Twente Airport near Enschede in the Netherlands seemed like a bargain during the pandemic. When Lufthansa needed somewhere cheap to park six retired Boeing 747-400s in 2020, the small regional field reportedly charged around €10,000 per aircraft per month — a fraction of storage fees elsewhere. The catch: under Twente's operating certificate, the Jumbo Jets could land there, but they couldn't legally take off.
The certificate permitted Category D and E widebodies to arrive only for long-term storage or end-of-life dismantling — the airport hosts Aircraft End-of-Life Solutions, an aircraft scrapping company. Routine departures by aircraft that size were another matter entirely. Twente's roughly 3km runway lacked several features required under ICAO standards for large aircraft operations: turn pads at the runway ends, and strengthened shoulders on the runway and taxiways. The Dutch regulator, the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT), had apparently warned the airport from the start that the 747s would not be able to depart.
It became a genuine bind. Lufthansa sold at least three of the six — registered D-ABTK, D-ABTL, D-ABVO, D-ABVS, D-ABVX and D-ABVP — to American recycler GE Aviation Materials, but the planes were effectively trapped. The dispute went to legal proceedings before Twente's parent company, Technology Base, and the ILT agreed on a one-off exemption with strict safety conditions, including a fuel limit to keep takeoff weight down.
The first escapee, 23.7-year-old D-ABVP, left Twente on November 3, 2020 as flight LH9871, landing in Frankfurt 36 minutes later. It continued the next day to Bangor, Maine, then on to Mojave in California, where it was scrapped. The other five followed over the coming months — and three of them (D-ABTK, D-ABTL and D-ABVX) actually returned to Lufthansa service, now flying to Toronto, Vancouver, Singapore and Bengaluru.
The story matters because Lufthansa is one of the last airlines still flying the 747. It was the first European carrier to operate the type, back in April 1970 on Frankfurt–New York, and at its peak ran more than 60 of them. Today it has 25: eight ageing 747-400s averaging 26.5 years old and 17 newer 747-8s. The 747-400s are due to go by 2027 — the first two will be grounded after the summer 2026 schedule ends on October 24, and the final farewell flight is planned on the historic Frankfurt–New York route. The 747-8s stay on, with several being fitted with Lufthansa's new Allegris cabins.
For travellers, the practical takeaway is that the quad-engine Queen of the Skies is on borrowed time. If flying a 747-400 is on your aviation bucket list, you have a short window on Lufthansa's Frankfurt routes to Bengaluru, Houston, Singapore, Vancouver and Toronto. The 747-8 will linger longer, but delays to Boeing's 777-9 mean the airline is leaning on these classics longer than planned. For plane spotters, Twente itself is a curiosity: a former NATO base where six Jumbo Jets once sat, unable to leave.
Story credit: Simple Flying
