2021 at Frankfurt Airport (FRA). 

The final MD-11, registered D-ALCC, is currently sporting a special farewell livery on its final flights to Cairo, Tel Aviv, Chicago and New York. The plane carries the messages “Farewell” and “Thank you, MD-11” on its fuselage.   

After 23 years of operation, Lufthansa Cargo is replacing its MD-11 freighters with the Boeing 777F. 

Its latest 777F, a used aircraft with registration D-ALFJ, has been brought into service so quickly, it hasn’t even had time for the full Lufthansa Cargo paint job.

“In order to make the freighter's capacity available to customers as soon as possible, the elaborate livery in the well-known Lufthansa (LHAB) (LHA) design was dispensed with,” the company explained in a statement on September 29, 2021. “Until further notice, the aircraft will be flying all in white, with only a tongue-in-cheek fuselage livery.”

That “tongue-in-cheek” livery is a message in simple letters on the side of the aircraft declaring,  “I’m a natural beauty. Waiting for my Lufthansa Cargo make up.”

D-ALFJ was joined in the cargo airline’s FRA-based fleet on September 29, 2021, by D-ALFK, a new 777F straight from the Boeing factory in Washingston state. That means Lufthansa Cargo now has 11 of the aircraft within its own fleet. The German airline also markets capacity from another four 777Fs operated by joint venture AeroLogic. 

"We are very pleased that we can now offer our customers the capacity of a total of fifteen highly efficient wide-body freighters," Dorothea von Boxberg, Chief Executive Officer of Lufthansa Cargo, said in a statement. 

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