Lufthansa now uses Mitsubishi jets

D-ACNC is back in the air. Lufthansa Cityline’s regional aircraft took off on Wednesday from Frankfurt to Brussels and Hamburg, and on Thursday to Vienna and Sylt. D-ACNE was in Düsseldorf and Ljubljana. Its sisters D-ACNF, D-ACNG, D-ACNJ, D-ACNK, D-ACNO, D-ACNP, D-ACNT, D-ACKG are also back in regular service.

With a maximum of 86 seats, the Bombardier CRJ 900 are the smallest aircraft in the Lufthansa fleet. This is ideal for the restart after the Corona break. Due to weak demand, the airline is increasingly opting for smaller aircraft.

New owners

With the return of the CRJs, more has changed than the mere fact that they are now flying on routes where larger aircraft were previously used. On flight tracking portal Flightradar, Lufthansa Cityline’s aircraft now appear under the designation Mitsubishi CRJ 900 – with good reason.

On June 1st, responsibility for the aircraft programme was officially transferred to the Japanese industrial group. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries no longer builds the regional aircraft taken over from Bombardier. But the group maintains and repairs the 1900 or so aircraft still in service, supports the operators in their daily operations or modernizes the cabins to order. It also holds the type certifications and patents for the CRJ models.

Screenshot from Flightradar. (Source: Flightradar24)

No official name change

An official change of name has not yet been made, however. «Our product name has not changed. These are still CRJ series aircraft», a Mitsubishi spokeswoman told aeroTELEGRAPH. On the website of the new Canadian subsidiary MHI RJ Aviation Group, the aircraft simply appear as CRJs.

Whether the change will be made at a later date is still unclear. At Lufthansa, the name of the previous owner Bombardier does not appear at all when booking. The name of the aircraft type simply says: Canadair RJ 900.