The holiday airline is switching to an all-Airbus fleet. What system does Condor use to give its Neos the license plates? And what do Eurowings and Lufthansa do?
Boeing 767, Boeing 757, Airbus A320 Ceo and A321 Ceo – this is what Condor’s fleet looked like not so long ago. But with the introduction of the first Airbus A330-900 at the end of 2022, the holiday airline ushered in the neo-era – and has been converting at a rapid pace ever since. The Boeing 767 has already disappeared, and nine of the 757s remain.
In return, Condor has so far added 17 Airbus A330-900s to its fleet, as well as one A320 Neo and four A321 Neos. A further 14 A320 Neos, 24 A321 Neos and four A330-900s will follow.
Paintwork and license plates
The aircraft have Condor’s new striped livery in different colors. The A330-900 with the registration D-ANRT also has the inscription “thank you, Teckentrup” on it, as a tribute to the former Condor boss Ralf Teckentrup (RT).
But how does Condor actually go about registering its Neo fleet? The first A321 Neos in particular – D-ANMZ and D-ANLA – may have been a mystery to some.
Easier allocation in operation
In fact, the D and A in the registration plates are fixed. The D stands for Germany and the A is carried by all aircraft with a maximum take-off weight of at least 20 tonnes. The airline can only choose the remaining three letters.
Condor chose an N as the third letter for all Neo-Generation aircraft. A spokeswoman for the airline explained that the next two letters would take into account, among other things, the existing naming logic of the fleet, the availability of registrations and the different weight variants of the jets – also “in order to be able to assign the aircraft more easily in daily flight operations”.
Two variants of the A321 Neo
In concrete terms, this means: Condor’s first Airbus A321 Neo in the version with a higher maximum take-off weight bears the registration D-ANMZ. Other aircraft will follow in alphabetical order, D-ANMY and D-ANMX are already there. The first A321 Neo in the version with a lower maximum take-off weight was given the registration D-ANLA. Other aircraft will be named in alphabetical order starting with the last letter of the registration.
On the one hand, this procedure makes allocation easier during operations. On the other hand, Condor has ordered 28 A321 Neos – four more than there are letters in the alphabet. So it was clear from the start that, for example, just D-ANLA to D-ANLZ would not be enough.
Condor’s A320 Neo and A330 Neo
Condor will also operate the Airbus A320 Neo in two weight variants. The only A320 Neo that has arrived so far has the registration D-ANCZ.
The A330-900s delivered so far are named in ascending order from D-ANRA to D-ANRT, although D-ANRQ and D-ANRR are still missing. But that is not unusual. The order is not always followed exactly during delivery. And the D-ANRT – the jet in honor of Ralf Teckentrup – was a special case anyway and therefore came earlier than others.
Two exciting cases at Eurowings
By the way, Lufthansa names its A321 Neo in alphabetical order starting from D-AIEA, and its A320 Neo in alphabetical order starting from D-AINA. Since D-AINZ has been reached, it continues from D-AIJA.
Eurowings registers its A321 Neo from D-AEEA upwards and its A320 Neo from D-AENA. There are two interesting exceptions: The second A320 Neo in the series of namings is missing again. The D-AENB changed from Eurowings to Eurowings Malta and was re-registered in Malta as 9H-ENB. And the D-AEND is also not available at Eurowings, as this registration number is carried by a Bombardier Global 6500 from the flight service.
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