Bahrain Airshow: Lufthansa Technik debuts new model of VIP747-8

According to Walter Heerdt, senior vice president marketing & sales, the model cost around 100,000 Euros to produce, and took around a year to build.  

“It is all hand-made and highly customised,” he explained. “With the quality of work we produce on real aircraft, we like to ensure that even our marketing materials are of the same standard.”    

LHT began work on the first completion of a VIP version of the latest-generation jumbo jet, the Boeing 747-8, in summer 2012, and it is due to enter service later this year. The aircraft is going to an undisclosed customer in the Middle East.  

The company is working on three of the type, all of which are going to customers in this region.  

Heerdt added that he expects to see a dip in the large cabin completions market over the next couple of years, as there are presently seven wide-body lines in Europe, in addition to centres in North America and the Asia Pacific region.  

He said: “With so much space and a limited amount of aircraft coming through to the market, I think we will see some overcapacity, which is good news for customers, but which could ultimately affect quality, as people will have to cut costs somewhere to be competitive.”  

He added, however, that the Lufthansa Group had experienced its best year ever and that the Hamburg completions facility was still busy.