‍FRANKFURT — German flag carrier Lufthansa (LH) is making the most of its centennial celebrations with the unveiling of a brand new retro livery on one of its Airbus A321s.

D-AISZ, a 16-year-old A321-231, was painted at Norwich Airport (NWI) from late January to the first week of February. The first official images of the colour scheme were released on the 3rd.

The freshly painted jet took off from Norwich shortly after noon, heading back to Frankfurt (FRA), where they were hoping to arrive at 14:45. Freezing rain forced the crew to divert to Düsseldorf (DUS) instead. The aircraft was then ferried to Berlin (BER) and entered service on a flight back to Frankfurt the same evening.

About the Paint Scheme

Over the past nearly two decades, Lufthansa Technik has been working to restore a Lockheed L-1649A Starliner, known as the “Super Star,” at the German flag carrier.

They had flown 4 examples out of 44 built from 1959, flying flagship trans-Atlantic routes in their early years. They were quickly replaced by the Boeing 707s on passenger routes after they began arriving in 1960.

Originally, the plan was to restore the Starliner, which was originally operated by TWA, to airworthy status. After 3 years of work, these plans were cancelled in 2018 due to cost and funding constraints. They elected instead to restore it to a static display airframe.

In January 2025, the completed airframe was rolled out of its hangar in Hamburg. It was subsequently dismantled and transported to Münster Osnabrück Airport (FMO) for a fresh coat of paint. Finally, in August, photos were released of the aircraft wearing its original 1950s paint scheme, wearing registration D-ALAN, one of Lufthansa’s original Super Stars.

The plan for D-ALAN now is to have it ready for this spring, for permanent static display at the Lufthansa Group’s conference and visitor centre at Frankfurt Airport, alongside D-AQUI, a former Lufthansa Junkers JU-52 trimotor, which was retired from service in 2018.

Which brings us to this A321…

D-AISZ now wears the same livery as Lufthansa’s former Starliners, “Super Star” badge and all, on the fuselage aft of the wings.

The livery is of the cheatline variant, with a blue line, trimmed by thin yellow, horizontally in line with the passenger windows from the APU exhaust all the way up to just before the first doors, where the stripes assume a parabolic shape curving down towards the nose gear. It’s topped off with an all-black radome and eye-black beneath the middle two panes of the flight deck windows.

In a press release, the airline said, “The Airbus A321 now bears the historic Lufthansa parabola design. It was introduced in the mid-1950s and was inspired by the streamlined trend of the 1930s. It was intended to signal dynamism, speed, and a forward-looking approach.”

And it was this parabola that defined Lufthansa’s visual brand identity during this era of its history, featured on everything from baggage tags and timetables to business documents and even cigar bands.

The iconic crane logo is featured on the forward cargo door and mirrored on the left side, with “Lufthansa” titles across the upper centre of the fuselage in the era’s serif font. The parabola shape is again featured on the vertical stabilizer in yellow, boxed in by a blue rectangle, and housing the crane logo.

The livery is tied together by the blue-and-yellow star symbol between doors 3 and 4, with “Super Star” written underneath in red, contrasting the grey underbelly and engine nacelles.

Liveries Galore

With Lufthansa celebrating its centennial this year, the carrier has decided to go all out with paint jobs, with nearly every aircraft it operates sporting them.

It started with a brand-new Boeing 787-9, wearing a special all-navy-blue fuselage and crane motif. Truly a stunning paint job on its own.

It was subsequently announced that the livery would also be applied to 5 other different aircraft types, including the Airbus A320neo, A350-900, A350-1000, Airbus A380, and Boeing 747-8. The 787-9, A320neo, and A350-900 have all received their paint jobs so far, with the A350 entering service earlier this week alongside the new A321 scheme.

Right now, both an A380 and a 747-8 are getting their new coats of paint in Shannon (SNN) and San Bernardino (SBD), respectively. Both jumbos, D-AIMH and D-ABYN, are expected to roll out over the next few weeks. The A350-1000 will be delivered new from Airbus as deliveries of the new type begin later this year.

A fun fact about this 100-year livery: it was actually an early livery design concept for Lufthansa’s rebranding, unveiled in 2018.

“The large crane concept (or "Super Crane" as it is known!) has been around in Lufthansa’s brand design department in various forms for quite some time. It was one of the early concepts during the Lufthansa rebranding in 2018. The airline's 100th anniversary seemed like the perfect moment to bring it out again and integrate it into today’s livery. It deliberately breaks the mold, references the historic crane by graphic designer Otto Firle, and reminds us of what airplanes are at their core: giant birds that carry us around the world,” said designer David Hadley in an interview in December.