{"id":44465,"date":"2026-09-09T16:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T16:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/44465\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T16:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T16:03:07","slug":"first-airbus-aircraft-covered-in-lufthansas-shark-skin-ready-for-test-flights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/44465\/","title":{"rendered":"First Airbus Aircraft Covered in Lufthansa\u2019s \u201cShark Skin\u201d Ready for Test Flights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The famous \u201cshark skin\u201d has finally reached the Airbus A330 family of aircraft and is close to being showcased during real-world test flights. The AeroSHARK technology developed by Lufthansa Technik together with Surventis (formerly BASF Coatings) is already certified for the Boeing 777 family and currently in the final certification phase for the Airbus A330.<\/p>\n<p>An A330-300 operated by Discover Airlines will officially become the first Airbus ever to be \u201ctuned\u201d with Lufthansa\u2019s shark skin. The modification is currently underway at Elbe Flugzeugwerke in Dresden \u2013 once it\u2019s completed, the aircraft will have to complete several test flights across multiple weeks.<\/p>\n<p>This is part of the process to obtain the Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) from EASA (the European Union Aviation Safety Agency) for AeroSHARK on the A330-300 and -200. This technology is already certified for the Boeing 777F, B777-300ER, and the B777-200ER. As the world\u2019s second-most-delivered long-haul airliner, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autoevolution.com\/news\/lufthansa-and-airbus-to-take-sharkskin-like-technology-to-the-next-level-270237.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Airbus A330<\/a> was the natural next step.<\/p>\n<p>Just as it sounds like, AeroSHARK is inspired by the real shark skin and it\u2019s primarily an efficiency-optimizing technology that helps cut fuel consumption and CO2 emissions without modifications to the aircraft design itself or the propulsion system. It\u2019s basically a new-generation material or surface film with riblets (ultra-small grooved structures), which is meant to be applied to the fuselage and engine cowlings.<\/p>\n<p>Once applied, this functional surface film helps reduce drag, which in turn leads to a lower fuel consumption and fewer CO2 emissions (right now by up to 1%, according to Lufthansa Technik).<\/p>\n<p>The 22 aircraft currently sporting the AeroSHARK and operated by Lufthansa Group are saving up to 19 metric tonnes (21 tons) of kerosene and 60 metric tonnes (66 tons) of CO2 per day. There are also other airlines using this shark skin film and contributing to lower emissions.<\/p>\n<p>The so-called \u201criblet effect\u201d of the shark skin and its potential use for aviation was discovered by scientists back in the 1970s, but Lufthansa is currently the only one to have turned this into a certified, large-scale technology for existing airliners.<\/p>\n<p>AeroSHARK is the only riblet technology on the market that\u2019s formally approved for commercial aviation, and it wasn\u2019t an easy road to this point. The first aircraft sporting the AeroSHARK film, a Boeing 747-400, conducted real test flights in 2019. It took nearly seven years to be close to the final certification of this technology for the Airbus A330.<\/p>\n<p>The technology itself continues to develop, improve, and expand. Lufthansa Technik and Surventis are currently exploring the application of the shark skin film to additional areas of aircraft, such as the wings and the tail. If it works, this has the huge potential to double savings in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The famous \u201cshark skin\u201d has finally reached the Airbus A330 family of aircraft and is close to being&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[28082,90,101,21706],"class_list":["post-44465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-airbus","tag-aeroshark","tag-airbus","tag-airbus-a330","tag-lufthansa-technik"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}