Ex-Lufthansa Airbus A320 Finds New Life Through Upcycling

The aircraft was the second Airbus A320 to enter the Lufthansa fleet over three decades ago!



An ex-Lufthansa Airbus A320 has found a new life as a collectible some two years after it was scrapped. The aircraft, once registered D-AIPB, was withdrawn from the Lufthansa fleet in late 2019, being one of the older A320s flying, with an age of around thirty years.

After years of service with airlines, being sent to the scrapyard used to be the end of the road for aircraft. Now, many aircraft are finding a different fate as companies such as Aviationtag upcycle fuselages into trinkets such as keyrings. From the small Cessna 172 to the mighty Airbus A380, almost every plane type has been turned into such a product, with famous aircraft attracting the most attention.

Read more: Here"s Where Lufthansa Is Flying Its Airbus A340-300s For The Rest Of 2022

Own part of a 30-year-old Airbus A320

Lufthansa runs an avid upcycling program for some of its aircraft, previously seeing an aircraft door turned into a bar and the cockpit of an A320 sent to a museum. The airline has partnered with Aviationtag to create key tags from aircraft fuselage several times, including aircraft such as the Airbus A340 and the Boeing 747-400 combi. The two have partnered once more to upcycle parts of an Airbus A320.

According to data from ch-aviation.com, D-AIPB first took to the skies on August 11th, 1989. Bearing serial number 70, the aircraft was delivered to Lufthansa on October 20th, 1989. The German flag carrier certainly made good use of the plane. The jet's last passenger flight saw it landing in Munich Airport from Dublin as LH2521 at 08:35 on October 25th, 2019, according to data from FlightRadar24.com.

Three and a half hours later, the jet took off for the last time, bound for Ostend, an aircraft dismantling site in Belgium. The aircraft was active in the Lufthansa fleet for thirty years and five days. During this time, it clocked 72,028 flight hours (8.22 years) across some 56,371 flight cycles. The jet was named Heidelberg, after the Baden-Württemberg city. The name has since been reassigned to D-AIEL, a new Airbus A321neo.

7,500 tags created

Aviationtag created 7,500 tags from the fuselage of D-AIPB, an aircraft still wearing the old Lufthansa livery when the airline scrapped it. Three different editions are available on the Aviationtag website, each with a different price point. The most expensive tags are also limited to just one per household as they are much rarer,

• White tag - Ђ29.95 (USD 32.29)
• Blue tag - Ђ34.95 (USD 37.68)
• Mixed color tag - Ђ44.95 (USD 48.46)

This isn't the first Lufthansa aircraft that has found a new life through upcycling. In September 2019, Lufthansa signed an agreement with Aerocircular to scrap up to 15 A320s in Ostend, of which D-AIPB is one. According to the company, its business model "aims to reuse all materials originating from aircraft in the most sustainable and ecological way possible, as opposed to the 'traditional' method of demolition."