The German Air Force has declared it will immediately retire its two VIP Airbus A340s within weeks after technical problems with one of the aircraft forced the cancellation of Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s visit to the Asia-Pacific region.
After making a fuel stop in Abu Dhabi, en route to Sydney, the 24-year-old A340 carrying Baerbock and her delegation was unable to retract its flaps, forcing the aircraft to dump fuel and return to Abu Dhabi on Aug. 14.
Having made a safe landing, the aircraft performed a functional check flight with no issues, but when it took off again for Sydney, the flap issue re-occurred, forcing a second return to Abu Dhabi. Officials called a halt to the trip, with Baerbock saying it was “logistically impossible to continue my Indo-Pacific journey,” adding that the situation was “beyond annoying.”
She had been due to visit Australia, Fiji and New Zealand and is understood to have returned to Germany on a commercial flight.
The issues have once again highlighted availability issues with the German Air Force’s fleet. The service has previously struggled with shortfalls in transport and combat aircraft, but additional funding to the force has improved the situation. The German Air Force was preparing to begin retiring the A340s this year anyway, with one set to be withdrawn in September, and the other at the end of 2024 following the arrival of a trio of A350s.
Now, the force has stated on its social media that the two A340s—which were previously operated by Lufthansa—would be removed from service “as soon as possible” in the coming weeks, adding that the “robust and modern” A350s were available for flights.
However, the incident in Abu Dhabi is just the latest in a history of flight woes to affect the German Air Force’s VIP fleets. In October 2018, then-Finance Minister Olaf Scholz—who is now serving as Germany’s chancellor—was stranded in Indonesia after rats chewed on internal cabling onboard one of the A340s.
Shortly on the heels of the rats incident, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel made a late arrival to a G20 summit in Argentina in November 2018 when the military transport aircraft on which she was due to fly broke down, forcing her to fly commercial.
