Immenstaad, November 16, 2022 – The Special Air Mission Wing of the German Federal Ministry of Defense has taken delivery of the Airbus A350-941 “Konrad Adenauer”, the first of its three aircraft of this type with a full government cabin. Seats from ZIM Aircraft Seating GmbH are installed on board. The Ministry of Defense describes the aircraft as “the most modern government aircraft in the world”.
The German federal government as a customer
With the entry into service, the German federal government joins ZIM's customer base. For the company, this is a reference of a special kind: government aircraft are subject to the most stringent requirements in terms of quality, safety and certification, and cabin equipment is selected accordingly restrictively. Cabin integration was carried out by Lufthansa Technik at its VIP Completion Center in Hamburg.
A cabin for delegation travel
Lufthansa Technik describes the cabin as having structurally separated functional areas for political and parliamentary flight operations. The remaining floor space is available to accompanying delegations with generous seat pitch. Further details are not being published for security reasons. The seating systems are subject to the same certification requirements as in a scheduled-service cabin.
Addendum: three aircraft with a common cabin
ZIM seats are subsequently to be installed on the Airbus A350-941 “Theodor Heuss” and the Airbus A350-941 “Kurt Schumacher” as well. The “Kurt Schumacher” was initially delivered with an interim cabin and will be retrofitted later. All three Airbus A350-941s of the Special Air Mission Wing will thus have a common cabin configuration. This is an operational advantage, because every aircraft can be deployed on any mission without restriction.
