The Lufthansa Crane has been the airline’s mascot since 1918, longer than the airline has been called Lufthansa. The bird first appeared on Deutsche Luft-Reederei aircraft when commercial aviation was only weeks old. It has been redrawn three times in the century since — most recently in 2018, with a slimmer, lighter, more contemporary line.

And this week, for the airline’s 100th-anniversary celebrations, one of Lufthansa’s twelve Airbus A380s rolled out of the Munich paint shop wearing a Crane logo nobody has seen on a flying aircraft in forty years: the heavy, geometric, navy-on-yellow shape that adorned every Lufthansa aircraft from 1955 to 1988.

It is gorgeous.

A Logo Older Than the Airline

The Crane was designed in 1918 by Otto Firle, a Berlin graphic designer working for Deutsche Luft-Reederei. The airline became part of Deutsche Luft Hansa in 1926, then of the modern Lufthansa we know today after the post-WWII reconstitution in 1955. Through every reinvention — including the awkward years when Lufthansa was essentially a shell company between 1945 and 1955 — the Crane survived.

The 1955-1988 version is the one most people in their 50s and older remember. It was big, heavy, in a shade of navy that stood out against the bright yellow tail. The 1988 redesign streamlined it. The 2018 redesign streamlined it further. Both made the airline more “modern” and less iconic. The retro A380 brings the bold version back at A380 scale — 24 metres of tail surface — and the difference is striking.

Why an A380?

Lufthansa retired its A380s in 2020 during the pandemic, then surprised the industry by ordering them back into service in 2023. Today the airline operates 12 of the giants out of Munich. They are the most photographed Lufthansa aircraft in the fleet, the most talked about, and — at 525 economy seats per aircraft — among the most profitable on the right routes.

A Year of Centennial Celebrations

Lufthansa Group has been quietly preparing for this anniversary for years. The retro A380 joins a smaller retro 747-8 (in 1972 livery), a heritage Cessna 172 painted in 1955 trainer colours, and an exhibition at the Frankfurt corporate headquarters tracing the airline’s full century. Most photographers will care about exactly one of those: the A380.

Spotters at Munich, Frankfurt, Tokyo Haneda and Singapore should keep their lenses ready. D-AIMA enters scheduled service this June and will fly normal Munich-based long-haul rotations for the rest of her life — meaning the world’s biggest passenger jet will be wearing the world’s most-loved Crane logo on routes Lufthansa has flown for decades. Worth a window seat.

Sources: Lufthansa Group press release, Aerotelegraph, Aviation Week.