Lufthansa Group is expanding its planned fleet of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft with its first order of the MAX 10.
The airline group said Thursday that it has exercised options for 20 MAX 10 jets. The options were included in a 2023 order for 40 MAX 8s.
The 20 aircraft have a combined list value of approximately $3.4 billion, Lufthansa officials said. The company’s order book for the 737 MAX family now totals 60 aircraft.
Deliveries of the MAX 10s are expected to begin in the early 2030s.
Lufthansa Group said the new jets will gradually replace older Airbus A320-family aircraft across its subsidiary airlines.
The long-delayed MAX 10 recently completed its final test flight and is believed to be very close to FAA certification. Boeing initially planned to have the variant certified by 2020, but the global grounding of all MAX variants in 2019, heightened regulatory scrutiny, and persistent problems with the model’s anti-ice system caused repeated delays. Progress toward certification has picked up over the last two years.
