The first cargo aircraft modified with the fuel-saving AeroSHARK surface technology has entered regular service in Frankfurt. After SWISS has been carrying passengers since October with the first Boeing 777-300ER modified in this way, Lufthansa Cargo is now debuting this technology in air cargo with its first 777F. The modification, developed jointly by Lufthansa Technik and BASF, allows both types of Boeing 777 to achieve fuel and emission savings of the order of one percent.
The first modified B777F, with the registration D-ALFA and flight number LH8410, took off on February 3 on its debut flight from Frankfurt to Bengaluru (India), from where it will later fly to Chengdu (China). The AeroSHARK modification was carried out in mid-January as part of a scheduled maintenance stopover for the freighter and was completed well in advance of completion. Now that the maintenance has also ended, the aircraft has returned to active service.
AeroSHARK is a surface film that mimics the microscopic structure of shark skin. It consists of ribs about 50 micrometers in size, the so-called riblets. If the airflow in the fuselage and engine nacelles of the Boeing 777F is optimized in this way, significant fuel savings can be achieved. For Lufthansa Cargo aircraft, Lufthansa Technik estimates fuel savings of around one percent. Extrapolated to the entire Lufthansa Cargo 777 fleet, this will translate into annual savings of more than 4,000 metric tons of kerosene and close to 13,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, which is equivalent to approximately 53 direct/one-way cargo flights of Frankfurt to Shanghai.
“We are proud to be able to operate our entire freighter fleet even more efficiently in the future thanks to Sharkskin technology and further reduce the carbon footprint of our modern fleet. Our investments for the introduction of AeroSHARK bring us closer to our goal of being 100% CO2 neutral in the air by 2050; on the ground, we would like to achieve this goal as early as 2030,” explained Dorothea von Boxberg, Chairman of the Board of Management and CEO of Lufthansa Cargo.
The AeroSHARK modification will be gradually applied to the entire fleet of Lufthansa Cargo’s B777 freighters so that these eleven aircraft consume less fuel and produce fewer emissions. SWISS is also retrofitting its entire sub-fleet of twelve Boeing 777-300ERs with AeroSHARK. In this case, the second and third aircraft have already been modified and will soon return to regular service.
In December last year, Lufthansa Technik obtained a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for two Boeing 777 types, paving the way for the serial application of AeroSHARK to the 777 fleets of launch customers, which has already started.
Lufthansa Technik and BASF also intend to systematically develop the AeroSHARK for other aircraft types and larger surfaces, in order to further help airlines around the world to achieve their emissions targets. In the model’s initial calculations, sharkskin technology at its peak could even prevent CO2 emissions on the order of up to three percent.
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