Beside its charter subsidiary Condor, Lufthansa was the only airline in Germany to operate the DC-10. Having an all-Boeing-fleet at the time the DC-10 was ordered the airline breaked with its purpose to buy only jets from the omnipotent manufacturer from Seattle. Four DC-10-30 were ordered on September 23rd, 1970 for low density overseas routes, especially those to South America. Later, the DC-10 was also assigned to the african, asian and australian routes and in some cases - where the A300s were to small - the DC-10 could also be seen on routes to the Middle East.As soon as the first aircraft (D-ADAO on Novermber 12th, 1973) was delivered, Lufthansa placed an order for five more aircraft and in the middle of the 1970s, two options were converted, bringing Lufthansas DC-10 - fleet to 11 aircraft. A twelth aircraft, a DC-10-30F(CF) N112WA was leased in 1989 from World Airways for six months. Lufthansa operated also Condor's D-ADSO for more than a year.
After more than 20 years in service, the last DC-10 was phased out - its last regular service was the Frankfurt - Tel Aviv route. Most of the aircraft were phased out and stored in Arizona or Munich, Germany before they got the new colour scheme, only a few were seen in Lufthansas new "all-white livery".
As the european charter market was booming in the middle of the 1990s, three (not only two as widely known!) aircraft (D-ADGO , D-ADHO and D-ADJO) came back to fly for SABENA, later D-ADJO flew together with D-ADLO for Condor. These three aircraft went to Continental while the other eight were converted to DC-10-30AF for Gemini Air Cargo.
Today, Lufthansa is one of the world's ten largest air carriers and operates the ex DC-10 - routes with A340. The german flag carrier is still very proud of having operated the DC-10 for more than 20 years without trouble.
Following aircraft were operated by or for Lufthansa:
