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LUFTHANSA Cargo's first Boeing 777 freighter has made its maiden voyage on a scheduled flight from Frankfurt to New York's JFK, then on to Atlanta and Chicago, the first of five planes on order with a list price of US$270 million each.

The carrier's second Boeing 777F will be delivered next month, and two more jets will follow in the first half of 2014 and a fifth in 2015, Lufthansa said.

CEO Karl Ulrich Garnadt said the addition of the twin-engine freighters, which have a payload of 103 tonnes and flying range of 9,000 kilometres, will be permanently based in Frankfurt.

Aside from purchasing the new freighters to grow and modernise its fleet, the airline is also investing EUR100 million (US$135.4 million) in new IT systems and it plans to build a new, efficient logistics centre in Frankfurt.

Lufthansa Cargo currently operates eighteen MD-11 Freighters, and two of the oldest aircraft in the fleet will be replaced by the new B777Fs during 2014.

The fleet modernisation will also significantly reduce the environmental impact of the airline's operations. "The specific CO2 emissions of the Boeing 777F are almost 20 per cent lower than those of our MD-11 freighters," said Mr Garnadt.

 

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